Gian Francesco Malipiero and Greek Tragedy: Theoretical Reflections and Compositional Instances

Abstract

This article examines Gian Francesco Malipiero’s engagement with Greek tragedy, focusing on the relationship between his incidental music for Euripides’ «Hecuba», staged at the Greek Theatre of Syracuse in 1939, and his subsequent opera «Ecuba» (1940). Drawing on archival material from the Malipiero Collection of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini—scores, librettos, correspondence, and interviews—the study reconstructs Malipiero’s compositional process, showing how the music for the Syracuse production and the opera emerged in close relationship, with the former providing an important point of departure for the latter. It considers Malipiero’s declamato, his reworking of the Euripidean choruses, and his collaboration with INDA and the translator Manara Valgimigli on the 1948 «Oresteia». The article also explores Malipiero’s ambivalent relationship with ancient Greek music, skeptical in principle yet attentive in practice.