ANGELA IDA DE BENEDICTIS

Intolleranza 1960: Opera or Event?

Abstract

Luigi Nono’s Intolleranza 1960 is one of the first and most important italian stage works realized by a young composer of the postwar avangarde.
Presented at the «XXIV Festival Internazionale di Musica Contemporanea di Venezia» (Biennale Musica) in 1961, it was ‘the’ event of the Festival, followed by violent disputes based mainly on political arguments instead of musical matters. Today this aspects still exerts a strong influence on the reception and the interpretation of the work. But, as a study of the original sketches suggest, the final configuration of Intolleranza 1960 is really far from the first idea of the composer.
In this essay the author points out the reasons of this discrepancy and the conseguences on the work’s history.

(AIDB)