The tacit knowledge of Claudio Monteverdi as expressed in the opera La Tragedia di Claudio M

Boer, J. (2024)

Doctoral Thesis

The dissertation is a musicological and epistemological report on an artistic research project. It functions as an academic addendum to the online exposition of the project on the Research Catalogue: https:⁠/⁠/www⁠.researchcatalogue.net/view/1688046/2953358/0/0. The opera "La Tragedia di Claudio M" is based on documents from 1607-1608 of Claudio Monteverdi's life. Music from the period is confronted with this opera’s newly composed work to investigate the nature of ‘parlar cantando’ (singing in speech), which was the hallmark of the birth of the opera genre. The famous Lamento d’Arianna, the only surviving part of Monverdi’s opera from 1608, is the core of the study because it was sung by the Commedia dell’arte actress Virginia Andreini Ramponi. The research question that guided this project was the role of implicit knowledge that vanished with the composer's death and was long neglected by musicology and historians. The opposition between music theory and the practitioner Monteverdi is articulated in a style linked to verbatim theatre. By rich documentation that deals with both the epistemological view of Michael Polanyi and the philosophies of Monteverdi’s times, the opera has been put in a perspective defined as ‘probing the past.’

• Claudio Monteverdi
• Michael Polanyi
• Birth of opera
• Lamento d'Arianna
• Parlar cantando
• Orfeo
• Monteverdi-Artusi controversy
• Commedia dell'arte
• Early Music Revival
• Virginia Andreini Ramponi

• All authors: Boer, J.
• Supervisor: Borgdorff, H.A.; Fabris, D.
• Committee: Cobussen, M.A.; Tedesco, A.; Tessing Schneider, M.; Wentz, J.A.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University
• Date: 2024-11-28