From Tangible to Intangible Heritage inside Italian Historical Opera Houses

Abstract

Historical opera houses in Italy have been the place for the development of a relevant part of the National musical tradition and their design is paired with a peculiar acoustical fingerprint. Due to its relevance this can be regarded as an intangible heritage embedded in the tangible heritage constituted by the theatre building itself. In particular the presence of fairly deep lateral enclosures opened to the main hall volume, called the “boxes,” is of paramount importance for the implications it had on the listening experience perceived by the public. For instance, the positions in the box recess had a much less favourable sound field compared to the frontal ones located at the box opening towards the hall. In this work the need for the box design is briefly recalled from an historical perspective and then the sound field in the boxes is described as the combination of several sound reflections from specific interior surfaces. It is seen how the related listening experience can vary in a remarkable manner while moving from boxes at different tiers. This characteristic greatly differentiates historical opera houses from modern ones, where one of the most valuable attribute is a limited change in acoustics over large audiences. The acoustical environment of historical halls and inside boxes in particular was important in building up the ear of the Italian opera goers, thus a close consideration of the peculiarities of the intangible heritage is necessary in case of restorations and cannot be overlooked.

Italian-Style Opera Houses: A Historical Review

“…The same fate, in 1996, for La Fenice theatre in Venice. After these unfortunate events, Italian scholars were committed to recognise the acoustics of Italian Historical Opera House as intangible cultural heritage [69][70][71][72].…”

“…Afterwards, case studies were documented by Cocchi et al [92,93] [98] that the interest in this field increased. The acoustics of historical opera house was recognized as intangible culturale heritage [71,72].…”

Vibroacoustic heritage monitoring with a standalone system

“…The definition of cultural heritage evolved along the years to include both its tangible and intangible components [1]. In the case of "acoustical heritage", scholars increased the number of parameters used as measurable descriptors related to the fruition of sound, as intangible heritage [2]. However, the intangible dimension of acoustic heritage is not limited to sound itself, but includes also the space where the experience of music is made, that can have specific characteristics in relation to its function [3].…”

The sound diffusion in Italian Opera Houses: Some examples

“…1,2 Furthermore, the acoustic properties of historical opera houses are considered one of the most important cultural heritage of Italian history. 3 Since the paper of Hodgson, 4,5 the acoustic properties of opera houses are considered at the same importance of ancient musical instruments. [6][7][8][9] However, their acoustics often represent an issue due to their specific shape and the characteristics of the materials.…”