Madness in comic opera

Representation of madness in opera is usually presented for dramatic purposes, especially in the 19th century when the madness caused by love was transformed into pathological madness by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) in Anna Bolena and Lucia di Lammermoor, Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) in Puritani, and Alan Berg (1835-1935) in Wozzeck. There had been comic interpolations in “opera seria”, and in the 18th century a new form of comic opera arose in southern Europe, especially in Naples: the characteristic of Commedia dell’Arte, presenting situations associated with ordinary people, closer to everyday life. A particular musical style was developed with an elaborate cantabile and melodic expressiveness that would spread throughout Europe. The principal composers of comic opera included Francisco António de Almeida (c.1702-c.1755), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816), Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), Gaetano Donizetti and others who included in some of their operas the presentation of madness in comic situations, such as “Spinalba”, “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Nina, ossia la pazza per amore”, “La finta malata”, and “Pazzi per progetto”. These musical pieces are a mirror of the popular conceptions of madness, based on scientific knowledge of the time and expressed by major composers.