Project description
Operetta and cultural politics in Fascist Italy
Researchers are rethinking the cultural politics of Fascist Italy (1922-1943) by examining the music-theatrical genre of operetta from historical, theoretical and historiographical perspectives. Still widely popular when Mussolini came to power, operetta was quickly absorbed into a corporatist vision of Fascist society. However, unlike opera or cinema, operetta has been largely neglected in both musicology and Fascist studies. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the OPPLEFIT project uses operetta’s liminal position between art and entertainment to challenge outdated models of totalitarian culture based on top-down control, which fit Italian Fascism and transnational popular culture poorly. It also explores the legacy of popular Fascist-era operettas that are still performed today but are rarely acknowledged as products of Fascist culture.
Objective
OPPLEFIT radically rethinks the cultural politics of Fascist Italy (1922–43) by examining a unique music-theatrical genre – operetta – from historical, theoretical and historiographical angles. Still globally popular when Mussolini took power in 1922, operetta was swiftly folded into a ‘corporatist’ vision of Fascist society. Yet unlike opera or cinema, operetta has been neglected both by historians of music and of Fascism. OPPLEFIT uses operetta’s liminal position between art and entertainment to nuance outdated models of ‘totalitarian’ culture stressing top-down control of cultural production, ill-suited to Italian fascism and a poor fit for transnational popular culture. OPPLEFIT also confronts the legacy of Fascist popular culture by analysing the marginal but ongoing performance tradition of the best-known Italian operettas, all products of the Fascist era yet never acknowledged as such.
OPPLEFIT reaches its aims via intensive archival work in Italian libraries. An initial ‘census’ of Fascist operetta recovers material traces (scores, libretti, scripts, recordings) of now-forgotten works. Core historical research focuses on operetta’s multifaceted politicisation under Fascism; critical evaluation of Italian operetta’s postwar historiography sheds new light on Italy’s partial reckoning with its Fascist past.
The project is based at the University of Milan, a key centre for research in musicology and Fascist history, ideally placed for archival work across Italy. OPPLEFIT is supervised by Professor Emilio Sala, a leading expert on Italian opera and popular entertainment, and profits from two three-month secondments at the Deutsches Historisches Institute, Rome and the University of Birmingham, UK. OPPLEFIT’s dissemination plan notably augments my publication record, builds my skills in public engagement, and grows research networks between Italian, German and British academia, putting me in a strong position to secure permanent academic employment in the ERA.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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20122 Milano
Italy
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