La rappresentazione in scena: "Apelle, e Campaspe" di J.G. Noverre (Milano 1774)

[Autom. eng. transl.] In the second half of the eighteenth century the Ducal Theater became one of the main stages of the theater dance reform, especially after the arrival in Milan of the two major choreographers of the period: Gasparo Angiolini and Jean Georges Noverre. The staging of their works and their respective theoretical writings gave rise, from 1773 to 1776, to a heated and famous discussion on the pantomime ballet which, apart from the specious arguments and the simple judgments of taste that divide both the two dance masters and their respective supporters question the very status of the dance representation. Through the analysis of the program of the Neapolitan ballet "Apelles, and Campaspe or both the triumph of Alexander above himself" (staged at the Teatro Ducale in the autumn of 1774 and marked by an evident "metachoreic" character) it is shown both the critical spirit that animates the research - both practical and theoretical - on theatrical dance is the particular representative system that emerges from it.