'Uomini e no' di Niccolò Castiglioni: un'opera 'engagée' che non arrivò sulle scene

Abstract

This essay deals with Niccolò Castiglioni's unissued opera, Uomini e no (“Men And Not”). Info is given on the whereabouts of its birth. Since 1953, and possibly for few years, Castiglioni had been a host in writer Elio Vittorini's circle. The plot was drawn from Vittorini's novel bearing the same title. The writer's son, Giusto Vittorini, wrote the libretto and Castiglioni set it to music in 1954-55. It was his first major work grounded in serialism—which, in this case, more or less boils down to classic tone-row techniques. 

Contextualization is attempted in the left-wing politically engaged music-making of the Fifties. In those years, music/politics links were quite apparent in the choice of plots, in dedications and opening statements (which holds true both in general and in Castiglioni's case in particular) and in composers' own writings. The question tackled here is whether a composer's political engagement may be detected in musical language as well and, if so, how this may happen in Uomini e no. An answer is tried, after a close discussion of the opera, with its notational, rhythmic and formal devices (special attention being given to Berg's influence) and after recapitulating the two main currents of musical criticism which dealt with this same issue—namely, Adorno's modernist one and the conservative one, with its Zhdanov-like overtones. 

In 1957, Uomini e no was scheduled at the Festival delle Novità, Bergamo, but Castiglioni withdrew it few months before. The incident is reconstructed in detail here. The official explanation is reported, alongside the hidden reasons emerging from the correspondence. 

An appendix describes the manuscript. Special attention is given to its thickly layered directions, some possibly added just for the Bergamo planned première.