L’italiano della musica fuori d’Italia

Abstract

This essay follows the major milestone of the international success of Italian sung, from its early days in the grand opera to the 20th century in the song. This objective is accomplished by focusing not only on the language of the original texts, but also on its many adaptations in foreign languages. With this approach the paper highlights the main formal elements, of the language system (morphology, syntax, prosody) and of the culture (meter, rhymes, melody), which all played such an important role in the success of Italian in the music world. These results support a positive answer to the long-standing issue concerning the importance of the formal elements in the global success of Italian sung.