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Laura Basini

Publications | Research Interests | Professional Associations

Title: Assistant Professor of Music History
Office
Hours:
Tuesday 10.30-11.30, Thursday 10.30-11.30, and by appointment
E-mail: lbasini@csus.edu
Office
Phone:
(916) 278-7980
Mailing
Address:

Department of Music
Capistrano Hall
Sacramento State
6000 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95819-6015

Laura Basini holds a B.A. in Music from Oxford University (England), and a Ph.D. in the History and Literature of Music from the University of California, Berkeley. Before taking up her current position at C.S.U.S., she held a Mellon Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Basini has presented at international musicology colloquia and conferences including events at Duke University, Cambridge University (England), Georgetown University, Yale University, Lucca (Italy), and the University of Toronto. Her writing has been published in Cambridge Opera Journal, 19th-Century Music, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Opera Quarterly, and Journal of Musicological Research.

Dr. Basini’s research investigates the relationships between music and politics, particularly in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy. She has published on the influences of post-Unification politics on the late music of Verdi, the appropriation of Verdi as a political figurehead in twentieth-century architecture and film, and the music of Puccini. Dr. Basini’s secondary fields of study include music in the fascist era, ideologies of neoclassicism, and film music. Her most recent work examines images of America in late nineteenth-century Italian opera. Dr. Basini serves on the editorial board of the journal Music and Politics (www.lukema.net/map).


Publications

Manon Lescaut and the Myth of America." Accepted for publication in Opera Quarterly, forthcoming.

"Masks, Minuets, and Murder: Images of Italy in Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 133/1 (2008), 132-168.

"From Hammerstein to Hip-Hopera: Carmen on Film," Quaderni della Fondazione Donizetti, forthcoming.

"Bleak Realities: Visions of Verismo in Giancarlo Del Monaco's Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci." DVD Review for Nineteenth-Century Music Review, forthcoming.

“Puccini’s Humming Chorus with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle,” Madama Butterfly. L'orientalismo di fine secolo, l'approccio pucciniano, la ricezione. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Lucca-Torre del Lago 28-30 maggio 2004, ed. Arthur Groos and Virgilio Bernardoni. Florence: Olschki, 2008, 393-404.

Review of Michal Grover-Friedlander, Vocal Apparitions. The Attraction of Cinema to Opera. Music and Letters 87/4 (2006), 683-685.

Review of Annie J. Randall and Rosalind Gray Davis, Puccini and the Girl: History and Reception of The Girl of the Golden West. Journal of Musicological Research 24/3-4 (July-December 2005), 345-348.

“The Plays of Art are for a Playful Art: History, Puzzles, and Play in Verdi's Falstaff,University of Toronto Quarterly 74/2 (Spring 2005), 740-749. Special Issue: Opera and Interdisciplinarity II.

“Verdi and Sacred Revivalism in Post-Unification Italy,” 19th-Century Music 28/2 (Fall 2004), 133-159.

“Remembering Verdi in Post-War Italian Film,” Verdi 2001. Atti del convegno internazionale, Parma-New York-New Haven, ed. Roberta Marvin and Fabrizio Della Seta. Florence: Olschki, 2002, 671-679.

‘“Cults of Sacred Memory’: Parma and the Verdi Centennial Celebrations of 1913,” Cambridge Opera Journal 13/2 (July 2001), pp. 141-161.

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Research Interests

  • Music and politics; Italian opera; music in the fascist era; ideologies of neoclassicism; film music.

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Professional Associations

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Last updated: 07/24/2009