Diana Blichmann has dedicated her studies to Musicology, Italian literature and Art history and received her Phd at the University of Mainz in Germany with a thesis on the Dramma per musica by Pietro Metastasio in Rome and Venice between 1725 and 1730. She has accepted various scholarships, conducting her research in Italy, where she has lived for many years. As an expert in musical philology and she has coedited the critical edition of Attilio Regolo by Niccolò Jommelli, Concentus musicus XII. She obtained contracts at several Conservatories of music in Italy and has been professor of Music History and History and Aesthetics of Music at the Music.

Through an interdisciplinary approach she is able to involve in her research all aspects of Italian opera in the 17th and 18th centuries and its dissemination throughout Europe. She has dedicated her most recent studies to opera as an instrument for political propaganda and to the opera performance that celebrates the power of kings and aristocrats. Her current research interests include iconography and iconology of the decoration of the stage.

Publications

Books

Die Macht der Oper – Oper für die Mächtigen: Römische und venezianische Opernfassungen von Dramen Pietro Metastasios bis 1730 (Schriften zur Musikwissenschaft 20), Are-Musikverlag, Mainz 2012, (547 pages with CD-Rom).

Editions

Niccolò Jommelli, Attilio Regolo (Concentus Musicus XII), edited by Diana Blichmann and Christoph-Hellmut Mahling, 2 voll., Laaber-Verlag, Laaber 2012, (836 pages).

Articles

“Un taglio di broccato per coprire i libretti da regalare alla Maestà del Rè Britanico”. Effetti scenografici, decorazioni e costumi delle opere al Teatro Alibert dedicate a Giacomo III Stuart e Maria Clementina Sobieski Stuart (1720-1730)”, in work.

“The ‘polaris wheels’ in the stage design of Alessandro nell’Indie as symbols of rule. The Portuguese exploration of India, Historical power and Political Propaganda at the Lisbon Royal Court-Opera in 1755” in work.

“Atlas with the celestial globe in the stage design of La clemenza di Tito as symbol of rule. The Portuguese exploration of Brazil, Historical power and Political Propaganda at the Lisbon Royal Court-Opera in 1755” in Music in Art. International Journal for Music Iconography, XLII/1-2 (2017), in press.

“L’‘abito spagnuolo’ di Metastasio (Teatro del Buen Retiro, 1747-1758). Spettacolarità ‘esotica’ e la propaganda politica di Ferdinando VI e Maria Barbara di Braganza” in Intercambios musicales entre Italia y España en los siglos XVIII y XIX / Gli scambi musicali fra Italia e Spagna nei secoli XVIII e XIX, edited by Victor Sanchez Sanches, Bologna, Ut Orpheus Edizioni, 2017 (Ad Parnassum Series, general editor Luca Lévi Sala, 12), in press.

“Antonio Marchi und Antonio Vivaldi im Dienst des venezianischen Publikums. Die Fassungen der Costanza trionfante degl’amori e degl’odii und ihr zeitpolitischer Kontext”, in Studi vivaldiani, XVI, 2016, 103-144.

“Le metamorfosi della Griselda veneziana (1701-1751). Il significato storico culturale della remissività e della fermezza durante l’isolamento diplomatico della Serenissima Repubblica”, in Subsidia Musicologica. Studi in onore di Alberto Basso, edited by Cristina Santarelli, LIM, Lucca, 2016, 139-168.

“The Temple of Jupiter Stator in La clemenza di Tito by Pietro Metastasio”, in Music in Art. International Journal for Music Iconography, XL, no. 1-2, Spring-Fall 2015, 139-156.

“Zirkulation und Professionalisierung im Bild: eine Studie zur Hasse-Ikonologie”, in Europäische Musiker in Venedig, Rom und Neapel (1650-1750) / Musicisti europei a Venezia, Roma e Napoli (1650-1750). / Les musiciens européens à Venise, à Rome et à Naples (=Analecta musicologica 51), edited by Anne-Madeleine Goulet and Gesa zur Nieden, Bärenreiter, Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Praha 2015, 347-373.

“Kaiserenkomium und Papstspiegel: Funktionsspektren des Ezio Metastasios in Venedig, Rom und Kremsier“ in The Eighteenth-Century Italian Opera Seria. Metamorphoses of the Opera in the Imperial Age, edited by Petr Macek and Jana Perutkovà, KLP, Prag, 2013, 164-181.

“ ‘Or che regna Neron, moro contenta’. Händels Agrippina (1709/10) und die Thronfolge des Erzherzogs Karl“, in Georg Friedrich Händel in Rom. Beiträge der Internationalen Tagung am Deutschen Historischen Institut in Rom, 17.-20. Oktober 2007 (= Analecta Musicologica 44), edited by Sabine Ehrmann-Herfort and Matthias Schnettger, Bärenreiter, Kassel 2010, 253-275.

“Der Venedig-Aufenthalt Pisendels (1716-1717): Erlebnisse im Gefolge des sächsischen Kurprinzen Friedrich August als Auslöser eines Kulturtransfers von Venedig nach Dresden“, in Johann Georg Pisendel – Studien zu Leben und Werk. Beiträge über das Internationale Symposium in Dresden, 23.-25. Mai 2005), edited by Ortrun Landmann and Hans-Günter Ottenberg, Olms, Hildesheim 2010, 1-57.

“Antonio Marchi”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Istituto della enciclopedia italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, Rome 2007, vol. LXIX, 669-671.

“Giacomo Maccari”, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Istituto della enciclopedia italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, Rome 2006, vol. LXVI, 797-799.

“ ‘So che un barbaro sei ne mi spaventi’ Spunti esotici nella Didone abbandonata di Metastasio”, in Le arti della scena e l’esotismo in età moderna (convegno internazionale, Napoli, 6-9 maggio 2004), edited by Paologiovanni Maione and Francesco Cotticelli, Turchini Edizioni, Napoli 2006, 235-270.

“Espressione affettiva e rappresentazione psicologica nella Semiramide riconosciuta del Metastasio. Le intonazioni di Leonardo Vinci e Nicola Porpora”, in Leonardo Vinci. Architetture musicali nella Napoli del Viceregno austriaco (convegno internazionale, Reggio Calabria, 10-12 giugno 2002), edited by Gaetano Pitarresi, Iiriti Editore, Reggio Calabria 2005, 23-77.

“ ‘Ariette teatrali’ in den venezianischen Ospedali?: Versuch einer näheren Bestimmung der Solomotetten in der Zeit Antonio Vivaldis“, in Recercare XVI, 2004, 163-213.

“Domenico Cimarosas Il Matrimonio segreto. Eine italienische Oper in der Übersetzung Christian August Vulpius’ für das Weimarer Theater“, in Aufbrüche – Fluchtwege. Musik in Weimar um 1800 (Convegno, Weimar, 13.-15. November 1999), edited by Helen Geyer and Thomas Radecke, Böhlau, Weimar 2003, 101-132.

“Anmerkungen zur Musik an den venezianischen Ospedali im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert“, in Acta Musicologica, LXXIV, 2002, 77-99.

Reviews

“Terminologia musicale: paesi, concetti, progetti”, in Die Musikforschung, 60, 2007, 43-44.

“La musica agli Ospedali veneziani fra Seicento e inizio Ottocento / Musik an den venezianischen Ospedali vom 17. bis zum frühen 19. Jahrhundert”, in Die Musikforschung, LIV, 2001, 448-449 (published with wrong author; cf. vol. 55, 2002, 235)