Professor Francesco Izzo
Professor of Music
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Professor Francesco Izzo is Head of Music at the University of Southampton. He is on research leave for the 2017-18 academic year.
Higher education is one of my great passions, and my teaching interests are wide-ranging. Here at Southampton I offer a variety of undergraduate modules in music theory and history, opera, and the representation of meaning and feeling. Last year I was the lead tutor for a first-year module—Antique Music Roadshow 2 (MUSI 1003), and for a module on the operas of Benjamin Britten to second- and third-year students. I often teach modules in 19th-century opera and in introductory music theory. In my lectures I aim to create an informal and collegial environment conducive to student participation and interaction. It is by asking questions and discussing them openly and critically, I believe, that we can truly enhance the learning experience beyond the mere sharing of information. My lectures often include a certain amount of music-making—be it explore a Beethoven composition or a pop song at the piano, or sing through an opera chorus or Christmas carol as a group. I have supervised undergraduate research projects on a variety of subjects, including film music, late twentieth-century musical theatre, the analysis of Beethoven’s piano works, and a range of opera topics. Here at Southampton I have also supervised numerous MMus and PhD theses, including various critical editions of instrumental and vocal music. One of my recent PhDs supervisees, Candida Mantica, reconstructed and edited Donizetti’s L’ange de Nisida, and her edition will now serve as the basis for the world premiere of this work by Opera Rara at the Royal Opera House in July 2018.
My research focuses on 19th-century opera, concentrating in particular on the works of Giuseppe Verdi.
I have published articles in leading journals such as Acta Musicologica, Cambridge Opera Journal and the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and in numerous dictionaries and collections of essays. My book, Laughter between Two Revolutions: Opera buffa in Italy, 1831–1848, appeared in 2013 with University of Rochester Press. I regularly present papers at leading international conferences, as well as lectures and seminars at universities and institutions in Europe and North America, including the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the University of Pavia, and the University of Chicago.
I currently serve as Co-Director of the American Institute for Verdi Studies and as General Editor of the ‘Works of Giuseppe Verdi’ – a series co-published by Ricordi and the University of Chicago Press that will make available all of Verdi’s works in complete and textually accurate readings.
My work on opera and critical editions involves a significant amount of presentations to general audiences, media appearances, and consulting with opera companies. I collaborate regularly with opera houses in Europe and North America, including the Welsh National Opera, the Royal Opera House, the leading opera houses of Bilbao, Madrid, Munich, Naples, and Palermo, the Donizetti Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival, and the Salzburg Festival. I am also the scholar-in-residence at Sarasota Opera, and since 2017 I direct the Scientific Committee of Festival Verdi in Parma, where I regularly provide guidance and support for leading operatic productions; in the recent past I’ve had the pleasure of working with such conductors as Roberto Abbado, Daniele Callegari, and Victor DeRenzi, stage directors as Hugo de Ana and Graham Vick, and singers including Ramón Vargas, Annick Massis, and Michele Pertusi. I also deliver workshops and seminars on vocal style and operatic performance, and have recently worked with talented young artists at the Juilliard School in New York and the Accademia Verdiana in Parma. A former student in the United States, mezzosoprano Deborah Nansteel, recently made her Metropolitan Opera debut, and I was thrilled to have the chance to applaud her in person.
Although I am delighted to be able to concentrate on research and publishing during my current leave, being away from the lecture room causes me considerable sadness, which I fight with such palliatives as cooking, hiking, and copious quantities of chocolate. I am looking to resuming my lecturing and to more exciting work with our students at Southampton in 2018-19.