Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti

ed Mursia 1998

Attardi's Don Pasquale is the most comprehensive guide in Italy about Donizetti's last comic masterpiece. The author investigates the origins and conception, which took place in Paris in 1842, and provides a sophisticated analysis of the character of Norina, including soubrette and feminism, and the fooled greybeard, Don Pasquale, with a detailed explanation of the libretto and the score. A comprehensive discography concludes the work.

The music in Rome in the 19st century

From vocal to instrumental Music
ed. Zanibon, Padova rist. 2000

Italy, the home of Frescobaldi, Corelli, Scarlatti, Vivaldi, assisted in the total eclipsing of instrumental music in the second half of the 1700s. In theaters opera and castrati became exclusive to the Italian and Roman public in particular, which for over a century wouldn't cultivate instrumental music but nonetheless demonstrated to be the most reluctant to let go of this satisfied cultural provincialism. But the contribution of foreign artists and intellectuals in Rome and the arrival of Franz Liszt in 1861, who would reside in the Eternal City for over a decade, marks the cultural rebirth of this city with the first Italian symphonic productions and the consequential formation of orchestras and concert halls. Giovanni Sgambati, a pupil of Liszt and one of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century, would make of Rome the center of Italian symphonic music, preparing the ground for la generazione dell'ottanta of which Respighi, Casella, and Malipiero will be part of.

Transparent leadership

Orchestral conducting and corporate management
FrancoAngeli ed. Milano 2004

Questo libro di Francesco Attardi, coadiuvato da Giuseppe Pasero, è rivolto a Direttori d'orchestra e Manager d'azienda, amministratori pubblici e privati, leaders politici e sindacali, musicisti e appassionati, e a tutti coloro che vogliono riflettere sul proprio modo di esercitare individualmente la leadership nei rispettivi ambiti professionali e nei contesti più vari, dal politico al sociale, dall'amministrazione di un'azienda a un centro di ricerca. Francesco Attardi e G. Pasero assumono il binomio Direttore-Orchestra come metafora dell'eccellenza e ne fanno l'osservatorio privilegiato da cui ricavare un modello innovativo per una leadership ideale. Provate a immaginare un concerto come un workshop tenuto da Claudio Abbado o da Riccardo Muti per il potenziamento delle vostre abilità di Dirigente d'Azienda e dell'efficienza della vostra organizzazione! Se in una grande orchestra e in una grande azienda si mira parimenti all'eccellenza, è pensabile che un Direttore d'Orchestra possa insegnare il ruolo di leader a un Manager.

Travel around the magic flute

Ed. LIM , Lucca, 2006

Travel Around The magic Flute is ad investigation in-the-round of the last and most enigmatic work of Mozart: start by following the medieval guilds of cathedral builders in a path that circles through the Renaissance and Neo-Platonic Rosicrucianism and arrives at the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and analyze the complex cultural synthesis of this masterpiece ranging from the fable, written to throw the Austrian Freemasonry into crisis, and the irreverent comedy, where authors seem to want to make a mockery of the secret societies.

This study overcomes discrepant interpretations of the Magic Flute and reveals that Mozart was a lover of puzzles drawn from the arcane world: in certain compositional devices such as "fugue" and "sonata form" and dramatic insights such as the "sacred marriage" of Tamino and Pamina and the "reversal" of the work – where protagonists become antagonists and vice versa – we can see other such transformations as well. The Magic Flute is conceived as a game, a Rosicrucian "ludus" in which the Composer sends profound messages of existential and social truths that, by virtue of their light tone, appear innocuous.

The multiple readings, the antinomies or apparent absurdities in fact constitute the essence of this work, in which contradictions complement, opposites coincide. As the Tarot deck of the Castel of Crossed Destines by Italo Calvino, the story and the characters are read from left to right, from bottom to top or vice versa, in a hermeneutic game without end but with a profound coherence. Schikaneder and von Born, the Illuminati and the Rosicrucians, Ars Combinatorial and musical Architecture: all aspects and problems of this masterpiece are addressed in this volume, which poses the most complete and original writings on the subject.

Francesco Attardi and his wife Elisa De Luigi have experimented a new way to spread musical culture, telling the stories of operas through recipes. Starting in 1996 with The Magic Flute, a Gastronomic Opera, the delightful series proceeded with The Recipes of Lady Macbeth for the opening season at La Scala in 1997, in which Shakespeare's play and Verdi's opera of the same name are compared with diabolical and magical recipes; Celeste Aida, Divine Chef , in which the miserable slave becomes a skilled cook, was commissioned for the reopening of the Teatro Massimo of Palermo, while in Don Giovanni in the Kitchen the great seducer is punished for his gluttony rather than for indulging in sexual desire. Mozart was celebrated again with A Banquet for Figaro, with recipes drawn mainly from Spanish cuisine, and latest one was Rigoletto and the Mantuan Cuisine, with recipes all drawn from the great tradition of the city of Gonzaga. These books, some of which were published in German and Spanish, have been recognized for their originality and style, informative and ironic at the same time.

On the newspaper Mensa (Menu of Historical Author), the critic Rino Pensato wrote the following about the authors' first two works dedicated to Mozart:

In particular on two of the best known and loved Mozart's operas, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, the spouses Francesco Attardi and Elisa De Luigi did not leave us, as they say, even the remains. Greedy, armed with love for Mozart and the kitchen, documentation, attention and imagination, they made two small gastronomic monuments. Dozens and dozens of recipes, comments, brilliant and documented pages, all to enjoy.

This recipes comes from The Magic Flute, a Gastronomic Opera:

IL FLAUTO MAGICO

F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
Golosia & c.
Ed. Mursia

DIE REZEPTE DER LADY MACBETH

Shakespeare und Verdi in der Küche
F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
ed. Eichborn

DON GIOVANNI IN CUCINA

F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
Golosia & c.
Ed. Mursia

CELESTE AIDA CUOCA DIVINA

F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
Golosia & c.
Ed. Mursia

UN BANCHETTO PER FIGARO

F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
Golosia & c.
Ed. Mursia

RIGOLETTO E LA CUCINA MANTOVANA

F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
Golosia & c.
Ed. Mursia

UN FESTIN PARA DON GIOVANNI

Ségun la òpera "Don Giovanni" de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
F.A. Attardi, E. De Luigi
España Editores