Ponchielli, Gioconda - Dance of the Hours

 
Around 1880, the chapel composer position in Italy was on the verge of disappearing. The newly born Italian state had been dismantling the ecclesiastical musical organizations and transferring their traditional teaching duties to the new secular conservatories. However, as is typical of the history of some of humanity's transformations, both institutions behaved wisely enough to coexist in perfect harmony for a time.

It is therefore not surprising that in 1881 the composer Amilcare Ponchielli served as maestro di capella of the cathedral of Bergamo and also as professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni were among his pupils.

La Gioconda, a lyrical drama
There is no doubt that the pupils surpassed the master. Amilcare Ponchielli, even with ten operas to his credit, is remembered today for his only work still performed on the world's stages, the opera La Gioconda, a lyric drama in four acts set to a libretto based on a play in prose by Victor Hugo. The play was enthusiastically received for its premiere at La Scala in Milan in 1876, and became a dazzling success in 1880 at the same theater, after numerous revisions.

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834 - 1886)

All in all, the work was the last breath of a musical universe in retreat before the advance of the style that would become known as verismo, which would do away with mythological heroes and fantastic settings, and which would be led precisely by his pupils Mascagni and Puccini.

The additional element

It's true that the audience of 1880 was already beginning to get tired of some plays that were not exempt from a certain vulgarity. Therefore, it was necessary to add some extra element to the development of the story, making the actors and singers participate as an audience in some spectacle that occurred, with more or less artifice, in the "reality level" of the story told.

Dance of the Hours
To this need responds the inclusion of a ballet at the end of the third act of La Gioconda, the popular Dance of the Hours, which Walt Disney's film Fantasia was responsible for making it even more famous, even though – or precisely because of it – it was a parody that features as dancers hippos, ostriches, lizards and elephants in tutus.

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In the performance presented here, there are no elephants or hippopotamuses, but quite the opposite. At the Gran Teatro Liceu in Barcelona, the sensual Italian dancer Letizia Giuliani is accompanied by the Spanish dancer Angel Corella, both in charge of the leading roles. The melodies that have become popular, clearly recognizable by every listener, can be heard at minutes 1:55 and 8:11.
(Sadly, Youtube has catalogued the video as for adults (!). So, it can only be watched there (!). Anyway, it's soooooo worth it.)