INTERMEZZO. - Also called "intermedio," "rappresentazione intermediata," it is a short stage piece to be inserted between two acts of the main work. It originated in court spectacles. The comedy performed in Florence in 1589 for the wedding of Ferdinando de' Medici and Christina of Lorraine had six i. with madrigal music by C. Malvezzi and L. Marenzio.
In the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeenth, the i. had a mythological or pastoral content; the comic tendency prevailed in the second half of the seventeenth century and gave rise to i. of Molièresque or even regional inspiration, with more or less broad caricatures, displays of maidservants and zanni (servants) and with various choreographic contributions, for the purpose of providing a pleasant diversion from melodrama and comedy: "for the rest of the performers and for the delight of the audience." The history of the theater in Bologna, Venice and Naples is particularly rich in i. There is no lack of tasty titles: Bacocco, La moglie a forza. Many were set to music by famous masters: thus Il tutore was set to music by Hasse, Tracollo by Pergolesi, Achille placato by Lotti. The i. written by Goldoni had music by Apolloni, Maccari, Sacchini. Rare is the i. in a comic opera, such as I tre gobbi, for Galuppi's Filosofo di campagna. The i. was also cultivated as a genre in its own right (e.g., by the Accademia degli Instabili, in the early eighteenth century). The i. were the first Italian comic operas, whose perfect type is Pergolesi's Serrò padrona, performed in Paris in 1752 (but already in 1729) with an epoch-making success. Still in 1779 Cimarosa's L'italiana a Londra was designated "i. for five voices." The eighteenth-century i. with music, at least two characters and often dancers and mimes, is constructed in two acts (whereas the comedy has three and the farce one).
Today this name is given to the musical composition that serves as a link and interlude between two movements of the same act, often with a descriptive character and with valuable melodic or symphonic substance, as well as to pieces for organ in the intervals of the Mass and sacred functions.
Bibliography
Edgardo Carducci Agustini