"La cella azzurra" by Lodovico Rocca

[Roy Bland]

He studied in Turin and with Giacomo Orefice in Milan, and was director of the "Giuseppe Verdi" conservatory in Turin from 1940 to 1966.
In 1936 he won a prize for music from the Italian Academy, in 1960 he received the National Award for industriousness and in 1961 the gold medal for merit in school, art and culture.
He wrote valuable orchestral and chamber music and composed 5 operas: among these Il Dibuk, with a libretto by Renato Simoni, was performed for the first time at the Teatro La Scala in Milan in 1934 and achieved great success.
His style is eclectic: he knows how to reconcile Italian tradition with the needs of renewal of twentieth-century theatre, and his music is characterized by the mastery of harmonic and contrapuntal procedures and by the almost precious research of rhythmic and coloristic values. His works are supported by dramatic tension, sometimes mystical, sometimes grotesque, suited to the different expressive situations