Zarzuela - The Spanish Lyric Theatre: A Complete Reference
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
At the end of 1994, after 35 years of work in the academic world, Vincent J. Cincotta retired from teaching in order to dedicate more time to the completion of one of his major long-term research projects : a reference work in English on the Spanish musical theatre. The book, Zarzuela - The Spanish Lyric Theatre: A Complete Reference was published in 2002 by the University of Wollongong Press. Cincotta was instrumental, as a result of this project, in bringing José Tamayo’s famous Antología de la Zarzuela to the 1995 Sydney Festival and topped the experience as the Australian company manager for their 14 performances at the Sydney Opera House.
After a life-long career devoted to promoting Italian and Spanish culture, on
May 10, 1995, in recognition of his achievements, the University Council admitted
Cincotta as a permanent Fellow of the University of Wollongong and on May 28th
of the same year the Italian Government bestowed upon him the Order of Cavaliere
dell'Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana. On January 14, 2003, His Majesty
King Juan Carlos I of Spain conferred upon Cincotta the Cruz de Oficial de la
Orden de Isabel la Católica.
Vincent Joseph Cincotta was born in 1934 in the New Jersey suburbs of New York
City where his family settled shortly after they immigrated to the United States
in 1931 from the Aeolian Island of Stromboli.
In 1960 he received his Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education with a major
in languages (Italian and Spanish) from Fordham, the Jesuit Universiy of New
York City. He completed his M.A. in Italian Literature at Columbia University's
Graduate Faculties in 1964: (thesis: Sicilian Society as Portrayed by Federico
De Roberto in I Vicerè). After further studies and two Fulbrights, one
at the University of Rome’s Facoltà di Magistero (Summer,1964)
and the second at the University of Florence’s Facoltà di Magistero
(1971-1972) where he completed his research program under the supervision of
Prof. Luigi Baldacci, one of Italy’s major literary critics of the 20th
Century, He received his Doctorate in Modern Languages (Italian and Spanish)
in 1972 from the Graduate Language Schools, Middlebury.
After 17 years of teaching in the United States at both secondary level (Elmwood
Park , New Jersey) and tertiary level (Fordham University, Lincoln Center),
Cincotta came to Wollongong in 1977 as the foundation lecturer in Italian Studies
in the University's then recently formed Department of European Languages. Cincotta
was Course Director for Italian Studies at Wollongong from 1977 to 1994 and
for Spanish from 1985 when it was introduced under his directorship until his
retirement. In 1988, Cincotta was promoted to Associate Professor of Italian
in the University of Wollongong's new Department of Modern Languages. In 1977,
he founded the University's Circolo Italiano and in 1978, the Wollongong Chapter
of the Dante Alighieri Society serving as the Chapter's president and publication's
editor from its foundation to 1991.
In addition to his experience in teaching the Italian language and in research
and publication on diverse areas of Italian, Italian Australian and Spanish
studies, Cincotta is a specialist on Sicilian writers of the School of Verismo.
His publications in this area, mostoften treating the relationship between a
work of literature and its conversion into an opera libretto, have appeared
in Italica (USA), Inventario (Florence), Rivista di Studi
Italiani (Toronto), Musicology Australia (Brisbane) and other
journals. His book, Federico De Roberto Commediografo (dalle lettere
all’amico Sabatino Lopez (Catania, 1980), has been cited as a major
study on this Sicilian writer of the Secondo Ottocento. In 1988, he was invited
to lecture on De Roberto as a Visiting Professor at the University of Messina
in Sicily.