Biography

Raffaele Viviani (10 January 1888 – 22 March 1950) was an Italian author, playwright, actor and musician. Viviani belongs to the turn-of-the-century school of realism in Italian literature, and his works touch on seamier elements of the lives of the poor in Naples of that period, such as petty crime and prostitution. Critics have termed Viviani "an autodidact realist", meaning that he acquired his skills through personal experience and not academic education.

Viviani appeared at age 4 on the stage, and by age 20 he had acquired a solid nationwide reputation as an actor and playwright. He also played in Budapest, Paris, Tripoli, and throughout South America during his career. His plays are in the "anti-Pirandello" style, less concerned with the psychology of people than with the lives they lead. Viviani's best known-work is L'ultimo scugnizzo (The Last Urchin) (1931), scugnizzo being the underclass Neapolitan street child. Viviani composed songs and incidental music for many of his earlier works. One such well-known melodrama is via Toledo di notte, (Via Toledo by Night) a 1918 work which even incorporates American cakewalk and ragtime rhythms to tell the story of the "street people" of via Toledo, the most famous street in Naples.