Verdi Copy 2

Young Verdi doesn't want to grow up to be big and green. He likes bright yellow skin and sporty stripes. Besides, all the green snakes he meets are lazy, boring, and rude. Despite his efforts, Verdi turns as green as the leaves on the trees, but to his delight, he discovers that being green doesn't mean he has to stop being himself. Full color.

The Politics of Verdi's Cantica treats a singular case study of the use of music to resist oppression, combat evil, and fight injustice. Cantica, better known as Inno delle nazioni / Hymn of the Nations, commissioned from Italy's foremost composer to represent the newly independent nation at the 1862 London International Exhibition, served as a national voice of pride and of protest for Italy across two centuries and in two very different political situations. The book unpacks, for the first time, the full history of Verdi's composition from its creation, performance, and publication in the 1860s through its appropriation as purposeful social and political commentary and its perception by American broadcast media as a 'weapon of art' in the mid twentieth century. Based on largely untapped primary archival and other documentary sources, journalistic writings, and radio and film scripts, the project discusses the changing meanings of the composition over time. It not only unravels the complex history of the work in the nineteenth century, of greater significance it offers the first fully documented study of the performances, radio broadcast, and filming of the work by the renowned Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini during World War II. In presenting new evidence about ways in which Verdi's music was appropriated by expatriate Italians and the US government for cross-cultural propaganda in America and Italy, it addresses the intertwining of Italian and American culture with regard to art, politics, and history; and investigates the ways in which the press and broadcast media helped construct a musical weapon that traversed ethnic, aesthetic, and temporal boundaries to make a strong political statement.

During the middle phase of his career, 1849-1859, Verdi created some of his best-loved and most frequently performed operas, including Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, and Un ballo in maschera. This was also the period in which he wrote his first completely original French grand opera, Les Vepres siciliennes; the first version of Simon Boccanegra; and the intensely dramatic Stiffelio, until recent years the most neglected of all Verdi's mature works for the operatic stage. Featuring contributions from many of the most active Verdi scholars in the United States and Europe, Verdi's Middle Period explores the operas composed during this period from three interlinked perspectives: studies of the original source material, cross-disciplinary analyses of musical and textual issues, and the relationship of performance practice to Verdi's musical and dramatic conception. Both musicologists and serious opera buffs will enjoy this distinguished collection.

How did Paris and its musical landscape influence Verdi's La traviata? In this book, Emilio Sala re-examines La traviata in the cultural context of the French capital in the mid-nineteenth century. Verdi arrived in Paris in 1847 and stayed for almost two years: there, he began his relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi and assiduously attended performances at the popular theatres, whose plays made frequent use of incidental music to intensify emotion and render certain dramatic moments memorable to the audience. It is in one of these popular theatres that Verdi probably witnessed one of the first performances of Dumas fils' La Dame aux camélias, which became hugely successful in 1852. Making use of primary source material, including unpublished musical works, journal articles and rare documents and images, Sala's close examination of the incidental music of La Dame aux camélias - and its musical context - offers an invaluable interpretation of La traviata's modernity.

Theatre program.

Well-researched compilation of music information, analyzes nearly 1,000 of the world's most familiar melodies -- composers, lyricists, copyright date, first lines of music, lyrics, and other data. Includes 30 black-and-white illustrations.