Verdi In The Age Of Italian Romanticism

Professor Kimbell's classic study illuminates the first fifteen years of Verdi's composing career, the era that culminated in his trio of masterpieces, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata. Verdi had become an acknowledged master of the peculiar brand of Romanticism that flourished in Italy in the 1830s and 40s; this background is examined in its political, social and literary light, and his consequent transformation of Italian operatic conventions is analysed. The four parts of Professor Kimbell's book range over biographical, documentary, literary and close-analytical ground. Attention is given to individual operas in order to show how Verdi assimilated and developed the Romantic tradition in his work.

Employs an innovative approach by stages to offer a unified vision of European Romanticism over the half-century of its growth and decline.

This investigation offers new perspectives on Giuseppe Verdi’s attitudes to women and the functions which they fulfilled for him. The book explores Verdi’s professional and personal relationship with women who were exceptional within the traditional socio-sexual structure of patria potestà, in the context of women’s changing status in nineteenth-century Italian society. It focusses on two women; the singers Giuseppina Strepponi, who supported and enhanced Verdi’s creativity at the beginning of his professional life and Teresa Stolz, who sustained his sense of self-worth at its end. Each was an essential emotional benefactor without whom Verdi’s career would not have been the same. The subject of the Strepponi-Verdi marriage and the impact of Strepponi’s past deserve further detailed and nuanced discussion. This book demonstrates Verdi’s shifting power-balance with Strepponi as she sought to retain intellectual self-respect while his success and control increased. The negative stereotypes concerning operatic ‘divas’ do not withstand scrutiny when applied either to Strepponi or to Stolz. This book presents a revisionist appraisal of Stolz through close examination of her letters. Revealing Stolz’s value to Verdi, they also provide contemporary operatic criticism and behind-the-scenes comment, some excerpts of which are published here in English for the first time.

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.

This companion is the first book of its kind to focus on the whole of European Romanticism. Describes the way in which the Romantic Movement swept across Europe in the early nineteenth century. Covers the national literatures of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia and Spain. Addresses common themes that cross national borders, such as orientalism, Napoleon, night, nature, and the prestige of the fragment. Includes cross-disciplinary essays on literature and music, literature and painting, and the general system of Romantic arts. Features 35 essays in all, from leading scholars in America, Australia, Britain, France, Italy, and Switzerland.

Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

"Verdi's art emerged from a rich array of dramatic and musical practices operative in the Italy of his day. Drawing the reader into his creative world, this study (translated from the French original by the author himself) begins where Verdi began when it came time to set notes to paper: the libretto. Designed for the non-Italophone reader, Steven Huebner's Verdi and the Art of Italian Opera explains key principles of Italian poetry that shaped his music. From there, Huebner outlines the various musical textures available to the composer, including an exploration of the characteristics of recitative and aria. Working outward, subsequent chapters explore the syntax of Verdi's melodic writing and the larger-level forms that he used. A concluding chapter considers ways of conceiving musical unity in his operas. Huebner's long-needed study provides significant insights into Verdi's musico-dramatic strategies, pulling together-and making more easily accessible-principles and insights that are spread widely across the scholarly literature. Verdi remains by far the most performed opera composer on world stages today: singers, vocal coaches, stage directors, and opera lovers more generally will welcome this compact perspective on his art"--

In nineteenth-century Europe the ruling elites viewed the theater as a form of communication which had enormous importance. The theater provided the most significant form of mass entertainment and was the only arena aside from the church in which regular mass gatherings were possible. Therefore, drama censorship occupied a great deal of the ruling class's time and energy, with a particularly focus on proposed scripts that potentially threatened the existing political, legal, and social order. This volume provides the first comprehensive examination of nineteenth-century political theater censorship at a time, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, when the European population was becoming increasingly politically active.