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Verdi : Milan and Othello : being a short life of Verdi, with letters written about Milan and the new opera of Othello
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ISBN: 113958300X 1108059635 Year: 2014 Publisher: Cambridge : Cambridge University Press,

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The premiere of Otello, Giuseppe Verdi's only new opera for over a decade, was a much-anticipated event in Milan in February 1887, and musical talents from all over Europe had vied for the chance to be part of it. An American author and former opera singer, Blanche Roosevelt (1853-98) took an assignment as a special correspondent in Milan during the weeks surrounding the opera's premiere at La Scala. She was well connected in the artistic community and personally acquainted with Verdi himself, and her dispatches paint an informed and vivid picture of the city and its musical and literary scene in the late 1880s. Published in 1887, along with a short biography of Verdi, anecdotes, illustrations, and reminiscences of conversations with the composer, these writings will appeal to both music scholars and opera lovers.


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The sounds of Paris in Verdi's La Traviata
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ISBN: 9781107009011 9780511920615 9781107249936 1107249937 051192061X 9781299772588 1299772587 9781107247444 1107247446 1139888293 1107241146 1107250765 1107248272 1107249104 1107009014 Year: 2013 Volume: *9 Publisher: Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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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 Making use of primary source material, including unpublished musical works, journal articles and rare documents and images, Sala's close examination of the incidental music of La Dame aux camélias - and its musical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.


Periodical
Verdi forum
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ISSN: 19437056 Publisher: New York New York University, American Institute for Verdi Studies

The Cambridge companion to Verdi
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ISBN: 0521635357 0521632285 9780521632287 9780521635356 9781139001052 Year: 2004 Volume: *21 Publisher: Cambridge Cambridge Univesity Press


Book
Verdi and the French aesthetic
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ISBN: 9780521349543 9780521878432 9780511481390 051148139X 9780511415272 0511415273 0511414595 9780511414596 0521878438 1107183421 1281751251 9786611751258 0511412983 0511412053 0511413904 0521349540 9781107183421 9781281751256 6611751254 9780511412981 9780511412059 9780511413902 Year: 2008 Publisher: New York Cambridge University Press

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Focusing on Verdi's French operas, Giger shows how the composer acquired an ever better understanding of the various approaches to French versification while gradually bringing his works in line with French melodic aesthetic. In his first French opera, Jérusalem, Verdi treated the text in an overly cautious manner, trying to avoid prosodic mistakes; in Les Vêpres siciliennes he began to apply more freedom, scanning the verses against some prosodic accents to convey the lightheartedness of a melody; and in Don Carlos he finally drew on the entire palette of prosodic interpretations. Most of Verdi's melodic accomplishments in the French operas carried over into the subsequent Italian ones, setting the stage for what later would be called operatic verismo. Drawing attention to the significance of the libretto for the development of nineteenth-century French and Italian opera, this text illustrates Verdi's gradual mastery of the challenges he faced, and their historical significance.


Book
Waiting for Verdi : Italian opera and political opinion, 1815 - 1848
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ISBN: 9780520276253 0520276256 Year: 2018 Publisher: Oakland University of California Press

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"The name Giuseppe Verdi conjures images of Italians singing opera in the streets and bursting into song at political protests, or even while facing the firing squad. Whereas many of those stories were exaggerated or even invented by later generations, opera--by Verdi, but also by Rossini, Donizetti, and Mercadante--did play a key role in priming Italians to imagine Italy as an independent and unified nation. Capturing what it was like to attend the opera or to join in the music at an aristocratic salon, Waiting for Verdi shows that the moral dilemmas, emotional reactions, and journalistic polemics sparked by these performances set new horizons for what Italians could think, feel, say, and write. Among the lessons taught by this music were that rules enforced by artistic tradition could be broken, that opera or ballet could jolt the spectator into intense feeling as well as edify, and that Italy could be in the vanguard of stylistic and technical innovation, rather than clinging to the glories of centuries past. More practically, theatrical performances showed spectators that political change really was possible, making the newly engaged spectator in the opera house into an actor on the political stage"--Provided by publisher.


Book
The operas of Verdi
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ISBN: 0304937568 030430056X 0304307408 9780304937561 Year: 1973 Publisher: London Cassell


Book
Verdi in Victorian London
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ISBN: 9781783742158 9781783742165 1783742151 178374216X 9781783742172 1783742178 9781783742134 1783742135 9781783742141 1783742143 1783742143 9781783742141 2821881649 9782821881648 Year: 2016 Publisher: Open Book Publishers

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Now a byword for beauty, Verdi’s operas were far from universally acclaimed when they reached London in the second half of the nineteenth century. Why did some critics react so harshly? Who were they, and what biases and prejudices animated them? When did their antagonistic attitude change? And why did opera managers continue to produce Verdi’s works? Massimo Zicari’s Verdi in Victorian London reconstructs the reception of Verdi’s operas in London from 1844, when a first critical account was published in the pages of The Athenaeum, to 1901, when Verdi’s death received extensive tribute in The Musical Times. In the 1840s, certain journalists were positively hostile. The supercilious critic of The Athenaeum, Henry Fothergill Chorley, declared that Verdi’s melodies were worn, hackneyed and meaningless, his harmonies and progressions crude, his orchestration noisy. The scribes of The Times, The Musical World, The Illustrated London News, and The Musical Times all contributed to the critical hubbub. Over the final three decades of the nineteenth century, however, London’s musical milieu underwent changes of great magnitude, shifting the manner in which Verdi was conceptualised and making room for the powerful influence of Wagner. Nostalgic commentators began to lament the sad state of “the Land of Song,” referring to the now departed “palmy days of Italian opera.” Zicari charts this entire cultural constellation. Verdi in Victorian London is required reading for both academics and opera aficionados. Music specialists will value a historical reconstruction that stems from a large body of first-hand source material, while Verdi lovers and Italian opera addicts will enjoy vivid analysis free from technical jargon. For students, scholars and plain readers alike, this book is an illuminating addition to the study of music reception.

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