"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 operas, in spite of their alleged worthlessness? 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 London journalists were positively hostile towards the most talked-about representative of Italian opera, only to change their tune in the years to come. 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. Yet by the 1850s, Victorian critics, however grudging, could neither deny nor ignore the popularity of Verdi’s operas. Over the final three decades of the nineteenth century, moreover, London’s musical milieu underwent changes of great magnitude, shifting the manner in which Verdi was conceptualized 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."
Verdi's operas - composed between 1839 and 1893 - portray a striking diversity of female protagonists: warrior women and peacemakers, virgins and courtesans, princesses and slaves, witches and ...gypsies, mothers and daughters, erring and idealised wives, and, last of all, a feisty quartet of Tudor townswomen in Verdi's final opera, Falstaff. Yet what meanings did the impassioned crises and dilemmas of these characters hold for the nineteenth-century female spectator, especially during such a turbulent span in the history of the Italian peninsula? How was opera shaped by society - and was society similarly influenced by opera? Contextualising Verdi's female roles within aspects of women's social, cultural and political history, Susan Rutherford explores the interface between the reality of the spectators' lives and the imaginary of the fictional world before them on the operatic stage.
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.
Année après année, Giuseppe Verdi reste le compositeur d’opéras le plus joué dans le monde. Pourtant, peu d’études musicologiques sur son style ont été publiées à ce jour, et encore moins en ...français. En fait, ce livre, véritable guide d’analyse opératique, est le premier dans toutes les langues qui traite de façon systématique du langage musical du compositeur. En s’appuyant sur les 23 opéras en italien et en mettant en lumière leurs conventions et leurs principes sous-jacents, l’auteur examine méthodiquement les personnages et leurs intrigues au regard de l’écriture musicale et brosse ainsi le portrait d’une oeuvre grandiose. À l’aide de plusieurs exemples, il décrit avec brio la forme musico-dramatique d’un compositeur dont le style unique est, ultimement, au service de la théâtralité. Steven Huebner est musicologue à l’école de musique Schulich de l’Université McGill et titulaire de la chaire James McGill.
Experiencing Verdi Sanders, Donald; Sanders, Donald
2014., 2013, 2013-12-01
eBook
Titles in The Listener’s Companion: A Scarecrow Press Music Series provide readers with a deeper understanding of key musical genres and the work of major artists and composers. Aimed at ...nonspecialists, each volume explains in clear and accessible language how to listen to works from particular artists, composers, and genres. Looking at the context in which the music appeared as well as its form, authors explore with readers the environments in which key musical works were written and performed—from a 1950s bebop concert at the Village Vanguard to a performance of Handel’s Messiah in eighteenth-century Germany. Along with his contemporaries Chopin and Wagner, Verdi is among the few composers whose place in the musical pantheon is based almost entirely upon the mastery of a single genre. This is largely owing to his staggering output in a career that lasted over fifty years. Several of his operas occupy the nucleus of the modern repertoire, and Verdi almost single-handedly maintained the Italian lyric tradition against the tide of Wagnerian music drama. In his final years, he virtually reinvented Italian opera. Indeed, Verdi’s life and music came to be so intimately associated with the Italian unification movement known as the Risorgimento that he is still revered as a great national figure in his homeland. In Experiencing Verdi: A Listener’s Companion, Donald Sanders combines biography with simple, concise musical analysis. Summarizing the evolution of Italian opera and the bel canto tradition that prevailed at the beginning of Verdi’s career, Sanders takes readers on a leisurely tour of eleven of Verdi’s most important operas and of the Manzoni Requiem and concludes with a look at Verdi’s influence on later composers like Giacomo Puccini, his place in the modern repertoire, and his role as an Italian patriot. With a timeline, glossary of basic musical terms, and selected reading and listening recommendations, Experiencing Verdi will engage opera lovers at all levels, from those just starting to listen, learn, and enjoy to musical devotees.
Este artigo busca traçar um paralelo entre a cortesã Violetta Valery, protagonista da ópera de Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata, estreada em 1853, e Vivian Ward, a prostituta do filme Pretty Woman, ...lançado em 1990. Ambas as obras têm em comum a história de uma mulher que é profissional do sexo e se apaixona perdidamente por um homem fora de seu círculo social. A análise aborda a perspectiva sonora, histórica e social, fatos pessoais, a simbologia, o visual e os aspectos práticos de ambas as obras, buscando entender quais são as semelhanças, as diferenças e o contexto social do meio do século XIX e do final do século XX, trazendo através das escolhas sonoras do compositor, do texto e das imagens e trechos em vídeo da ópera e do filme chaves importantes para facilitar a compreensão do leitor e ilustrar a análise.
Samtidig som at Karl Marx rutinemessig omtales som en av sosiologiens grunnleggere, finnes det en rekke spenninger mellom marxismen og sosiologien. Sosiologer i den durkheimianske tradisjonen har ...tradisjonelt forklart sosial orden som et resultat av et ideologisk fellesskap som samordner individenes normative oppfatninger gjennom kulturelle sosialiseringsprosesser. Marx argumenterer derimot for at samfunnet primært opprettholdes gjennom den kapitalistiske produksjonsmåten, som sosialiserer individets handlinger uavhengig av deres bevissthet. Denne artikkelen utvikler omrisset til en teori om kapitalismens økonomiske sosialisering med utgangspunkt i tre marxistiske kjernebegreper: verdi, klasse og fremmedgjøring. Mot den konvensjonelle forståelsen av Marx’ verditeori som et forsøk på å forklare kvantitative prisstørrelser, viser jeg i første del hvordan den også kan leses som en kvalitativ teori om hvordan arbeidsprosessen under kapitalismen organiseres gjennom abstraksjoner som fortrenger direkte former for samarbeid. Andre del tilbyr en nytolkning av den marxistiske klasseteorien. Framfor å se på klasse som en kategori for sosial ulikhet, skriver jeg fram en klasseforståelse som ligger tettere på det sosiologiske rollebegrepet. Klasse identifiserer her et sett av forventninger, kapasiteter og pressfaktorer tilknyttet ulike posisjoner i produksjonsprosessen, som forklarer hvorfor folk utfører de handlingene som er nødvendige for å videreføre den kapitalistiske produksjonsmåten. Tredje del av analysen byr på en diskusjon av Marx’ fremmedgjøringsbegrep. Hovedformålet her er å forklare hvordan utviklingen av produktivkreftene under kapitalismen ikke øker den sosiale makten til produsentene selv, men forsterker kapitalens økonomiske makt over produksjonsprosessen. Avslutningsvis argumenterer jeg for at kapitalismens økonomiske sosialisering kan tilby en alternativ inngang til aktør-struktur-problemet og diskuterer spørsmålet om hvorvidt Marx egentlig kan sies å ha en sosiologi.
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