Waiting for Verdi Italian Opera and Political Opinion, 1815-1848

The name Giuseppe Verdi conjures images of Italians singing opera in the streets and bursting into song at political protests or when facing the firing squad. While many of the accompanying stories were exaggerated, or even invented, by later generations, Verdi's operas-along with those by Rossini, Donizetti, and Mercadante-did inspire 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 could jolt spectators into intense feeling even as it educated them, 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 audiences that political change really was possible, making the newly engaged spectator in the opera house into an actor on the political stage.

ISBN:	9780520276253
Publisher:	University of California Press
Imprint:	University of California Press
Published date:	22 Jun 2018
DEWEY:	782.1094509034
DEWEY edition:	23
Language:	English
Number of pages:	xiv, 236
Weight:	566g
Height:	159mm
Width:	235mm
Spine width:	24mm

Write a review

Your Name:

Your Review: Note: HTML is not translated!

Rating: Bad           Good

Enter the code in the box below: