This document provides an overview of Italian Romantic opera and the composer Giuseppe Verdi. It discusses how opera changed after 1800 to integrate music more fully with plot. Key composers of the Romantic period like Verdi, Donizetti and Bellini are mentioned. Verdi sought to develop a national Italian style with high quality librettos and integral music. His operas like Rigoletto and La Traviata are discussed. The document also touches on characteristics of Verismo opera and choral music in the 19th century.

1. THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING
EDITION
by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
THIRD EDITION
Lecture Slides

2. Chapter 40
Multimedia Hits:
Verdi and Italian Romantic Opera

3. Earlier Opera vs. Romantic
Operation
• Before 1800
– A series of songs (arias
and duets)
– Thin plot lines
– Choruses and
instrumental music are
fillers, introductions, or
interludes
– During arias, action
stops
• After 1800
– Performers act as
characters in a tightly
knit plot
– Choruses and
instrumental music
integral to story
– Opera showcases not
only musical brilliance
but grand spectacle of
drama

4. Romantic Opera: Background
Information
• Opera was “grand.”
– Musical and “extra-musical” ideas of Romanticism
could be expressed fully.
– The libretto, staging, acting, costumes, sets, and
characters added to the expression of the
instrumental music.
– Audiences loved the spectacle.
– Opera performers were “stars.”

5. Some Important Romantic
Composers of Opera
• Italian
– Donizetti--operas in -
Italian and French
– Bellini--operas in Italian
and French
– Rossini--operas in Italian
and French, The Barber
of Seville, William Tell
– Verdi--an innovator in
Italian opera
– Puccini--settings in
foreign lands
• German
– von Weber--stage
effects and mysticism
– Wagner--music dramas
• French
– Offenbach--French
comic opera style,
operettas
– Bizet--cool reviews by
audiences and critics,
but later acclaimed

6. Subjects of Typical Romantic
Operas
• Beethoven--Fidelio--
heroism, love, death
• Von Weber--Der Freishcültz-
-magic, supernatural,
mysterious
• Verdi--La Traviata--love,
death, beauty
• Wagner--Die Walküre--hero,
supernatural, love
• Bizet--Carmen--common
man, love, death, exotic
cultures
• Puccini--Madama Butterfly
and Turandot--distant
lands, travel, exotic
cultures, love, death

7. The Barber of Seville
• Figaro

8. Italian Romantic Opera:
Characteristics
• Italian = dominant language
• Bel canto style continues
• Opposing genres of opera seria and opera buffa still prevalent in Italy
• Verdi’s innovations--typical of period
– Sought to develop national style
– High quality librettos; arias grew out of plot and blended with action
– Plot and staging discouraged interruptions of mood and story for
applause
– Human, believable characters
– Instrumental passages integral to mood, highly expressive; not just
fillers

9. Carmen, “Habanera”
• Singing Grapefruit

10. Guiseppe Verdi
(1813 - 1901)

11. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
• Born in Busseto, Italy, where he studied music until age
18.
• Couldn’t play piano well enough to study at Milan
Conservatory, so studied privately.
• Composed more than 25 operas, many for Milan’s
famous opera house, La Scala.
• Was also a politician--appointed to Italian parliament and
elected to the senate.
• Established a home for retired opera singers.

12. Giuseppe Verdi(1813-1901)
• Music education funded by
prosperous merchant
• Married merchant’s
daughter
• Wife & two children died
• Gave up composing for a
year due to these tragedies,
failed opera
• Nebucco-story of
Nebuchadnezzar, relaunched
career
• Re-married, composed
opera in his eighties

13. Guiseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901)
• Verdi lived in an unmarried relationship with a woman; this is
reflected in the story of La Traviata (Pretty Woman).
• Verdi sought to reform cultural and political conventions through
his art and his activities.
– Advocated for the unification of Italy.
– Elected to the newly constituted Italian parliament in 1860.
• Other important compositions
– Operas Il Travatore, Rigoletto, Aïda, Otello, Falstaff
– Requiem--a Mass for the Dead
Verdi: Requiem, “Dies irae”

14. Verdi’s Requiem (Mass for the Dead)
• Monumental work, appropriate for stage
• Performing forces: large chorus, orchestra,
and soloists
• Intersection between opera and sacred
tradition: controversial to the Catholic Church
• 1868, began as tribute to Gioachino Rossini

15. • Completed after death of Alessandro Manzoli
(revered poet and humanist)
• 1874 premiere, one-year anniversary of
Manzoni’s death
• Instant popularity
across Europe
Verdi’s Requiem (Mass for the Dead)

16. “Dies irae”
• Dies Irae

17. Verismo
• After the Romanticism of Bellini
and others, Italian opera entered
a “realistic”(verismo) phase, with
true to life individuals and true
emotions expressed
• Strong emotional situations,
speed of action, and contrast with
plenty of opportunity for exciting,
lusty, ferocious melodies and
rhythms

18. Verismo
• A typical plot involves:
– X(soprano) and Y(tenor) have
a project in common. They
may or may not achieve it in
the fact of Z(mezzo or bass
antagonist). Paternal or
maternal type(W) may help
or interfere. X and Y are
forced to make a moral
choice which usually causes
their downfall.

19. Verdi
• Verdi’s ideas are of unswerving
fidelity to themes, certain
emotions, and morals (behavioral,
political, social, sexual)
• Glorifies honor, patriotism, and
father-daughter relationships
• Exhibits hatred of oppression,
inequality, and tyranny
• Through all, judges his characters
with understanding, compassion,
and indulgence

20. Verdi: Rigoletto
• Victor Hugo’s The King Is
Amused (Le roi s’amuse)
• Libretto by Francesco Piave
• Seduction and deceit, with
a tragic end
• Popular moment from Act
III:
– tenor aria, “La donna è
mobile”
– Duke’s aria, expresses
pleasure-seeking personality
– Knew it would be popular,
waited until opening night
to rehearse it

21. Rigoletto
• La donna e mobile
Un dì & Bella figlia
• Un di and Bella figlia

24. Ensemble Vocal Music in the
Nineteenth Century
• Ensemble and choral vocal music grew in
popularity
– social singing and concert performance
– secular ensemble song
• one-to-three singers to a part
• influenced American “barbershop quartet”
• part songs: secular choral pieces, three or four parts
• Large-scale choral genres
– mostly sacred: Mass, oratorio
– moved to concert hall

25. Romantic Composers
of Choral Music
• Schubert
• Berlioz
• Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn
• Clara and Robert Schumann
• Liszt
• Verdi
• Brahms

26. by
Kristine Forney
Andrew Dell’Antonio
Joseph Machlis
Lecture Slides
THIRD EDITION
THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSIC
ESSENTIAL LISTENING EDITION
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