On October 9, 1813, in the small town of Roncole, Italy, a baby by the name of Giuseppe Verdi was born. Little did his parents know that this child, born...
Il corsaro PREMIERE: Teatro Grande, Trieste, 1848. Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. Il corsaro shares, with Alzira, the distinction of being regarded as the absolute nadir of Verdi's output. As such, it holds a certain morbid ...
A tale by the author of Stellaluna introduces young Verdi, a tiny spotted snake who is sent out into the jungle to grow up big and strong and who finds grown-up snakes so unpleasant that he simply refuses to turn green.
In this third edition of the classic Verdi, renowned authority Julian Budden offers a comprehensive overview of Verdi the man and the artist, tracing his ascent from humble beginnings to the status of a cultural patriarch of the new Italy, ...
Philip is drawn to him, wants him for a friend, and warns him to beware of the Inquisition. ... In the play Philip's third and current queen, Elisabetta di Valois, had first been betrothed to Don Carlos, Philip's son by his first wife.
Every opera tells a story, but sometimes the creation of an opera makes a pretty fascinating tale on its own. If Verdi's Aida is the quintessential opera, it is also...
Volume 2 covers those works written during the decadence of the post-Rossini period.
“Franz Werfel and the 'Verdi Renaissance'.” Verdi (item 299), 61–77. In Aspects of Outlines the decline in popularity in Verdi's works, which reached a low point in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and the role of Franz ...
Verdi, like most great opera composers, attached supreme importance to the words he was setting to music.
Why did the audience's generally drunken, brawling behavior gradually improve? How and why did Verdi emerge as the city's favorite composer? These are the intriguing themes of George Martin's enlightening and wonderfully entertaining story.