Page 176 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

174

I LOVE ITALIAN

OPERA—IT’S

SO RECKLESS

LA TRAVIATA (1853), GIUSEPPE VERDI

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS
Italian opera
BEFORE
1829 Rossini shocks the
musical world by retiring
from opera after his final
stage work, William Tell,
premieres in Paris.
1848 Composer Gaetano
Donizetti dies, 13 years after
his compatriot Vincenzo
Bellini, leaving Verdi as the
leading light of Italian opera.

AFTER
1887 Milan hosts the premiere t was usual in the first decades Italian tenor Francesco Meli
of Verdi’s Otello, his first opera of the 19th century for Italian performs as Violetta’s lover, Alfredo,
since Aida in 1871. I opera to be concerned with in the brindisi drinking song in a 2016
the tragedies of the great and production of La traviata. His love for
1890 Italian composer Pietro noble. Giuseppe Verdi challenged Violetta brings shame upon his family.
Mascagni’s masterpiece this and produced operas about
Cavalleria rusticana premieres ordinary people as well. However, it wasn’t until well into
in Rome and ushers in the Verdi enjoyed notable early Verdi’s creative life that he fulfilled
naturalistic, melodramatic successes, such as Nabucco (1842), his democratic ambitions with
“verismo” style of opera. based on the biblical story of three masterpieces composed in
Nebuchadnezzar II. Its chorus quick succession—Rigoletto (1851),
“Va pensiero,” in which the Hebrew Il trovatore (1853), and La traviata
slaves lament the loss of their (1853). Rigoletto focuses on the
homeland, would later become an eponymous character—a hunchback
anthem for Italian independence. who, in trying to protect his

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