Download or read book Verdi s Shakespeare written by Garry Wills and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Look out for a new book from Garry Wills, What the Qur'an Meant, coming fall 2017. "Riveting . . . a double-barreled salvo that hits two bull's-eyes." —The New York Times Book Review This dazzling study of the three operas that Giuseppe Verdi adapted from Shakespeare's plays takes readers on a wonderfully engaging journey through opera, music, literature, history, and the nature of genius. Verdi's Shakespeare explores the writing and staging of Macbetto (Macbeth), Otello (Othello), and Falstaff, operas by Verdi, an Italian composer who could not read a word of English but who adored Shakespeare. Delving into the fast-paced worlds of these men and the hands-on life of the stage that at once challenged them and gave flight to their brilliance, Wills, in his inimitable way, illuminates the birth of artistic creation.
Download or read book Verdi Meets Shakespeare written by Melody Xuan Zhang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book An Examination of Verdi s Otello and Its Faithfulness to Shakespeare written by Jane Hawes and published by Lewiston, N.Y. ; Queenston, Ont. : Edwin Mellen Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work analyzes how Verdi produced what is not only a monumental piece of music, but a remarkably effective and faithful adaptation. It examines how Verdi (and his librettist, Arrigo Boito) translated from speech to music, and what is required generally for a good adaptation. The study is primarily musical, although it examines literary matters as well. It examines principal characters and their relationships, the arias, the structure, and differences and similarities between Verdi and his source, Shakespeare.
Download or read book The Verdi Boito Correspondence written by Giuseppe Verdi and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-07-25 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These 301 letters between Verdi and Bioto show a picture of daily life of European art and artists during the last decades of the 19th century.
Download or read book Witches Devils Madonnas and Fairies written by Nicole Tripp and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Shakespeare is one of the most adapted playwrights of all time; film, stage, and musical adaptations abound since the late seventeenth century. In the world of music, art songs, ballets, operas, musicals, symphonies, vaudeville, and more have been inspired by the works of Shakespeare; in addition to composers creating incidental music for the plays themselves. Of the Shakespeare-inspired operas, perhaps the most famous are those of Giuseppe Verdi: Macbeth (1847), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893). In this thesis, I explore the overall effect of each of Verdi’s Shakespeare operas through the way in which he and his librettists develop major characters and emphasize thematic elements. I discuss the production history of each of the plays these operas were based on, making connections between standard performance practice and the way that the characters are depicted in Verdi’s operas. In addition, I address not only operatic tradition and how these conventions shaped Verdi’s adaptations, but also how Verdi’s operas pushed back against these conventions, creating a new style of opera. Music’s role in conveying a story has shifted throughout opera’s history. From opera’s first emergence, music was generally the most important aspect of performance—often treated as more important than story. Although structures shifted over the next century, the emphasis on music remained. Prima donna and virtuoso culture allowed the singers more prerogative in changing a composer’s score, often to include more embellishments or impressive notes. Verdi had to contend with the power of individual singers and impresarios throughout the beginning of his career, but was soon able to gain enough power himself to put the story first. Although Verdi’s operas are often considered among the most faithful to Shakespeare’s original works, he had to reconcile operatic convention with the innovations that Shakespeare's plots require. Because he did not speak English, Verdi was also relying on translations of these plays rather than the originals themselves; the difference in languages combined with artistic liberties on the part of the translator may alter a reader’s understanding of these translations. As a result, the Verdian versions of Shakespeare’s characters differ from their original counterparts. I will be looking closely at a number of these characters—Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the Witches; Desdemona and Iago; and Falstaff and the Merry Wives—in an attempt to analyze what elements of the characters were altered in translation while also acknowledging the dimensions gained. A key element that has emerged throughout my discussion of the three operas is the way in which the female characters in Verdi’s operas are given power they do not have in the plays through their supernatural connections.
Download or read book Verdi written by George Whitney Martin and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1992 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Limelight). This book relates the life and experiences of composer Giuseppe Verdi, from his birth in 1813 to his death in 1901. Besides documenting Verdi's life and the music he created, it also goes further in discussing the times and culture in which he was living in 19th century Italy, both socially and politically. "A complete life-to-death biography, wonderfully comprehensive on both life and art, wonderfullly sensible, and splendidly gotten up." The Boston Herald
Download or read book Verdi and Shakespeare written by Mariann Cox and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Verdi written by George Whitney Martin and published by London, Macmillan. This book was released on 1963 with total page 554 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Giuseppe Verdi, the titan of Italian opera, was very much a man of his times, and an understanding of them is essential to a full appreciation of his masterpieces. Both his music and life were part of the Risorgimento, the movement that established Italian unity and independence. He represented his district in assemblies, ran for office, and served in the first parliament of the Italian kingdom. With such operas as Aida, La Traviata and Rigoletto, he ranks as one of the world's most popular composers, yet he hardly fits the world's image of that role. At the age of eighteen, he was rejected by the Conservatory of Milan and throughout his life he was a farmer and an astute business man. He developed his talents over a long life, composing Otello at 73, Falstaff at 79 and his last works in his eighties. If musical genius can be won by hard work, Verdi accomplished it. In his personal life, he was a paradox. He loathed publicity, yet composed for the stage. Almost a recluse in his search for privacy, he spoke with his music to the hearts of men, as he did in the scope of his charities. Tragedy struck early with the deaths of his first wife and two young children. Subsequently, he created a furor in his small home town by bringing his mistress, the renowned soprano Strepponi, back to live there and ten years later he wed her to enjoy one of the most successful marriages in the history of music. But the town never forgot nor forgave. George Martin, an officer and director of the Metropolitan Opera Guild and author of the 'The Opera Companion: A Guide for the Casual Operagoer,' describes the restless years through which Verdi lived and gives a dynamic picture of their impact upon the man and musician. Based upon the latest research, to which the author has himself contributed, and including several of Verdi's letters which are published here for the first time, this definitive biography is a fitting tribute to the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the composer's birth. Includes musical illustrations, bibliography, appendices, index." --Dust jacket.
Download or read book Verdi and Shakespeare written by Anne Duke and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Giuseppe Verdi written by Gregory W. Harwood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-05-04 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive research guide surveys the most significant published materials relating to Giuseppe Verdi. This new edition includes research since the publication of the first edition in 1998.
Download or read book The Complete Operas of Verdi written by Charles Osborne and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1970 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first full-length study of all of Verdi's operas. This work of the British music critic Charles Osborne covers Verdi's complete operatic oeuvre--including the missing choral works, songs, a string quartet, and the Messa da Requiem. The operas of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Othello show how the legendary composer added both depth and dignity to the Italian operatic repertoire. In this volume, every Verdi opera is explored from four points of view: 1) Verdi's life at the time each was written; 2) the story, and the way it links with the music; 3) the libretto and librettist, and Verdi's relations with his publishers; 4) and the music itself, analyzed with examples from the score.
Download or read book The Singing Turk written by Larry Wolff and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While European powers were at war with the Ottoman Empire for much of the eighteenth century, European opera houses were staging operas featuring singing sultans and pashas surrounded by their musical courts and harems. Mozart wrote The Abduction from the Seraglio. Rossini created a series of works, including The Italian Girl in Algiers. And these are only the best known of a vast repertory. This book explores how these representations of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, the great nemesis of Christian Europe, became so popular in the opera house and what they illustrate about European–Ottoman international relations. After Christian armies defeated the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683, the Turks no longer seemed as threatening. Europeans increasingly understood that Turkish issues were also European issues, and the political absolutism of the sultan in Istanbul was relevant for thinking about politics in Europe, from the reign of Louis XIV to the age of Napoleon. While Christian European composers and publics recognized that Muslim Turks were, to some degree, different from themselves, this difference was sometimes seen as a matter of exotic costume and setting. The singing Turks of the stage expressed strong political perspectives and human emotions that European audiences could recognize as their own.
Download or read book The Verdi Baritone written by Geoffrey Edwards and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most significant developments in 19th century Italian opera was the genesis of the Verdi baritone. This text explores seven of the most fascinating roles in the repertory, revealing how they were conceived and executed.
Download or read book Berlioz Verdi Wagner Britten written by Daniel Albright and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Great Shakespeareans offers a systematic account of those figures who have had the greatest influence on the interpretation, understanding and cultural reception of Shakespeare, both nationally and internationally. In this volume, leading scholars assess the contribution of Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner and Britten to the afterlife and reception of Shakespeare and his plays. Each substantial contribution assesses the double impact of Shakespeare on the figure covered and of the figure on the understanding, interpretation and appreciation of Shakespeare, provide a sketch of their subject's intellectual and professional biography and an account of the wider cultural context, including comparison with other figures or works within the same field.
Download or read book Verdi and or Wagner Two Men Two Worlds Two Centuries written by Peter Conrad and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2011-11-07 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the lives and works of Verdi and Wagner as well as their respective legacies to the present day, written by a noted cultural critic. This is the first book to compare these two composers and cultural heroes, both of whom were born in 1813 and achieved huge national and inter- national renown in their lifetimes. Yet not only did they never meet, but the differences between them—in music, culture, environment, significance, and legacy—were profound. Peter Conrad begins his tale in a public park in Venice, home to a pair of statues of the composers that are positioned so as to appear to shun each other. This provides a fitting starting point for his argument that they represent two opposite yet equally integral and compelling dimensions of European culture: north versus south, cerebral versus sensual, proud solitude versus human connection, epic mythmaking versus humane magnanimity. The book is a richly argued tour de force that engages passionately and profoundly with music, biography, history, politics, philosophy, psychology, and culture in the broadest sense. As Conrad concludes, “At one time or another, if not simultaneously, we still need the two contradictory, complementary kinds of music that Verdi and Wagner left us.”
Download or read book Verdi s Settings of Shakespeare written by S. Ann Earon and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Verdi s Macbeth written by David Rosen and published by W. W. Norton. This book was released on 1984 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, a unique collection of speculation and documentation, grew out of the Fifth International Verdi Congress held in Danville, Kentucky, in 1977, where the 1847 version of Macbeth was performed. Macbeth was the first of Verdi's three Shakespeare operas, 'Dearer to me than all my other operas', as he wrote when dedicating the score of the new work to his benefactor, Barezzi. Many of the papers given at the congress are incorporated into the present volume, which focuses on the myriad ways Verdi fused libretto, music, and staging into a powerful theatrical experience. The contents include much contemporary documentation about the opera: 186 letters, reviews of the first performance and the 1865 revision, and a scholarly transcription of Verdi's working libretto. There is also a chronology of performances of Macbeth and an annotated bibliography.
