ENGLISH

Verdi, Opera, Women

By Susan Rutherford

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2013
ISBN
9781107469013, 9781107043824
LCC
ML410.V4.R78 2013eb
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
10 MB (10494370 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in Opera Ser.
Pages
308\308
Time added
2023-08-25 21:29:13
-- 1813-1901. -- Operas. ; Women in opera. ; OperaGiuseppeVerdi

Description

Verdi's operas - composed between 1839 and 1893 - portray a striking diversity of female protagonists: warrior women and peacemakers, virgins and courtesans, princesses and slaves, witches and gypsies, mothers and daughters, erring and idealised wives, and, last of all, a feisty quartet of Tudor townswomen in Verdi's final opera, Falstaff. Yet what meanings did the impassioned crises and dilemmas of these characters hold for the nineteenth-century female spectator, especially during such a turbulent span in the history of the Italian peninsula? How was opera shaped by society - and was society similarly influenced by opera? Contextualising Verdi's female roles within aspects of women's social, cultural and political history, Susan Rutherford explores the interface between the reality of the spectators' lives and the imaginary of the fictional world before them on the operatic stage.

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