Articles

Though I have written articles on many subjects, in many magazines, I am limiting those listed here to articles on Verdi that have appeared in the last two decades in The Opera Quarterly.

The articles sharing a title of "Verdi Onstage in the United States" are part of a series designed to give the history of the particular Verdi opera in the United States, with emphasis on its reception, showing how opinions about it have changed over the years. For example, do you realize that in the 1850s when Traviata was new, it initially was banned in Brooklyn. Or that some Verdi operas, such as his first and second, Oberto and Un giorno di regno, did not have their United States premieres until 1978 and 1960? The emphases throughout in these "Onstage" articles is not on the singers, mostly forgotten, but on the music itself, its reception by the critics and audiences, on the problems of production, the theatres of the day, and on the behavior and expectations of the audiences.

Verdi Onstage in the United States:

  1. Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio. Opera Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 4, Autumn 2002
  2. Un giorno di regno. Opera Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1, Winter 2003
  3. Nabucodonosor. Opera Quarterly, vol 19, no. 2, Spring 2003
  4. I Lombardi alla prima crociata. Opera Quarterly, vol. 20, no.1, Winter 2004
  5. Ernani. Opera Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 2, Spring 2004
  6. I due Foscari. Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 1, Winter 2005
  7. Giovanna d'Arco. Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, Spring 2005
  8. Alzira, Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, Spring 2005
  9. Le Trouvere, Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, Spring 2005
The Metropolitan Opera’s Sunday Evening Concerts and Verdi
The Opera Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1, Winter 2003.
A survey of what Metropolitan artists chose to sing or play of Verdi in the concerts which were given annually, with a few gaps, from 1883 to 1946. There are some surprises. For example, the excerpts chosen from Verdi’s Nabucco: Twenty-eight were performed, of which fourteen were the bass aria “Tu sul labro;” eight, the overture, and only two, the chorus “Va, pensiero.” Thus in the sixty-three years of concerts, a very long span, Nabucco was known less for its chorus than for its bass aria and perhaps its overture. The article offers reasons for that, and for why, after 1946, the reverse became true.

Verdi, Politics, and "Va, pensiero"; The Scholars Squabble.
The Opera Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 1, Winter 2005.
A discussion of the differing points of view on when Verdi became an icon for patriotic Italians as they worked and fought to achieve national independence and unification: contemporaneously with events inteh 1840s and early 1850s or later and in retrospect.

Verdi's "Stiffelio," Lost, Found, and Misunderstood.
The Opera Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 1, Autumn 1996.
This opera was "lost" for roughly a hundred years, though large parts of it existed in a revision Verdi made of it and titled Aroldo. The article tells the story of the opera's rediscovery and discusses productions in London (1993), New York (1994), and Los Angeles (1995) in all of which the staging in the final, climactic scene went awry.

For more information on the Opera Quarterly, please visit their web site:
The Opera Quarterly.