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:
- Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio. Opera Quarterly,
vol. 18, no. 4, Autumn 2002
- Un giorno di regno. Opera Quarterly, vol. 19,
no. 1, Winter 2003
- Nabucodonosor. Opera Quarterly, vol 19, no.
2, Spring 2003
- I Lombardi alla prima crociata. Opera Quarterly,
vol. 20, no.1, Winter 2004
- Ernani. Opera Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 2, Spring
2004
- I due Foscari. Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no.
1, Winter 2005
- Giovanna d'Arco. Opera Quarterly, vol. 21,
no. 2, Spring 2005
- Alzira, Opera Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, Spring
2005
- 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.
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