Giuseppe Verdi
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One of Verdi's most popular operas, an exciting, deeply moving musical drama set in the intoxicating demi-monde of mid-19th century Paris, and long admired for the lyric beauty of its arias and ensembles and for the dramatic force and finesse of its orchestral scoring. Reprinted from the authoritative edition prepared by G. Ricordi, Milan.
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The operas of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi are among the greatest achievements of nineteenth century culture and remain at the heart of the opera repertory today. His extraordinary works took the opera world by storm, transforming and dominating the world of opera for over 30 years. Verdi modified the rigid conventions of the bel canto style, which had previously depended on the showcasing of singers at the expense of dramatic values. He changed...
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Falstaff was composed to a libretto fashioned by Arrigo Boito largely from Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Windsor. Superficially the work is an opera buffa in its depiction of the travails of the penniless knight, Sir John Falstaff, but goes beyond the operatic tradition of the time. The vocal line is integrated into the orchestral texture, and with self-quotations and parodic elements, the opera is saturated with as much irony as comedy, forming...
10) Verdi: Ernani
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Based on a play by Victor Hugo, Verdi's Ernani was an immediate success, and as his most popular and frequently performed opera it became a cornerstone of his burgeoning reputation in the mid-1800s. Contemporary critics remarked that 'coming out of the theatre, people were already singing [those] catchy tunes ... Few scores have made a stronger, more powerful impression.' Ernani is a dramatic and intensely memorable tale of rebellion and romance -...