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177
CHAPTERfi44 Multimedia Hits: Verdi and Italian
Romantic Opera
5. Shakespeare: favorite literary source
6. music marketed, commercially successful
7. founded, left fortune to Casa Verdi (home for
aged musicians)
8. style: appealing melodies, intense dramatic
situations
9. output: 28 operas spanning entire career, vocal
music, Requiem Mass
C. Rigoletto
1. inspired by French Romantic play by Victor
Hugo
2. profound emotion: lechery, deceit, treachery
3. setting: Renaissance- era ducal court in north-
ern Italy
4. main characters:
a. Duke, womanizer
b. Rigoletto, hunchbacked jester
c. Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter, kept in seclusion
d. Sparafucile, assassin
e. Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister
5. plot summary:
a. curse put on Rigoletto for making light of the
Duke’s seductions
b. Gilda becomes the Duke’s next conquest
c. Rigoletto plots to kill the Duke
d. the Duke woos Maddalena
e. Duke’s immorality revealed to Gilda
f. Gilda sacrifices herself for the Duke
g. Gilda dies in her father’s arms: fulfillment of
the curse
6. immediate success; one of most performed
operas today
D. LG 36: Verdi: Rigoletto, Act III, excerpts (1851)
1. Aria: “La donna è mobile” (“ Woman Is Fickle”):
Duke
OUTLINE
I. Nineteenth- Century Opera Saturated Culture
A. Distinct national styles: Italy, Germany, France
B. Opera arrangements marketed
1. home: piano four- hands
2. public: wind band medleys
3. music became eco nom ically and socially popu lar
4. emotional reinforcement to po liti cal messages
II. Women and Nineteenth- Century Opera
A. “Natu ral” female voices preferred
1. women opera singers prominent performers
2. in demand, Eu rope and the Amer i cas
3. Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano, international star
a. operatic roles, concert artist
b. 1850 American debut: sang operatic arias and
parlor ballads
4. Giuseppina Strepponi, Italian operatic soprano
a. married Guiseppe Verdi, musical “teammate”
III. Verdi and Italian Opera
A. Opera seria and opera buffa: continued into nine-
teenth century
1. bel canto style (beautiful singing)
a. florid melodic lines, great agility, purity of tone
b. masterpieces by Gioachino Rossini
B. Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901)
1. Italian opera composer
2. tragic loss of daughter, baby son, and wife
(1838 – 40)
3. later married Giuseppina Strepponi
4. composed during Italian liberation from
Austrian Hapsburg rule
a. figurehead for Italian unification movement
b. music associated with patriot cause, national hero
c. served one term in Italian Senate
178 | Chapterfi44
(see P. T. Barnum, Strug gles and Triumphs; or, Forty
Years’ Recollections [Buffalo, NY: Warren and Johnson,
1873], pp.270–354). A popu lar staple of Lind’s repertory
was “Casta diva” from Bellini’s Norma, perhaps the most
famous bel canto aria of all time. Play a recording of
“Casta diva,” noting the hallmarks of the bel canto style
and emphasizing the importance of Lind’s bel canto rep-
ertory in her rise to fame.
2. Introduce the po liti cal contexts of Rigoletto and the Chi-
nese opera The Story of the Red Lantern. Despite the
clearly divergent musical styles of these two operas, what
similarities can be found between them in terms of musi-
cal production and narrative?
3. Ask the class for four volunteers to read the libretto of
the quartet from Act III of Rigoletto. Space the readers
so that the Duke and Maddalena are separated from
Rigoletto and Gilda, and ask the class to imagine a wall
with a win dow separating the two couples. After the
script reading, listen to or watch the quartet, asking stu-
dents to notice how the music transforms the effect of
the libretto. What musical cues and gestures does Verdi
employ to bring this scene to life?
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. As the textbook notes, Italian opera was both social com-
mentary and po liti cal persuasion for audiences in the
nineteenth century. What social and po liti cal issues
emerge from the story of Rigoletto?
2. “La donna è mobile” was instantly popu lar in Venice fol-
lowing the premiere of Rigoletto and remains a staple of
modern popu lar culture, appearing in a wide variety of
advertisements, video game scores, and ring tones. Why
do you think this aria has remained so popu lar for so
ing repertory songs and arias from both traditions. Can
you think of any singers or artists today who also embrace
both serious and popu lar styles? Do you think that the
split between “serious” and “popu lar” is so severe that it
alienates certain crossover artists from their audiences?
Or do you think it increases their appeal among fans?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
A challenge in teaching this chapter is providing enough
background for the characters, libretto, and score of Rigoletto
a. strophic aria with refrain
b. lilting triple meter, some rubato
c. orchestra: guitarlike strumming
d. soaring tenor line
e. broad, contrasting dynamics
2. Quartet (first part): “Un dì,” (“One day”): Duke,
Maddalena, Gilda, Rigoletto
a. Allegro, agitated movement
b. each character reveals his/her emotion
i. Duke: bel canto- style melody
ii. Maddalena: laughing line, short notes
iii. Gilda: heartbroken, laments
iv. Rigoletto: swears vengeance for his daughter
3. Quartet (second part): “Bella figlia” (“Beautiful
daughter”)
a. A- B- A′- C
b. opening melody sung by the Duke
c. simpler, squarer melody
d. characters interact, then sing together
OVERVIEW
In this chapter, Verdi and the popu lar leading sopranos of the
day are cast to illustrate the intersection of commercial appeal
and serious art in Italian operas of the nineteenth century.
This blend of art and pop is documented in Verdi’s master-
piece Rigoletto. The Chinese opera The Story of the Red Lan-
tern is offered to contrast forms of musical theater of the
West and East.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the popu lar success of women singers in
Italian opera of the Romantic nineteenth century
4. To understand the musical components and cultural rele-
vance of the Chinese opera The Story of the Red Lantern
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Introduce students to the “Swedish Nightingale,” Jenny
Lind, who made a highly successful tour of the United
States in 1850–52, or ga nized by the promoter and impre-
sario P. T. Barnum. Barnum published his recollections
of the tour in 1873, noting, among other things, the
money he made from Jenny Lind– themed merchandise
MODEL RESPONSE
My Funny Valentine by Richard Rod gers and Lorenz Hart
was introduced to audiences in 1937in the musical Babes in
Arms. In its original context, My Funny Valentine is a love
and while the mood of the song has dark and serious under-
tones, it seems incidental within the overall narrative and
rather complex development of the plot. In the 1950s jazz
musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Chet
Baker recorded what have become landmark versions of My
Funny Valentine, reworked as a dark and introspective jazz
This imagery was used to great effect in the film The Tal-
ented Mr.fiRipley (1995), in which the title character (played
by Matt Damon) is shown performing My Funny Valentine
excerpts from key scenes before and after those covered in
the textbook (e.g., “Caro nome” from Act I, “Cortigiani!” and
“Tutte le feste al tempio” from Act II, and the final “return
of the curse” scene that concludes the opera).
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Balthazar, ScottL., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Verdi. Cam-
bridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. A
collection of essays on the life of Verdi and the reception of his
music. In Chapter3 (“Verdi, Italian Romanticism, and the Ris-
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
