Italian Romantic Opera And Verdi

Romanticism, the dominant form of nineteenth century musical expression, is associated with the passion, dreams, emotion, and desire for freedom. In the history of culture, romanticism describes an artistic and intellectual movement against the order and restraint of classicism and neoclassicism. These emotional associations brought music into a commanding position as a link between the artist’s most personal thoughts and the realities of the outside world. According to Alfred Einstein "the Romantic movement made the opera composers specialists because it took its opera more seriously than did the eighteenth century".

In this chapter I will focus on Italian Romantic opera and Verdi`s romantic impulses during his career. During the second

She encouraged Italian authors to translate English and German poetry. Giuseppe Mazzini`s Filosophia della musica of 1835- 1836, is an impassioned plea for operatic reforms, for a turn away from the empty imitation of Rossini. He recommended operatic reforms that drew heavily from the concepts of Madame de Staël and Victor Hugo. He borrowed heavily from Hugo’s descriptions of Romantic theatre in his recommendations for music that reflects the time and place of the drama, and the creation of distinctive characters through musical portrayal. By trying to compete with the great Romantic literature coming from Britain and Germany, Italians were stepping away from the old classical structure and becoming more innovative. We can see the movement develop through the works of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, reaching its height with Verdi.

Verdi`s 'forte' was for Romantic melodrama. He was aware, that melodrama was more effective when contrasted with romantic love and pure pathos. Verdi, too, indulged in some Romantic impulses during the first decade of his career, setting text by the heroes of French Romanticism, Victor Hugo (Ernani, 1844) and Shakespeare (Macbeth,

Verdi felt that opera lacked the essential musical development, commenting that it was "as thought the composer had renounced all forms of melody of fear of losing touch with the text". Verdi was a liberal Romantic, dedicated to ideals of individual as well as of national liberty. He was a Romantic also in his views on the national spirit in art and in what he thought about the relation between art, individual expression, and tradition. Verdi’s music was adopted by those who supported political independence for Italy, which was then under Austrian rule. The intensity of his compositions and the potential for some of the stories to be read as calls for liberation made him a figurehead for the Italian unification movement.

Italian Romanticism is strongly characterized by patriotic tension and by the need to promote, through the literary means, the awareness of a true national identity, in order to achieve political autonomy.

The generation of Romantic intellectuals that included Mazzini, Manzoni, Garibaldi, were closely involved in the ideological and political battle, which culminated in the creation of the Kingdom of