Part I • Personal, cultural, and political
context
1. Verdi's life: a thematic biography.
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz [page 3]
2. The Italian theatre of Verdi's day.
Alessandro Roccatagliati [page 15]
3. Verdi, Italian Romanticism, and the
Risorgimento. Mary Ann Smart [page 29]
Part II • The style of Verdi's operas
and non-operatic works
4. The forms of set pieces. Scott L.
Balthazar [page 49]
5. New currents in the libretto. Fabrizio
Delia Seta [page 69]
6. Words and music. Emanuele Senici
[page 88]
7. French influences. Andreas Giger
[page 111]
8. Structural coherence. Steven Huebner
[page 139]
9. Instrumental music in Verdi's operas.
David Kimbell [page 154]
10. Verdi's non-operatic works. Roberta
Montemorra Marvin [page 169]
Part III • Representative operas
11. Ernani: the tenor in crisis. Rosa
Solinas [page 185]
12. "Ch'hai di nuovo, buffon?" or What's
new with Rigoletto. Cormac Newark [page
197]
13. I Verdi's Don Carlos: an overview
of the operas. Harold Powers [page 209]
14. Desdemona's alienation and Otello's
fall Scott L. Balthazar [page 237]
Part IV • Creation and critical reception
16. An introduction to Verdi's working
methods. Luke Jensen [page 257]
17. Verdi criticism. Gregory W. Harwood
[page 269]
This book is not a
chronology and musical analysis of each
of Verdi’s operatic works. Julian Budden’s
three-volume study (Cassell. 1983) remains
unequalled in that respect. In the introductory
chapters of the first two volumes of
that seminal study Budden sets the evolution
and maturation of Verdi’s works into
musicological context. In his later
book in the Master Musicians series
(Dent. 1984) Budden gives more details
on Verdi the man, his life and non-operatic
music, with closely linked, non-chronological,
narrative. Stanley Sadie for New Grove
(Macmillan References. 2000) provides
consideration of Verdi as a composer
and plot details of the operas but without
the musical detail in Budden’s work.
What these books all have is cohesion
of style with close inter-linking narrative.
This Cambridge Companion
is distinctly different and is, I suggest,
best suited to those who already have
the above volumes and an understanding
of their contents. This volume attempts
to put Verdi into context and perspective
within the four main themes detailed
above. In essence the contents are a
collection of essentially academic papers.
Whilst the contents are within the broad
headings they lack both uniformity of
style and cohesion of outcome. For this
latter failing the editor Scott L. Balthazar
must accept some responsibility. Professor
of Music History at Westchester University
of Pennsylvania, his published articles
have been mainly concerned with 19th
century Italian opera and theories of
instrumental form in the 18th
and 19th centuries. His own
contribution to this volume (Part II.
Chapter 4. pp. 49-68) is mainly concerned
with an analysis of arias, duets, finales
etc with detailed reference to examples
in Verdi operas. He refers in his chapter
notes (p. 285) to other of his papers
and his Ph.D. dissertation of 1985 titled
‘Evolving Conventions in Italian
Serious Opera: Scene Structure in the
Works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti
and Verdi, 1810-1850’ as well as
the work of the notable Rossini scholar
Philip Gossett and the renowned Verdian
Martin Chusid. On the matter of layout,
I personally find it frustrating when
such detailed chapter notes do not appear
at the end of the relevant chapter and
appear, as here, collated at the end
of the book.
The list of contributors
has a heavy American bias. Given that
the publisher still boasts an office
in Cambridge I was surprised not to
see a contribution from that university’s
distinguished luminary Roger Parker.
His work is, however, amongst the most
extensive in the select bibliography
(pp. 312-328). The American bias can
lead to a rather narrow perspective.
Chapter 13 titled ‘Don Carlos: an overview
of the operas’ (pp. 209-236) takes the
reader through a detailed analysis,
by narrative and musical notated examples,
of the various revisions that Verdi
made to the original, French language,
version. However, my hackles rose at
this statement in the introductory paragraph:
‘It began to move into the high place
in the Verdian canon after the Second
World War when it was revived in 1959
by Rudolf Bing for his debut as general
manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera,
conducted by Fritz Stiedry’. A pity
that the author, Harold Powers, who
to quote his biographical notes, ‘has
been Visiting Professor at seven American
and European Universities’ hadn’t heard
of the 1958 Covent Garden production
by Visconti and conducted by Giulini.
Featuring Gobbi, Christoff, Vickers,
Brouwenstijn and Gorr it made world
headlines. It was widely recognised
as having brought the work from the
shadows of neglect to its current central
position in the operatic canon as Powers
does recognise. Further, that production
could, from our present perspective,
be seen to be seminal to the Verdi revival
that was beginning to get under way.
If the author was not aware of that
production, reception and ramifications,
the editor should have been!
For me one of the most
interesting contributions is by Luke
Jensen in Part IV (pp. 257-268) titled
‘An introduction to Verdi’s working
methods’. Labouring under his official
position title of Director of the Office
of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Equity at the University of Maryland,
he is in fact a not inconsiderable musicologist.
Although he manages to push 39 notes
into his ten page article; oh for footnotes,
or the lost skill of integrating such
information easily and meaningfully
into the narrative. He takes a traditional
view of Verdi’s compositional periods.
He illuminates them with insights that
will make sense to the general reader.
This matter of the general reader and
the scholar is the crux of this collection.
Who is the target reader? Not, in my
view, the Verdi enthusiast who already
has the reference volumes referred to.
Nor one who is happy with the readable
books by George Martin (‘Aspects of
Verdi’. Robson Books, 1988 and ‘Verdi,
His Music, Life and Times. Macmillan,
1963, reprinted, 1983) or Charles Osborne’s
‘Verdi. A Life in the Theatre’ (Weidenfeld
and Nicholson 1987). For those wanting
to know about the foibles and irascible
character that went with his genius,
then Conati’s (Ed) ‘Interviews and Encounters
with Verdi’ (English translation. Gollancz,
1984) is the best bet. This Cambridge
Companion is more a book for scholars
and as such provides different and sometimes
unusual insights, albeit often from
narrow perspectives.
Robert J Farr