Overview

Verdi's Attila, his ninth opera, had its premiere at Venice's Teatro La Fenice in March 1846. Based on the German play Attila, King of the Huns, the libretto has its own storied history: as Verdi fell seriously ill before the work's completion, the main librettist moved permanently to Madrid, leaving the last act of Attila only a sketch. It was then that Verdi called upon Francesco Maria Piave, the librettist for two of his earlier works, who at the composer's behest scratched plans for a large choral finale and decided instead to concentrate on the dramatic roles of the protagonists. In years since, Attila has become one of Verdi's most popular and oft-staged early works. The composer's inimitable vitality, soaring arcs of melody, grand choruses, and passion are here amply apparent. This piano-vocal score based on the critical edition of the full score restores the opera's original text and accurately reflects the composer's colorful and elaborate musical setting, while Helen M. Greenwald's masterful introduction discusses the opera's origins, sources, and performance questions, and her critical commentary details editorial problems and their solutions. In addition, the four appendices to the edition include two new romanze that Verdi composed for tenors Nicolai Ivanoff and Napoleone Moriani, as well as the delightful Attila ritournelle composed by Rossini for one of his soirees.

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Helen M. Greenwald is professor of musicology at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She has written numerous articles on vocal music from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Opera.

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