Overview

These 301 letters between Giuseppe Verdi and his last most gifted librettist, Arrigo Boito, document an extraordinary chapter in musical history. Now available for the first time in English, this correspondence records both a unique friendship and its creative legacy. This new edition of the ""Carteggio Verdi/Boito"" provides a resource for all students, teachers and scholars of opera and a glimpse of the daily life of European art and artists during the last decades of the 19th century. Embarking on a 20-year collaboration, Verdi and Boito produced a successful revision of ""Simon Boccanegra"" and two new operas, ""Otello"" and ""Falstaff"". They created what many consider to be Verdi's greatest operas, thanks both to Boito's poetry and to his handling of the composer. These letters show the day-to-day tasks of creation: poet and composer debating problems of dramatic structure, words, phrases and metres; altering dialogue as, at the same time, they converse about the wider worlds of art and music. This edition features a new introduction by Marcello Conati, improvements and updatings to the original edition, and an appendix of undated correspondence. William Weaver also provides a short closing sketch of Boito's life after the death of his beloved maestro. Explanatory ""linking texts"" between the letters create a narrative.

Full Product Details

9780226853048

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Opera lovers will be pleased.""-- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""The letters are engrossing. . . . With or without transition, Verdi and Boito can shift mercurially from discussions of high art to commentary on the mundane. Woven into the fabric of life in nineteenth-century Italy are, among others, threads of politics, medicine, and labor unrest. . . . Fascinating.""-- ""Opera Quarterly"" ""Verdi, who had previously considered librettists good only for translating into verse dramatic outlines he had already created, learned to work with an equal; Boito was a superb poet, passionately devoted to the renewal of the musical theater, who had to be treated as a peer, not a subordinate. The letters, stuffed with fascinating detail, catch the two titans in the process of creating the revised Simon Boccanegra, then Otello and Falstaff; sections of text, structural and musical ideas, even production concepts fly back and forth between Milan and Sant'Agata. . . . A must-have for every music lover's shelf.""-- ""Kirkus""

Twenty years (1880-1900) of indispensable letters between Italy's greatest opera composer and his last, most accomplished librettist. In a lengthy, fully annotated, and excellent introduction to this first English edition of the correspondence between the internationally celebrated Verdi and his much younger collaborator Arrigo Boito (himself a composer of note), Conati, an Italian Verdi scholar, lays out the peculiar geography of their professional relationship and ultimate friendship. The meeting of two fiercely independent spirits began badly in 1863, when Verdi took offense at remarks Boito and his friends had aimed at the old guard, of whom Verdi was the most prominent figure. Fortunately for the world's music lovers, things went uphill from there, helped along by the publisher Giulio Ricordi, who knew a match made in heaven when he saw it. Verdi, who had previously considered librettists good only for translating into verse dramatic outlines he had already created, learned to work with an equal; Boito was a superb poet, passionately devoted to the renewal of the musical theater, who had to be treated as a peer, not a subordinate. The letters, stuffed with fascinating detail, catch the two titans in the process of creating the revised Simon Boccanegra, then Otello and Falstaff; sections of text, structural and musical ideas, even production concepts fly back and forth between Milan and Sant'Agata. Before the premiere of Falstaff, Boito writes, In the costumes of our characters we must avoid the too beautiful, because too beautiful is so rarely associated with the picturesque. Verdi, who knew that his wordsmith was a real man of letters rather than a hack, shows warmth and respect; Boito's tone increasingly approaches veneration mixed with delight. The letters are linked by editorial passages to create an intelligible historical narrative. A must-have for every music lover's shelf. (Kirkus Reviews)

"""Opera lovers will be pleased.""-- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""The letters are engrossing. . . . With or without transition, Verdi and Boito can shift mercurially from discussions of high art to commentary on the mundane. Woven into the fabric of life in nineteenth-century Italy are, among others, threads of politics, medicine, and labor unrest. . . . Fascinating.""-- ""Opera Quarterly"" ""Verdi, who had previously considered librettists good only for translating into verse dramatic outlines he had already created, learned to work with an equal; Boito was a superb poet, passionately devoted to the renewal of the musical theater, who had to be treated as a peer, not a subordinate. The letters, stuffed with fascinating detail, catch the two titans in the process of creating the revised Simon Boccanegra, then Otello and Falstaff; sections of text, structural and musical ideas, even production concepts fly back and forth between Milan and Sant'Agata. . . . A must-have for every music lover's shelf.""-- ""Kirkus"""

Author Information

Marcello Conati is one of the world's leading Verdi scholars. Mario Medici was founder and first director of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani in Parma. Marcello Conati is one of the world's leading Verdi scholars.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available