Sunday, July 20, 2014

Lessons From Opera Un Ballo In Maschera

Posted: 7/20/2014

Trigger

Yesterday, I listened to a song from this opera by Giuseppe Verdi using the Internet.

Lessons

  1. Giuseppe Verdi had to rewrite the score for his opera because of censors in Neapel and Rome who probably did not like the idea that this opera covered a regicide and an attempt to overthrow an absolute monarchy after the French Revolution and American Independence
  2. Verdi had to change location and character names from the original Swedish to Italian
  3. One of the opera’s main characters is a famous, female fortune teller who appears to have been quite influential on Swedish politics during her time, i.e. Ulrica Arfvidsson (She deserves a blog post of her own, see here)
  4. On 1 January 1955, Marian Anderson (She too deserves a blog post of her own, see here), singing the role of Ulrica, broke the "color barrier" at the Metropolitan Opera, becoming the first African-American vocal soloist to appear with that company.

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