Going Astray: Morality and Music in Verdi’s La Traviata, a discussion led by Musicologist Jesse Rosenberg, Northwestern University.
Thursday, February 14, 2019 at 6pm
Italian Cultural Institute
500 N Michigan Ave, Suite 1450
Musicologist Jesse Rosenberg, Northwestern University, will lead this discussion, presented on the occasion of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, February 16 – March 22, 2019.
The story of Violetta Valéry, the heroine of La Traviata, originates in the true-life history of Marie Duplessis, and continues through her successive transformations in a novel and a play by Alexander Dumas fils, who had been Duplessis’ lover. By the time it formed the basic material of one of Verdi’s most celebrated operas, it intersected once more with a true-life situation: Verdi’s relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi, later his wife. Hovering over over all of these real and fictional individuals and relationships is the question of morality, with a focus on a woman perceived as having strayed from the path of virtue. Verdi’s music, however, adds considerable depth to our understanding of the drama.
Professor Jesse Rosenberg received his PhD from New York University, and has been on the musicology faculty of Northwestern University since 1998. Both as a scholar and teacher he specializes in 19th-century Italian opera, and has published his researches on Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Mascagni, as well as studies on opera and religion.
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