Verdi and Puccini Heroines

This book comes at a time when opera-lovers, singers, directors, and critics alike are taking a new look at the dramatic soprano heroines created by Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, endeavoring to go beyond inherited scholarly interpretation and come to a richer understanding of these compelling female characters. Artistically limited by the bel canto musical tradition popular at the time, Verdi launched a new style dramma per musica. Drawing inspiration from romanticism, this style allowed his music to evolve with the action. This new style demanded a new soprano archetype. The seven women included in this book are all participants in an unending human quest, a quest for self-knowledge, for comprehension of the individual's place in the cosmic order of existence. They defy critical reductionism. Accordingly, the authors take a three-dimensional look at these heroines, examining seven plays: Il Trovatore, La Forza del Destino, Aida, La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot. The chapters, which are fully self-contained analyses, contain translations, illustrative music examples, supplementary notes and references to each opera's literary sources.
The musical analysis, while thorough, is descriptive and accessible to all levels of readers.