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and abroad. 4 While I would be hesitant to grant as much artistic significance to an Erminia
Frezzolini or a Napoleone Moriani as to a Giuseppe Verdi, to an Isabella Colbran or an
Andrea Nozzari as to a Gioachino Rossini, to a Maria Malibran5 or a Rosine Stolz as to a
Gaetano Donizetti, there can be little doubt that composers worked closely with singers
and sought to make their performing capabilities the measure by which their compositional
art would be judged. It is no surprise that in preparing his Macbeth in 1847, Verdi involved
directly Felice Varesi in the title role and Mariana Barbieri-Nini as Lady, even asking them
to look at their solo music ahead of time and to provide judgments as to whether it suited
properly their vocal proclivities. 6 If not, the composer was prepared to adapt his music to
their capabilities or to modify it as appropriate. Perhaps the composer’s failure to do the
same for Varesi when preparing La traviata was partially responsible for the failure of the
first version of that opera in 1853. 7
By studying the art of individual singers, one can understand better the limits
within which composers were operating. Even though Verdi may have had some doubts
ultimately about the French baritone Victor Maurel, for whom he prepared three roles
(the revised Simon Boccanegra, Iago, and Falstaff), he knew that Maurel’s art was
exceptional. Even when Maurel may have exaggerated (introducing, for example, multiple
reprises of “Quando ero paggio”– the last of which he often sang in his native French), 8
the composer remained relatively loyal to him, knowing that the success of his opera
depended on Maurel’s brilliance. Both Verdi and Muzio may have complained quite bitterly
about Jenny Lind’s “old-fashioned” approach to vocality in the 1847 I masnadieri for London
and Lind herself (as Roberta Marvin has shown9 ) may have had little patience for the new
vocal art he exemplified, still, the composer modified many vocal details in his score so
that it gave Lind a better chance to shine. That was what the public demanded, and he
knew that the public ultimately would determine the fate of any opera.
Among the newer questions being asked today are those that deal with the use
the public around the world made of the musical repertory, especially of opera. 10 While
such questions, which can be grouped generically under the heading of “reception theory,”
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4 Let me cite, in particular, the work of Hilary Poriss, Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority
of Performance (Oxford University Press: New York, 2009), as well as the collection of essays, Roberta Montemorra
Marvin and Prof. Poriss, eds., Fashions and Legacies of Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (Cambridge University
Press: Cambridge, 2009). There are several articles by Mary Ann Smart which address the problem, including
“The Lost Voice of Rosine Stolz” in Cambridge Opera Journal 6 (1994), 31-50 and “Verdi Sings Erminia Frezzolini”
in Verdi Newsletter 24 (1997), 13-22. See also, Susan Rutherford, The Prima Donna and Opera, 1815-1930
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2006), and Céline Frigau’s master’s thesis for Paris VIII, 2006 (Une voix,
un geste, un corps : Giuditta Pasta en scène : opinions de spectateurs dans La Pasta nell’Otello, Luigi Morando
de Rizzoni, Vérone, 1830) and her doctoral dissertation of 2010, which deals with performers at the Théâtre-
Italien in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century.
5 An important series of essays concerning Maria Malibran was recently published, the fruit of research into this
illustrious singer, daughter of the important tenor, Emanuel García: Malibran: Storia e leggenda, canto e belcanto
nel primo Ottocento italiano, Piero Mioli, ed. (Pàtron editore: Bologna, 2010).
6 For further information, see the Preface to the critical edition of Macbeth, David Lawton, ed., in The Works of
Giuseppe Verdi, Series I, vol. 10 (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, and Casa Ricordi—BMG Ricordi:
Milan, 2006).
7 See the Preface to the critical edition of La traviata, Fabrizio Della Seta, ed., in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi,
Series I, vol. 19 (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, and Casa Ricordi—BMG Ricordi: Milan, 1996).
8 A recording on Columbia Records, IRCC, N. 4-B (labeled as 1904, but supposedly reflecting a recording sesseion
actually held in London in 1907), demonstrates this: he sings the short aria twice in the original Italian (“Quand’ero
paggio”), then once in his native French (“Quand j’étais page”), accessed on YouTube, 2 June 2011.
9 See the Preface to the critical edition of I masnadieri, Roberta Montemorra Marvin, ed., in The Works of
Giuseppe Verdi, Series I, vol. 11 (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, and Casa Ricordi—BMG Ricordi:
Milan, 2000).
10 For a particularly astute treatment of the situation in Germany, see Gundula Kreuzer, Verdi and the Germans:
From Unification to the Third Reich (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2010). An important study is about
to be issued by George Martin, entitled Verdi in America: Oberto through Rigoletto (University of Rochester
Press: Rochester, N.Y., forthcoming).
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