Il trovatore: Dramma in Four Parts by Salvadore Cammarano / Edition 2

by Giuseppe Verdi, David Lawton

Overview

Il trovatore, the middle opera of Verdi's famous "trilogy" of the 1850s (with Rigoletto and La traviata), is the sixth work to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. Based on Verdi's autograph score and an examination of important secondary sources including contemporary manuscript copies and performing parts, the edition identifies and resolves numerous ambiguities of harmony, melodic detail, text, and phrasing that have marred previous scores. Scholars and performers alike will find a wealth of information in the critical apparatus to inform their research and interpretations.

The lengthy introduction to the score discusses the work's genesis, sources, and performance history as well as issues of instrumental and vocal performance practice, production and staging, and problems of notation. As an added feature of the introduction is an original study by Carlos Matteo Mossa of the creation of the libretto, based on the original draft and numerous other autograph documents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226853130
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	07/15/1993
Series:	The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, Series I: Operas , #18
Edition description:	1
Pages:	597
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 14.50(h) x 2.70(d)

About the Author

David Lawton is professor of music at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Editorial Reviews

You really find out what a critical edition is worth when you have conducted the same opera with and without it. I’m sure the many other conductors who have done that with Il trovatore have shared my experience of the difference: in hundreds of details—from the correction of outright errors to the provision of clarity where the old editions left us guessing—it allows the musicians to start their work from scores and parts that help them at every turn. It lets us concentrate on discovering and interpreting the essence of the opera and gives us the information we need if here and there we have questions. Everyone who loves Verdi should have this score, and everyone studying or performing Il trovatore should use it.

Will Crutchfield