In the last decade of the nineteenth century, as Giuseppe Verdi was premiering his final work, Italian opera adopted a new direction, defined by the school of verismo. Arising as the era of Romantic music was waning, this short-lived musical style produced some of the most intensely passionate operas ever written.

Verismo employs less formally structured melody and focuses on the sublime and violent emotions emanating from conflicts involving love and hate.

This course examines five of verismo’s best works, staples of the contemporary operatic repertoire: Cavalleria rusticana (Pietro Mascagni), Pagliacci (Ruggiero Leoncavallo), Andrea Chénier (Umberto Giordano), Tosca (Giacomo Puccini), and Adriana Lecouvreur Francesco Cilea). Selections from these operas are studied for their distinctive passions and melodies. Different performances of the same selection are contrasted in order to highlight variations in style and interpretation by different artists. The class includes brief biographies of the composers, interwoven with the music.