¹ For the autobiographical background, see Julian Budden's authoritative, Verdi, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008Google Scholar (3^rd ed.), and Roselli, John, The Life of Verdi, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000Google Scholar.

² See Van, Gilles de, Verdi's Theater. Creating Drama through Music, trans. Roberts, Gilda, Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1998 [1992], 157–67Google Scholar on the ‘Father Figure’ in Verdi's operas.

³ See Rosen, David, Verdi: Requiem, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Corse, Sandra, Opera and the Uses of Language, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Rutherford, 1987, 68Google Scholar. One of the most seminal nineteenth-century writings on the superiority of instrumental music to access the ineffable and sublime is Hoffman's, E. T. A. ‘Beethoven's Instrumental Music,’ in Strunk's Sources Readings in Music History, edited by Solie, Ruth A., Norton, W. W., New York, 1998, 151–9Google Scholar.

⁵ See Budden, Julian, The Operas of Verdi, Volume 1, Oxford University Press, New York, 1973, 477–81Google Scholar on Verdi's near total control over the words, music, and presentation of the opera.

⁶ We use the English translation of James Fenton (A) from the recording of The English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus for Jonathan Miller's staging (recorded 1983, 70 quote); and sometimes the translation of Ruth and Thomas Martin (B) for the Metropolitan Opera (G. Schirmer, New York, 1957); and sometimes the translation of Lionel Salter (C) for Deutsche Grammaphon, from the Riccardo Chailly 1988 recording with the Bologna Opera Orchestra. We are grateful to Dr Eliana Corbari for advice on the Italian. Pecknold has provided some translations (indicated: TP).

⁷ TP.

⁸ A, 78. This last line could also be translated: ‘I almost believed in the power of virtue’ – ‘Quasi spinto a virtù talor mi credo!’

⁹ Solo per me l'infamia / a te chiedeva, o Dio… / ch'ella potesse ascendere / quanto caduto er'io… / Ah presso del patibolo / bisogna ben l'altare! … / ma tutto, ma tutto ora scompare… / l'altare… si rovesciò! / tutto scompare

¹⁰ Egli è Delitto, Punizion son io’.

¹¹ O mio padre, qua gioia feroce/ balenarvi negli occhi vegg'io! Perdonate … a noi pure una voce/ di perdono dal cielo verrà.

¹² B, 12.

¹³ On the structure of nineteenth-century operatic aria and duet form, see Balthazar, Scott L., ‘The forms of set pieces’ in The Cambridge Companion to Verdi, ed. Balthazar, Scott L., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, 49–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ B, 12.

¹⁵ See Hughes, Derek, Culture and Sacrifice. Ritual Death in Literature and Opera, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, 144–154Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Clément, Catherine, Opera or the Undoing of Women, trans. Wing, Betsy, Virago Press, London, 1989 [1988], pp. 119, 60–65, 18–9Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Ah, s'egli al mio amore/ divenne rubello,/ io vo’ per la sua/ gettar la mia vita …

¹⁸ La donna è mobile / qual piuma al vento

¹⁹ Both (A) and (C) render ‘Dio! Loro perdonate!’ with ‘Heaven’.

²⁰ See Rita Steblin, A History of Key Characteristics in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, 2nd ed., Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002, 96–128 and 146–186.

²¹ Roger Parker, ‘Giuseppe Verdi,’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxycu.wrlc.org/subscriber/article/grove/music/29191pg4 (accessed November 22, 2011).

²² The major exception for the Duke is his third act ‘La donna è mobile’ (‘Women are Fickle’) in B Major with five sharps. But this too seems a deliberate choice. B Major has so many sharps that even into the nineteenth century it was considered harsh, violent and overexcited by most theorists. Here, Verdi's sense of irony is superb: he sets an innocuous-sounding melody, crooned in velvety tones by the most malicious of villains, in a key that attempts to sound bright and festive, but simply goes too far. Had the Duke sung in E Major (four sharps), such as Gilda does in ‘Caro nome’, we might believe his sentiments; but Verdi's choice of the overly-bright key ‘blinds’ the listener with its aggression; the Duke has transgressed the boundary of sensible key association—musically, he has sinned.

²³ See Steblin, 240–1.

²⁴ Ibid., 244.

²⁵ Censorship was a serious issue for Verdi. See Kimbell, David B., Verdi in the Age of Italian Romanticism, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981, 23–33Google Scholar.

²⁶ See La Dame aux camellias, The Folio Society, London, 1975, trans. Barbara Bray.

²⁷ Overturned for instance, in Clément, Opera or the Undoing of Women, 60–5, speaking of the ‘prostitute's crucifixion’ by the ‘bourgeois family’ (pp. 64, 60); see also Conrad, Song of Love and Death, p. 155. Others tend to secularise the ‘sacrifice’ theme, as increasingly too place because of the context of reception: see Hughes, Culture and Sacrifice. 144–154.

²⁸ Ruth and Martin, Thomas, transl., La traviata, G. Schirmer's Collection of Opera Librettos, New York, G. Schirmer, 1961, 7Google Scholar.

²⁹ vissi d'ignoto amor,/ di quell'amor ch’é palpito/dell’ universe intero,/ misterioso, altero,’ croce e delizia al cor. The Italian text and English translation come from the 1955 Giulini recording in Milan, with Callas as Violetta.

³⁰ During the middle period, Simon Boccanegra, shows the male/father carrying through this role.

³¹ (C), p. 4.

³² esser amata amando!

³³ E dal soffio d'amor rigenerato

³⁴ ciel

³⁵ Più non esiste – or amo Alfredo, e Dio/ lo cancellò col pentimento mio

³⁶ Se pur benefico le indulga lddio/ l'uomo implacabil – per lei sarà

³⁷ Martin, 6.

³⁸ vendicar

³⁹ Tergermi/ da tanta macchia bramo.

⁴⁰ Da lei perdono – più non avrò

⁴¹ See Hutcheon, Linda & Hutcheon, Michael, Opera: Desire, Disease, Death, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln & London, 1999, pp. 40–8Google Scholar. The AIDS analogy is interestingly developed by Snowman, Daniel, The Gilded Stage. A Social History of Opera, Atlantic Books, London, 2009, p. 241Google Scholar.

⁴² Il vostro/ sacrifizio io stesso gli ho svelato; egli/ a voi tornerà pel suo perdono

⁴³ Oh, malcauto vegliardo!/ Il mal chi'io feci ora sol vedo!

⁴⁴ A strazio sì terribil/ qui non mi trasse lddio

⁴⁵ Hutcheon & Hutcheon, p. 29–30, 46–7.

⁴⁶ Clément, pp. 64–5, although Clément, 60, is sensitive to the resurrection theme I wish to highlight. She says: ‘Violetta spits out her life in a song of resurrection.’

⁴⁷ Cessarono gli spasimi del dolore./ In me rinasce – m'agita insolito vigor!/ Ah! Ma ritorno a viver!/ Oh gioia!

⁴⁸ Martin, 24.

⁴⁹ TP.

⁵⁰ Martin, 24.

⁵¹ TP.

⁵² We thank Dr Eliana Corbari, Professor Gerard Loughlin, Angeline Smith Van Era, and Dr Andrew H. Weaver. No faults in this piece are attributable to them.