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Chapter 5 - Jérusalem to La battaglia di Legnano

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

Gabriele Baldini
Translated by
Roger Parker
Edited by
Fedele d'Amico
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Summary

We have already discussed several times how Verdi gradually moved farther and farther away from the possibility of composing a King Lear as he included various aspects of it into his operas. In one sense Verdi's complete work might be compared to an immense King Lear, with the cabaletta playing the role of the fool. I Masnadieri also constitutes a stage in this frustrated search: not so much in the central subject as in the irrationality of the feelings which tear Francesco Moor apart. This brings us to the sub-plot of King Lear, and the relationship between Gloucester and his two sons, which finds a very clear, perhaps intentional parallel in Massimiliano Moor and his two sons, Francesco and Carlo. But to feel the force of this relationship one must remain within its closed, elemental, primitive irrationality.

We know how amazed Muzio was by London, but Verdi's reaction is not recorded. As Muzio wrote to Barezzi:

The great city of London! Paris is unimportant by comparison. London is a Babylon: people shouting, the poor weeping, clouds of smoke, men on horseback, in carriages, on foot, and all shouting like the damned. To go from one end of the city to the other one must pass three changing posts, and use three different horses.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Story of Giuseppe Verdi
Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera
 , pp. 135 - 154
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1980

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