The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopedia

"Of course, it’s a little bit of a cowardly choice on my point because I can’t choose more than five books and this is basically many books all in one place. One key feature of this encyclopaedia is that it’s recent—it dates from 2013, the second centennial of Verdi’s birth—and it includes the work of the leading Verdi scholars of our time. You have a multitude of highly authoritative voices which result in a remarkable stimulating read. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I wouldn’t necessarily anticipate reading it cover to cover, although it can be rewarding to do that, but imagine reading the entries on the operas maybe one by one—maybe chronologically—what you find is writings by those individuals who have either edited the critical editions or are preparing the critical editions. So, for example, you have Helen Greenwald who talks about Attila with great acumen, and you have Linda Fairtile who will do the critical edition of Otello —she’s working on it right now and should will be big news coming out fairly soon about that project. So, you have people who have worked on and lived with individual operas for years. Each entry gives you the up to date scholarship in a precise and approachable form, but it also lets you hear the individual voices of these and many others scholars. I love that Marvin has resisted the idea of giving every single entry on every single opera exactly the same shape. Provided that the basic information regarding the genesis of the work, the premiere, the shaping of the libretto, and the relation to the literary source are all there, each scholar has taken a different approach and that’s absolutely marvellous. As you get to know Verdi better, you also get to know the people who have worked on him. At the same time, the entries on the individual operas do not begin to define the Cambridge Verdi Encyclopaedia . There is terminology like: what is a cabaletta? Or parola scenica? Who are the singers, librettists, and impresarios and what is their story beyond their collaboration with Verdi? What do we know about Verdi’s compositional process? How did a Verdi opera get written, so to speak? What is a skeleton score? All of these things are explored concisely and yet vividly. I just like how accurate and approachable everything is. Also, at the end of each entry, you will very often find bibliographical references so that you know where to go when you want to find out more. And at the end there are excellent appendices providing a chronology of Verdi’s life, a list of works, a great list of operatic roles, and of course a thorough bibliography. Yes, it certainly was remarkable how he came to read and appreciate Shakespeare . His interest in Shakespeare is one of the defining aspects of Verdi’s career although, of course, he had other dramatists that he was fond of and to whom he returned more than once, such as Friedrich Schiller and Victor Hugo. But Shakespeare is certainly a very special case. The Cambridge Verdi Encyclopaedia gives us insights into Verdi’s literary tastes. Whenever there is a literary source that we know about, whether it’s Shakespeare or Duval is based, you can go to the Encyclopaedia and start reading about that."