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Article: Reticence, a rhetorical strategy in Othelto/Otello: Shakespeare, Verdi-Boito, Zeffirelli.
- Article from:
- Italica
- Article date:
- June 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 American Association of Teachers of Italian. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Since the seventeenth century, Shakespeare's plays have fascinated opera composers (close to 200 operas were inspired by them). Verdi s special fondness for "il Bardo" as he often called him, is well known. He considered him a kindred spirit. Verdi, too, in fact, wanted to represent on stage the drama of human passions: simply, directly, and effectively. Fidelity to the drama was what he hoped to achieve in all his operas--drama, therefore, not only in a technical sense, that is, as a play to be staged, but drama as human struggle, as the stage of the conflict of human passions. The criterion to which he adhered was that of dramatic truth. The dramatist to whom Verdi ...