부산대학교 도서관

The object of my thesis is to know two great composers who upheld the traditional opera style in Italy and how they developed it artistically. I will mention about the reason how the opera genre took place. In the next paragraph, I will describe about Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and Giacomo Puccini (1854-1924) who were composers, progressed and influenced opera to be popular, analyzing the main operatic arias of their works. First, I will talk on the history of opera. Opera was developed in Italy, France and German as the center entering the 18th century and had a golden age entering the 19th century. The opera had harmonized and grew to suitable format for each country. In modern times, the meaning of opera is composite art which is completed with all the artistic and technical facts; music, literature, drama, art, dance, costume, lighting, stage setting, etc. Musical trends of Italy was affected by the romanticism unlike other countries in Europe, but as the center entering the end of 19th century, they got interested in realism which dealt with the actual world instead of the romanticism which followed the ideal world. Italy’s romanticism was to do the role of the interim period to move to the realism. The realism influenced on music and opera. As a result, ‘Verismo opera’ was occurred as a new genre. Secondly, I am going to comment about Giuseppe Verdi. Giuseppe Verdi was born on 10th of October, 1813 in Le Roncole which is near Busseto in northern Italy. He spent most of his life composing opera and had no interest in his reputation. G. Verdi’s revised opera are over 30 songs and the songs which are exclusive of the revised ones are 26. The first-half of his operas showed the simple chord technique of the traditional Italian opera, and as it went through the second-half, his operas clearly displayed the role of orchestral music during the period of performing the opera got become more important. G. Verdi’s opera, ‘La Traviata’, is one of his masterpieces which are played widely in present day. ‘La Traviata’ means ‘The Fallen Woman’ and shows the realistic description which was about high society in Paris during that time and was an unfamiliar material to people. ‘La Traviata’ have been loved from people and regarded as a familiar work all around the world. Lastly, I want to discuss about Giacomo Puccini. Giacomo Puccini was born on December 23, 1858 in Lucca which is the middle of Italy and the center of Toscana Culture. When he was 18 years old, he watched impressively the opera “Aida” which was Giuseppe Verdi’s work and then this made him start to be an opera composer. G. Puccini’s three major works were ‘Tosca’, ‘La Boheme’ and ‘Madama Butterfly’, and he made the opera “Turandot” which was his last and unfinished work. He fought throat cancer for 3 years and passed away leaving incomplete three acts of the last finale of ‘Turandot’ on November 11, 1924. The main distinguishing trait about G. Puccini’s all works is to involve verismo and the orchestral accompaniment for his opera. To get the realistic and well-matched opera which had the stage background and the particular folk song of any region, he used a real folk song and music of the special region and showed an exotic mood. For example, his opera ‘La Boheme’ is a realistic work which is a background of a novel, an episode format and expressed the poor’s daily life. In summary, I think through understanding a work and a composer, we can get a better interpretation and further we can play a wonderful performance. To know the character in the work and express correctly the character’s feeling, contributes the perfection of the work and the playing the maturity level of a performance.