Verdi Opera
- Artist/Author/Producer: Verdi
- Confronting Bodies: Italian Church and Government
- Dates of action: 1850+
- Location: Trieste, Italy
- Description of the Art Work
- An opera entitled Stiffelio about "a contemporary Protestant minister
in Salzburg whose non-violent beliefs are shaken by his wife's
infidelity." Within the course of the narrative "the preacher, searching
for a sermon subject, hits on Christ's defense of the woman about to be
stoned for adultery."
- Description of incident
- Due to the staunch Catholic population of 1850's Italy, and the
historical policy which prohibited in a church service on stage,
Stiffelio was considered completely inappropriate and was thus
transformed into Aroldo, "with the hero a returning English crusader,
not a man of peace, but of war, the blood of countless infidels staining
his sword."
- Results of incident
- Stiffelio (its original score) was successfully buried during Verdi's
lifetime and its existence remained unknown until 1968 when two
copyists manuscripts were discovered in the Naples library, Biblioteca Di
San Pietro a Majella. Since that time several Verdi scholars have lead
the search to recover the entire original version of Stiffelio, with the
Verdi family's consent to access Verdi's Sant' Agata estate.
Speculative productions in Italy as well as its 1976 U.S. premiere at
Vincent La Selva's New York Grand Opera at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
have preceded the expected publication of the 'critical score' by
Ricordi of Milan (Verdi's original publisher) and the University of
Chicago Press, pending the discovery of "Verdi's autograph for the short
but most censored final scene."
Source: "Village Voice"