The University of Chicago Press, in collaboration with Casa Ricordi of Milan, has undertaken to publish the first critical edition of the complete works of Giuseppe Verdi. The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, the only edition based exclusively on original sources and the only one to present authentic versions of all the composer's works, will include each of Verdi's twenty-eight operas (all versions), his sacred music, songs, chamber music, and juvenilia. The series begins with the definitive version of Rigoletto.

Il trovatore, the middle opera of Verdi's famous "trilogy" of the 1850s (with Rigoletto and La traviata), is the sixth work to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. Based on Verdi's autograph score and an examination of important secondary sources including contemporary manuscript copies and performing parts, the edition identifies and resolves numerous ambiguities of harmony, melodic detail, text, and phrasing that have marred previous scores. Scholars and performers alike will find a wealth of information in the critical apparatus to inform their research...

The performance history of "Stiffelio" as Verdi envisioned it began only in 1993. Composed with "Rigoletto, " and sharing many of its characteristics, "Stiffelio" suffered from the censors' strictures. From its premiere in 1850, its text was diluted to appease the authorities, making a mockery of the action and Verdi's carefully calibrated music. The story of Stiffelio, a protestant minister who eventually divorces his adulterous wife but forgives her from the pulpit in the final scene, shocked conservative Italian religious and political powers. The libretto was rewritten for subsequent...

Composed between October 1846 and the spring of 1847, "I masnadieri" features a libretto based on Schiller's play "Die Rauber" (The Robbers). The opera premiered in July 1847 at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, with Jenny Lind as the "prima donna." Verdi himself supervised the rehearsals for the premiere, and the original performing parts, which contain annotations made by the players under Verdi's direction and changes made by the composer during the rehearsals, have been preserved at the archives of the Royal Opera House.
The critical edition is the first publication of "I masnadieri" in...

"Alzira" is the seventh work and the sixth opera to be published in the critical edition of "The Works of Giuseppe Verdi." Composed during the middle of the very productive period of Verdi's first large-scale successes, "Alzira" premiered at Naples on August 12, 1845. Cammarano's libretto is based on a play of Voltaire, who used a real incident in sixteenth-century Peru during the Spanish conquest to shape a critique of the morality of the noble savage as against Christian values. The inherent conflicts and exotic setting appealed to Verdi's dramatic sense, and in its best moments the music...

'Il trovatore' gilt als Inbegriff des romantischen italienischen Gesangstheaters. Schon zu Verdis Lebzeiten war der 'Troubadour' eine seiner beliebtesten Opern, die nach der Uraufführung 1853 in Rom rasch auf anderen Bühnen nachgespielt wurde. Aufgrund ihrer ungestümen und kraftvollen Musik erfreut sie sich bis heute großer Beliebtheit. Die neue Textausgabe des von Salvadore Cammarano nach dem Schauspiel 'El trovador' von Antonio García Gutiérrez verfassten Librettos folgt dem Druck des zur Uraufführung erschienenen Textes.

Am 9. März 1842 wurde 'Nabucco' an der Mailänder Scala uraufgeführt - ein überwältigender Erfolg, der Verdi den Durchbruch als Opernkomponist brachte. Auch heute gehört das "Drama lirico" zum Repertoire großer und kleiner Bühnen; der Chor der gefangenen Hebräer kann wohl als der berühmteste aller Opernchöre gelten, die Verse "Va, pensiero, sull'ali dorate" (Zieht, Gedanken, auf goldenen Flügeln) wurden zum Topos der Befreiung.

Die Uraufführung des 'Rigoletto' (1851) markiert den ersten Höhepunkt in Verdis Schaffen. Die Oper, die auf ein Drama von Viktor Hugo (Le Roi s'amuse, 1832) zurückgeht, ist ein Stück von bizarrer Logik, mit einer grotesken Mischung aus wilder Leidenschaft und schwarzem Humor, tragischem Ernst und verzweifeltem Spott. Verdi selbst sprach von ihr als von einer revolutionären Oper.§Der Text wird in der hier vorgelegten Ausgabe im Original und einer wörtlichen deutschen Prosaübersetzung präsentiert.