"This brilliant, original book illuminates how the reigning conception of manhood ineluctably leads to tragedy. In Verdi's operas, Richards finds a parallel to Greek tragedy a musical art, honed at a moment of historical transition, that reveals the irreconcilable antagonism between patriarchy and democracy. He explains why Verdi's operas move us so powerfully, and shows us how Verdi's music dramas ... Read moregive expression to a voice that is psychologically and politically vital. This is creative scholarship at its best, a book written at a place where disciplines intersect. Illustrating how Verdi's operas illuminate tragic breaks in human relationships, the author also shows how a personal and political psychology elucidates Verdi's genius. For opera lovers, this book is a gift; to novices it extends an invitation to discover in music drama a way of hearing the underworld' and thus coming to understand emotions and experiences that we resist knowing."
University Professor, New York University, and author of In a Different Voice and The Birth of Pleasure. "In this complex but rewarding book, Richards (law, NYU) challenges the ill effects that patriarchal societies have placed in the way of individual voices of both men and women, and the ways in which tragedy, as fashioned by ancient Greek playwrights, has occupied a problematic ground between patriarchy and democracy. Beginning with a consideration of some major Greek tragedies, the author moves on to discuss ways in which patriarchal demands mute true voices, and he contrasts the patriarchal and democratic concepts of manhood. Turning to the operas of Verdi, whom he considers the greatest tragedian in the history of opera, Richards finds - specifically in the music - the expression of a psychological truth that works against the demands of patriarchy on those who find them supremely painful. Richards interdisciplinary approach calls on the fields of history, literature, sociology, psychology, and political science, and he also offers his own reflections on matters at hand. For him, Verdis operas are a locus in which characters can express in music the voices that patriarchy has suppressed and thus show the destructive force on women but, more centrally, on men. In Verdis music Richards finds emotions and memories that cannot otherwise be discussed. Recommended."
Choice. "This brilliant, original book illuminates how the reigning conception of manhood ineluctably leads to tragedy. In Verdi's operas, Richards finds a parallel to Greek tragedy - a musical art, honed at a moment of historical transition, that reveals the irreconcilable antagonism between patriarchy and democracy. He explains why Verdi's operas move us so powerfully, and shows us how Verdi's music dramas give expression to a voice that is psychologically and politically vital. This is creative scholarship at its best, a book written at a place where disciplines intersect. Illustrating how Verdi's operas illuminate tragic breaks in human relationships, the author also shows how a personal and political psychology elucidates Verdi's genius. For opera lovers, this book is a gift; to novices it extends an invitation to discover in music drama a way of hearing the underworld' and thus coming to understand emotions and experiences that we resist knowing."
University Professor, New York University, and author of In a Different Voice and The Birth of Pleasure Show Less