Verismo - Verismo As An Opera Style

Verismo As An Opera Style

Internationally, the term is more widely understood to refer to a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s. The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. It by and large rejects the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism.

On the other hand, the intimate psychological encounters in realistic settings that characterize an Austro-Germanic work like Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (1911) are not ordinarily discussed in terms of Verismo because of the self-conscious "period-costume" setting of Strauss's opera, and because its elite and intellectually refined atmosphere are at odds with the earthy operatic melodramas being written in Italy during the same period, which are more typically associated with Verismo opera.

The "realistic" approach of Verismo extends to the music: the score of a Verismo opera is for the most part continuous and is not divided into separate "numbers" that can be excised easily and performed in concert excerpts (as is the case with the operatic genres that preceded Verismo). This is not always true, however – Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, Tosca, and other verismo operas have arias, duets and choruses that are constantly excerpted in recitals, and Turandot (left incomplete at Puccini's death) marks a return to a "numbers" style.

It is interesting to note that Bizet's Carmen predated Cavalleria by 15 years. Carmen is essentially an archetypical Verismo opera: instead of kings and countesses the libretto features bullfighters, soldiers, factory workers and prostitutes embroiled in crime and violent passions.