This article examines the first opera of Prokofiev's Soviet period, Semyon Kotko (1939), in light of the disparity between two forms of melodrama, one affecting the opera's composition, the other its reception. The first is the classic melodrama, which offered the composer the foundation for a vivid, intense work that would also be suitable for a mass audience; the second is the melodrama reflecting the aesthetic norms and moral framework of socialist realism and High Stalinism. The simplicity and immediacy of Kotko avoided the directed emotionalism of the officially favoured model of Romantic opera, and the Ukrainian setting prompted references to the tradition of Gogolian comedy rather than an elevation of folk content to an epic dimension. Characters conform to archetypes of classic melodrama, and together with the opera's comic elements and the unique gestural idiom of its music and manner of performance, this detracted from the required effects of sublime heroism and nationalism. While the outlines of a socialist realist plot remain in Kotko, Prokofiev's commitment to what he considered timeless values of music and drama led to a failure, in socialist realist terms, to achieve an appropriate amplification of its moral essence.

This is a study of the primo ottocento Italian literary and historical vogue for conquerors and conquered peoples, and in particular how the fifth-century Attila became a paradigmatic figure to those involved with the Risorgimento, including Verdi and Solera.

Drawing on a wealth of new historical and musical documentation as well as the patriotic hymns of 1848, this essay places the Roman premiere of Attila at the forefront of revolutionary unrest. It also responds seriously to the claim that Verdi's Risorgimento agenda in his operas was not recognised in its own time.

This article clarifies the relationship between Verdi and Solera, shows why it broke down in 1846 and discusses Solera's idiosyncratic verses. It also rereads a widely misunderstood letter that Verdi sent to Solera, which contains not only Piave's emendations to the final act of Attila but also Solera's response to them, angrily scribbled over Piave's work.

This essay discusses the famous sunrise in the prologue of Attila in the context of early nineteenth-century theatrical lighting and musical conventions, and relates it to Félicien David's Le Désert, Haydn's The Creation and Rossini's Guillaume Tell, as well as Verdi's Alzira and Jérusalem.

This study untangles the complex literary, historical, political and theatrical web of Verdi, Solera, Zacharias Werner, Madame De Staël and Giuseppe Mazzini, and relates it to Verdi's use of light and dark imagery in Werner's play.