Verdi, Opera, Women

Verdi''s operas - composed between 1839 and 1893 - portray a striking diversity of female protagonists: warrior women and peacemakers, virgins and courtesans, princesses and slaves, witches and gypsies, mothers and daughters, erring and idealised wives, and, last of all, a feisty quartet of Tudor townswomen in Verdi''s final opera, Falstaff. Yet what meanings did the impassioned crises and dilemma...