Giuseppe Verdi was at the height of his powers when he wrote La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) for Saint Petersburg in 1861, yet he kept tinkering with it for the rest of the decade. Why? He could never get the balance quite right, or shape the sprawling plot into a cohesive whole. A Spanish melodrama of the kind that had served him well enough for Il trovatore a decade earlier was no longer in tune with his new depth of psychological insight, yet his writing for the soprano heroine Leonora and the fierce duets between the two men who love her are some of the most powerful of his career. Thanks to video, we are in the fortunate position of being able to compare a revival from Saint Petersburg in the original sets to a modern approach such as the 2016 Munich production by Martin Kusej that will occupy the larger portion of the class.

The class handout (links above) includes an outline of the story insofar as the major characters are concerned; for a longer synopsis that also includes the minor ones, click here. In this particular case, the eight-minute overture that Verdi wrote for later performances gives an excellent feel for the melodies and many dramatic moods of the opera that follows. rb.