Verdi’s “Luisa Miller”: Five Excerpts from an Opera Involving Love, Intrigue, and Poison
Giuseppe Verdi’s 1849 opera, Luisa Miller, broke new ground. With a tragic, convoluted story centering around love, betrayal, class struggle, jealous rivalry, and violence, it displayed an increased psychological depth. The orchestra played a greater dramatic role. The last of Verdi’s “middle period” operas, Luisa Miller set the stage for the composer’s celebrated later works, such as La traviata, Rigoletto, and Aida. The Lyric Opera of Chicago provides the following brief summery: Verdi’s sumptuously …