«Ce vieillard m’a maudit! – Quel vecchio maledivami!»

Verdi and Piave for Hugo (with a translation sample)

Abstract

Through a comparative analysis of Le Roi s’amuse (1832), by Victor Hugo, and Rigoletto (1851), by Giuseppe Verdi and Francesco Maria Piave, this essay takes into consideration the artistic relations between “romantic drama” and “melodrama”, paying also attention to the national function exerted by the work of Verdi and Hugo. Whereas Le Roi s’amuse is read with renewed interest (a translation sample of rhymed verses is provided, too), Piave’s libretto is read to explore its inner “faith” in drame and in that grotesque which keeps playing a pivotal role in Hugo’s poetics.