Word: gesualdo
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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MASTRO-DON GESUALDO, by Giovanni Verga (454 pp.; Grove Press; $3.50) is now reissued in the U.S. for the first time in 20 years. When D. H. Lawrence, who translated the book from the Italian, first discovered the works of Giovanni Verga, he wrote enthusiastically: "He is extraordinarily good-peasant-quite modern-Homeric . . ." Best known outside Italy for a minor work-his story Cavalleria Rusticana, on which the libretto for Mascagni's opera was based-Author Verga ranks second only to Manzoni among Italian novelists. Born in Sicily in 1840, he planned as his major work a kind...
...Gesualdo is a village-eye view of the drama that fascinated other 19th century novelists, including Balzac: the drama of a society in which the aristocracy is withering, while the middle class and even the peasantry are elbowing their way into the mirrored halls. The book's hero is a harddriving, shrewd peasant who grows rich, to the dismay of the seedy local gentry. The story is chiefly concerned with the battle between tough, energetic Mastro-don Gesualdo and that gentry-with the rich ones who connive to block his designs on their dwindling lands, with the impoverished ones...
...Music Club Chorus, under Howard Brown will sing shorter works by the 16th century composers Monteverdi, Morenzio, and Gesualdo di Venosa...