37

Deconstructing a political myth that recognizes Verdi as “the father of the Italian homeland”, this text proposes a re-reading of the usual representation of relationships between Italian opera and the Risorgimento. Far from denying the function of opera in constructing a nationalist discourse, the text emphasizes and analyzes the specific (and sometimes contradictory) mechanisms of this function. This article investigates how opera houses served as key locations for the dissemination of a patriotic discourse, and examines the complex, two-way exchange between musical melodrama and the Italian nationalist movement between 1846 and 1849: patriotic themes penetrated the intrigues of librettos and inflamed audiences well beyond composers’ intentions, while melodramatic narration influenced language, gestures and political narratives of the period. This text demonstrates how, in Risorgimento Italy, national discourse was marked by the “melodramatic imagination” masterfully discussed by Peter Brooks.