verismo

American  

[vuh-riz-moh, ve-reez-maw] / vəˈrɪz moʊ, vɛˈriz mɔ /

noun

1. the use of everyday life and actions in artistic works: introduced into opera in the early 1900s in reaction to contemporary conventions, which were seen as artificial and untruthful.

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verismo British  

/ veˈrismo, vɛˈrɪzməʊ /

noun

1. music a school of composition that originated in Italian opera towards the end of the 19th century, drawing its themes from real life and emphasizing naturalistic elements. Its chief exponent was Puccini

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Etymology

Origin of verismo

1905–10; < Italian: realism, equivalent to ver ( o ) true (< Latin vērus ) + -ismo -ism

Example Sentences

Puccini’s “Turandot,” a verismo opera set in a fabled version of ancient China, makes for an odd love story.

From New York Times • Feb. 29, 2024

It is verismo without the melodrama, a knowing soundtrack for how goodness is found in the quotidian.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 28, 2024

His verismo operatic adaptation of Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge,” from 1999, was prominently documented on a New World Records album from Chicago’s Lyric Opera.

From New York Times • Dec. 23, 2022

Indeed, Samuel Barber’s “First Essay,” which debuted in 1938, is about as European as American music gets, a stretch of serious craft laced with Romantic and verismo infections.

From Washington Post • Feb. 28, 2020

At the first I listened to some of the hot-blooded music of an Italian composer of the so-called school of verismo.

From A Book of Operas Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music by Krehbiel, Henry Edward