... with having imitated an existing play. In his protracted defense, he took every opportunity to distinguish his libretto from the literary tradition to which it belongs and tie it instead to the verismo movement (with which critics had associated it since the premiere). He began to claim, for instance...

...Arman Schwartz This article offers a new interpretation of the operatic phenomenon known as verismo , and of the relationship of Puccini's Tosca with that movement. In contrast to previous scholarship on verismo , which often treats the relationship between literature and music as transparent, I...