The Italian Institute of Culture in Zagreb, with the Bogdan Orizovic Library, have scheduled a moment of reflection on the Italian Risorgimento with a lecture by Monica Priante entitled “How Opera Became a Tool for Political Propaganda”, which will be held in Zagreb on Thursday. The promoters of the event said the Risorgimento was at the time seen as revolutionary and subversive movements, with the chants that pervaded the streets during revolutions becoming the major echo for political requests. Banned songs and opera arias containing strong patriotic messages would break out of theatres and pervade the city streets.
“How Opera Became a Tool for Political Propaganda”
The reflection will focus on how the ideas of the Risorgimento, conceived by a handful of intellectuals, convinced people that it was worth dying for one’s homeland in the same way as the heroes of operas, poems and novels. The lecture will look at the communication content of Verdi’s work and how it became so seductive as to make young people from well-to-do families turn into ardent patriots. Monica Priante, a graduate in History of European Civilization at Milan’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, moved to Zagreb in 2003 and obtained a PhD in Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Zagreb.
