THE VERIST VERGA IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Between the end of the 20th century and the new millennium, while the critical debate on Giovanni Verga seemed to weaken and at the same time his influence on contemporary literature diminished, numerous artists in the musical world drew from the experimentalism inherent to the Catanian writer’s verist oeuvre. Through performances that combined theatre, dance, and music, often involving contaminations among different styles, the works of verist Verga transcended the geographical boundaries of Sicily to reach the ‘Big Apple’ and even reverberated in expressive pop-culture forms, including pop music, combining more traditional pieces in Sicilian dialect with rap sounds. Although the choice of musical works presented in this paper is limited to those based on the novel I Malavoglia and a few short stories, within this corpus containing various reinterpretations by contemporary artists one can find stylistic and thematic inspirations that reflect the cornerstones of Verga’s expressive innovation. This is, therefore, a tangible sign that the Etnean author, through the experimentation of his verist workshop, remains relevant in contemporary times.