Mary Ann Smart (Music) shows how Giuseppe Verdi's operas — along with those by Rossini, Donizetti, and Mercadante —inspired Italians to imagine Italy as an independent and unified nation. Capturing what it was like to attend the opera or to join in the music at an aristocratic salon, her book Waiting for Verdi (UC Press, 2018) shows how opera set new horizons for what Italians could think, feel, say, and write.

Smart is joined by Hannah Ginsborg (Philosophy).