In the 1840s, Italian composers Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini commanded full attention on the opera stages of Europe. The young Giuseppe Verdi inherited their traditions—and then began to transform them. In a 5-session series, classical music and opera expert Saul Lilienstein uses audio and video recordings to illustrate how the myriad musical and theatrical elements of Italian opera evolved under Verdi’s restless imagination.