This article shows how the conventions of nineteenth-century Italian opera and the constraints of censorship operate in Verdi's and Cammaranos's adaptation of Schiller's Kabale und Liebe. Situations had to be created so as to use arias and ensembles in the « solita forma », the four-part standard form also to be found outside Italy, even in Richard Wagner. Parts had to conform to the hierarchy of tessituras (the part of Milford was altered with regard to censorship, but also because there could not be two female roles of equal importance). Furthermore, political considerations also had to be taken into account, Wurm exemplifying Verdi's notion of evil. The transposition of the plot into the Tyrol illustrates the authors’ intention to establish an operatic contrast between tragedy and idyll.
