| Summary: | Taking a particularly representative page from Verdi’s Macbeth (1847) as an example, this article argues that what is important in school teaching is to select pertinent didactic items - namely those that can convey ‘essential knowledge’ about the subject being taught, and are also relevant from a cultural and educational perspective. The example used here is the so-called ‘Largo concertato’, a musical and theatrical structure which, in 19th-century Italian opera, usually coincides with a dramatic, emotionally charged climax resulting from a plot twist. The concertato from the first finale of Macbeth is described first of all in relation to the overall meaning of the play, including the necessary references to Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name. The analysis subsequently focuses on the morphological level, and is carried out on the basis of both the libretto and the score. Finally, the piece is placed in its historical context with the help of a comparative test: the term for comparison is the no less famous Largo concertato from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (1835).
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