The listening example I chose is “Un di felice” from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. Upon first listen, my ear was mainly listening to the sort of “roadmap” of the piece. We first hear the tenor voice in a sort of lament, then suddenly a soprano comes in with a much lighter and bouncier sound, changing the direction of the piece. The first few times I heard it, I found the soprano entrance to be a bit jarring, but as I continued to listen to it, I of course started to anticipate it, and so her entrance began to sound much more natural to me. I began to hear what Verdi may have been intending with her sort of quickly taking over the sound of the aria. The main change I noticed however was my interpretation of the characters within the duet. As I listened to it, I noticed more and more emotional nuances in the voices and the accompaniment, and I began to pick out some recognizable Italian words to help me to better understand the context. For example, the first time through I didn’t understand the text at all, but as I continued to listen I started to notice words and phrases like “amor” (love) and “delizia al cor” (delight to the heart) from the tenor, while the soprano seems to be singing phrases like “solo amistade” (friendship only) and “dimenticarmi” (forget me). This on top of my understanding the contrast between their sections helped me to better understand the meaning of the piece over many repetitions.