Verdi
NAME:
Verdi, Giuseppe
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Created some of the most popular, enduring operas of all time and influenced the nationalist and romantic movements in Italy.
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
9 October, 1813. Busseto, Italy.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH:
21 January, 1901, Milan, Italy. 87 years old.
DISCIPLINE:
Composer
FIELD:
Music
LANGUAGE:
Italian
PARENTS:
Father Carlo Verdi, Mother Luigia Uttini
SIBLINGS:
Giuseppina Verdi
SPOUSE:
First, Margherita Barezzi, second, Giuseppina Strepponi
CHILDREN:
1 son, Icilio, 2 daughters, Virginia Maria Luigia and Filomena Maria (foster daughter).
EDUCATION:
Studied under musical patron Antonio Barezzi and composer Vincenzo Lavigna in Milan.
MAJOR WORK:
Rigoletto; Nabucco; Macbeth; La Traviata; Aida; Otello; Falstaff
LIFE AND TIMES:
Verdi was a precociously talented child and was already performing the organ at his local church at age nine. In 1831 he went to live with the local merchant and musical patron Antonio Barezzi. A year later, he applied for admission to the Milan conservatory and was rejected. He remained in Milan as a pupil of Vincenzo Lavigna.
In 1833 Verdi returned to Busseto to become the town’s master of music, a low post with an even lower salary. The same year he married Barezzi’s eldesr daughter, Margherita (1814-1840). They had a daughter, Virginia (1837-1838) and a son Icilio (138-1839).
The next few years were filled with both great tragedy and great success for Verdi. His wife and children all died of infectious diseases, and he resigned his post in Bussetto and moved to Milan in 1839.
In November 1839, his first opera, Oberto premiered at La Scala opera house in Milan and achieved modest success. Three more operas were commissioned. Casa Ricordi, the publishing house owned by <publisher was> Ricordi*, subsequently published almost all of Verdi’s operas and represented him until his death. They also advanced copyright law in Italy by threatening to sue anyone who performed or used Verdi’s music without their permission.
Verdi met his future mistress Giuseppina Strepponi in 1841 while Strepponi, a 26 year old soprano, was rehearsing for Verdi’s opera Nabucco. In 1842, Nabucco premiered at La Scala in Milan, where it was promptly hailed as a masterpiece. It was so popular that it was revived the following season for 57 more performances--- a figure unmatched either before or since.
All of Verdi’s operas from Nabucco to Aida (1871) were composed in the midst of political turmoil or revolution in Italy. Italy was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and although Italian opera was performed in Italy, the Austrian government imposed many rules on it, because they feared that the strong emotions it stirred in Italians could lead to riots. Verdi’s operas met with censorship from both Austrian and even Italian authorities until after Italy had been unified.
Nonetheless, Verdi’s operas had tremendous power over the hearts of Italians. In Attila (1846) the lines “Avrai tu l’universe, resti l’Italia a me” (“You have the universe; leave Italy to me”) inflamed the emotions of Italians despite the fact that these words were uttered by an Italian traitor proposing a deal with Attila the Hun.
Verdi attended the salon of Countess Clara Maffei, who provided a meeting place for freethinking intellectual figures. Through Maffei, Verdi met partisans of the Young Italy movement, whose leader was <met> Mazzini*. He also met Giulio Carcano, who had dedicated his life to the translation of the complete works of Shakespeare into Italian.
He sent Verdi his translations, and it was thus that Verdi was exposed to the playwright who would influence several of his greatest operas. From <adapted work of> Shakespeare* Verdi composed Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff.
It took courage for Verdi to stage a Shakespeare opera in Italy at that time. The superstitious and fantastic elements in the play offended many Italians, who considered the genre foreign. No Shakespeare play had been produced in public in Italy since 1842, when Othello was given in Milan, where it was a fiasco. To make matters worse, the opera was to premier in Florence, which was evenly divided between pro and anti-Verdi factions.
The opera received so much publicity that at the premier the doors were opened at four in the afternoon, four hours before curtain time. As usual, the opera bowled everyone over, and Florentines chased Verdi’s carriage through the streets.
Verdi was heavily influenced by <influenced by> by Schiller*. His operas I Masnadieri, Luisa Miller, and <wrote work about> Joan of Arc* are all based (1847) on plays by Schiller.
I Masnadieri (1847) was Verdi’s first opera composed for a foreign city, London. It premiered at Her Majesty’s Theatre in 1847. The included <wrote for> Jenny Lind*, the famous “Swedish Nightingale”. Verdi did not enjoy his London visit. His English was terrible and he thought the weather awful. <disliked by> Queen Victoria* wrote in her diary that the music was “noisy and trivial”, and unfortunately, London critics agreed.
Verdi was inspired by <inspired by> Hugo*, on whose play “Le Roi s’amuse” Verdi’s opera Rigoletto (1851) is based. Verdi followed this with Il Trovatore (1853) and La Traviata (1853). La Traviata is on <adapted work of> Dumas fils’* La Dame Aux Camellias.
The same year Verdi moved to Paris, where he composed Les Vespres Siciliennes (1855). <librettist was> Scribe*, the French playwright, the libretto.
Verdi was commissioned to write an opera for the opening of the <wrote Aida for opening of> Suez Canal*, built by the French diplomat <work related to> de Lesseps*, and the result was Aida (1871).
ASSESSMENT: Verdi’s operas are one among the few that have remained part of the standard reparatory. They are distinguished by dramatic staging and singing, and the large number of arias, choruses, and numbers.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Verdi <met> Beethoven* and <met> Diaghilev*.
Influenced <influenced> Bizet*
His ‘Ballo in Maschera’ was affected by an assassination attempt on <work related to>Napoleon III*
ONELINER: Giuseppe Verdi on of the greatest opera composers of all time
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, Verdi: A Biography, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1993.