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Giuseppe Verdi
1813 – 1901
One of the few composers whose genius was recognised while he was alive, Verdi's reputation as the greatest of all Italian opera composers is beyond dispute.
Life and Music
- The son of an innkeeper, Verdi liked to exaggerate his lowly origins, describing himself as "a peasant from Roncole" (his place of birth).
- His parents identified his talent when he was very young; by the age of seven he was organist at San Michele Arcangelo, the local church, and by 13, assistant conductor of the Busseto Orchestra.
- He failed the Milan Conservatory entrance exams in 1832. Private tuition and an appointment as a municipal music master in Busseto kept things bubbling along, but just as La Scala in Milan accepted his first surviving opera, Oberto, Conte di San Voniface, personal and professional disaster struck.
- In the space of under two years, he lost both of his young children and then his wife, Margherita, to illness ("A third coffin goes out of my house. I was alone!" he later wrote). Then, only two months after his wife's death, his second opera, Un giorno di regno, bombed and all future performances were cancelled.
- The libretto of Nabucco was a great success, its story of Jewish captivity combined with Verdi's march and hymnal refrains perfectly capturing the spirit of the risorgimento.
- Choruses from Nabucco and the later I Lombardi all prima crociata were adopted as anthems of Italian freedom-fighters.
- The highest-paid Italian composer of his time, Verdi gave money for weapons to help drive the Austrians out of Italy in 1866.
- In 1847 he fell in love with Giuseppina Strepponi, a soprano, who would remain his devoted companion until her death 50 years later.
- In 1853, within two months of each other, Il trovatore and La traviata were premiered.
- At the height of his fame is 1870, despite having successfully produced only two operas during the 1860s - La forza del destino and Don Carlo - Verdi was commissioned to write an opera to mark the opening of Egyptian ruler Khedive Ismail's new opera house in Cairo. Verdi missed the deadline (Rigoletto was used instead), but a year later Aida was finished and no expense was spared on the lavish sets.
- The 58-year-old composer unexpectedly entered a period of creative semi-retirement. His gargantuan Requiem (1874), written to mark the death of the great Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni, had to be virtually dragged out of him. It is now rated among his greatest works.
- In February 1887 he triumphantly re-emerged with one of his very finest works, Otello. Public response bordered on the hysterical.
- His death in 1901 from a stroke was marked by the kind of national grief associated with the passing of royalty.
Did you know?
Verdi's relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi caused a scandal by living together outside wedlock until they finally married in 1859.
