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Giuseppe Verdi

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Performers and composers;
Poetry & Opera

   Giuseppe Verdi, by Giovanni Boldini, 1886 (National Gallery of Modern
   Art, Rome).
   Enlarge
   Giuseppe Verdi, by Giovanni Boldini, 1886 (National Gallery of Modern
   Art, Rome).

   Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (either October 9 or 10, 1813 – 27
   January 1901) was an Italian composer, mainly of opera. He was the most
   influential composer of the 19th century Italian opera. His works are
   frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and,
   transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long
   since taken root in popular culture - such as " La donna è mobile" from
   Rigoletto and " Libiamo ne' lieti calici" from La traviata. Although
   his work was sometimes criticized as catering to the tastes of the
   common folk, using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical
   idiom, and having a tendency towards melodrama, Verdi’s masterworks
   dominate the standard repertoire a century and a half after their
   composition.

Biography

Early life

   Verdi was born in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto in the Duchy of
   Parma and Piacenza (now in the province of Parma). The baptismal
   register, on 11 October, lists him as being "born yesterday", but since
   days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant
   either 9 or 10 October. His father was an innkeeper. When he was still
   a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the
   future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the
   large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. Also in Busseto,
   Verdi received his first lessons in composition from Ferdinando
   Provesi, who was in charge of the local philharmonic society.

   Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies, but the
   Conservatory of Music rejected him, citing that he was two years over
   the age limit. Verdi took private lessons in counterpoint while
   attending operatic performances in Milan, as well as lesser concerts
   of, specifically, Viennese music. Association with Milan's beaumonde
   convinced him he should pursue a career as a theatre composer.

   Returning to Busseto, he became town music master and he gave his first
   public performance at the home of Antonio Barezzi in 1830, a local
   merchant and music lover who supported Verdi's musical ambitions in
   Milan. He invited Verdi to be the music teacher of his daughter,
   Margherita. They married in 1836 and their two children died in
   infancy. Margherita died in 1840.

Initial recognition

   The production of his first opera, Oberto, by Milan's La Scala,
   achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, an
   impresario with La Scala, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.

   While working on his second opera, Un Giorno di Regno, Verdi's wife and
   children died. The opera was a flop and he fell into despair vowing to
   give up musical composition forever. However, Merelli persuaded him to
   write Nabucco in 1842 and its opening performance made Verdi famous.
   Legend has it that it was the words of the famous "Va pensiero" chorus
   of the Hebrew slaves which inspired Verdi to begin writing again.

   A large number of operas followed in the decade after 1843, a period
   which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included
   I Lombardi (1843) and Ernani (1844)

   For some, the most important and original among Verdi's early operas is
   Macbeth (1847). For the first time, Verdi attempted an operistic
   adaptation of a work by his favorite dramatist, William Shakespeare,
   and by creating an opera without a love story, he broke a basic
   convention in Italian 19th Century opera.

   In 1847, I Lombardi, revised and renamed Jerusalem, was produced by the
   Paris Opera and, due to a number of Parisian conventions that had to be
   honored (including extensive ballets), became Verdi's first work in the
   French grand-opera style.

Great master

   At the age of thirty-eight, Verdi began an affair with Giuseppina
   Strepponi, a soprano in the twilight of her career. Their cohabitation
   before marriage was regarded as scandalous in some of the places they
   lived, but Verdi and Giuseppina married in 1859. While living in
   Busseto with Strepponi, Verdi bought an estate two miles from the town
   in 1848. Initially, his parents lived there, but, after his mother's
   death in 1851, he made the Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata his home until his
   death.

   As the "galley years" were drawing to a close, Verdi created one of his
   greatest masterpieces, Rigoletto which premiered in Venice in 1851.
   Based on a play by author Victor Hugo, the libretto had to undergo
   substantive revisions in order to satisfy the epoch's censorship, and
   the composer was on the verge of giving it all up a number of times.
   The opera quickly became a great success.
   Giuseppina (Peppina) Strepponi.
   Enlarge
   Giuseppina (Peppina) Strepponi.

   With Rigoletto Verdi sets up his original idea of musical drama as a
   cocktail of heterogeneous elements embodying social and cultural
   complexity, and beginning from a distinctive mixture of comedy and
   tragedy. Rigoletto's musical range includes band-music such as the
   first scene or the song La donna è mobile, Italian melody such as the
   famous quartet Bella figlia dell'amore, chamber music such as the duet
   between Rigoletto and Sparafucile and powerful and concise declamatos
   often based on key-notes like the C and C# notes in Rigoletto and
   Monterone's upper register.

   There followed the second and third of the three major operas of
   Verdi's "middle period": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and
   La traviata in Venice. The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils'
   play The Lady of the Camellias.

   Between 1855 and 1867 an outpouring of great Verdi operas were to
   follow, among them such repertory staples as Un ballo in maschera
   (1859), La forza del destino (commissioned by the Imperial Theatre of
   Saint Petersburg for 1861 but not performed until 1862), and a revised
   version of Macbeth (1865). Other somewhat less often performed include
   Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) and Don Carlos (1867), both commissioned
   by the Paris Opera and initially given in French. Today, these latter
   two operas are most often performed in Italian; and Simon Boccanegra in
   1857.

   In 1869, Verdi composed a section for a Requiem Mass in memory of
   Gioacchino Rossini. Verdi proposed the Requiem to be a collection of
   sections composed by other Italian contemporaries of Rossini. The
   Requiem was compiled and completed, but it was not performed in Verdi's
   lifetime. Verdi later reworked and used the "Libera Me" section he
   composed for the Rossini Requiem as part of a complete Requiem Mass,
   honoring Alessandro Manzoni, who died in 1873. The complete Requiem was
   first performed at the cathedral in Milan, on 22 May 1874.

   Verdi's grand opera, Aida, is sometimes thought to have been
   commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in
   1869, but, according to Budden (see below, volume 3), Verdi turned down
   the Khedive's invitation to write an "ode" for the new opera house he
   was planning to inaugurate as part of the canal opening festivities.
   The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. It was
   later in 1869/70, when the organizers again approached Verdi, this time
   with the idea of writing an opera, that he again turned them down. They
   warned him they would ask Charles Gounod instead, but when they
   threatened to engage Richard Wagner's services, Verdi begin to show
   some considerable interest, and agreements were signed in June 1870.

   In fact, the two composers, who were the leaders of their respective
   schools of music, seemed to resent each other greatly. They never met.
   Verdi's comments on Wagner and his music are few and hardly benevolent
   ("He invariably chooses, unnecessarily, the untrodden path, attempting
   to fly where a rational person would walk with better results"), but at
   least one of them is kind: upon learning of Wagner's death, Verdi
   lamented: "Sad! Sad! Sad! ... a name that leaves a most powerful mark
   on the history of our art." Of Wagner's comments on Verdi, only one is
   well-known. After listening to Verdi's Requiem, the great German,
   prolific and eloquent in his comments on some other composers, said,
   "It would be best not to say anything."

   Aida premiered in Cairo in 1871 and was an instant success.

Twilight

   During the following years Verdi worked on revising some of his earlier
   scores, most notably new versions of Don Carlos, La forza del destino,
   and Simon Boccanegra.

   Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by
   the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan
   in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into
   separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Some feel that although
   masterfully orchestrated, it lacks the melodic lustre so characteristic
   of Verdi's earlier, great, operas, while many critics consider it
   Verdi's greatest tragic opera, containing some of his most beautiful,
   expressive music and some of his richest characterizations. In
   addition, it lacks a prelude, something Verdi listeners are not
   accustomed to.

   Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto, also by Boito, was based
   on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent
   translation, was an international success. The score is one of the
   supreme comic operas and shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.

   Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards are a
   staple of the standard repertoire. No composer of Italian opera has
   managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of
   Giacomo Puccini.

Verdi's role in the Risorgimento

   Music historians have long perpetuated a myth about the famous Va,
   pensiero chorus sung in the third act of Nabucco. The myth reports
   that, when the Va, pensiero chorus was sung in Milan, then belonging to
   the large part of Italy under Austrian domination, the audience,
   responding with nationalistic fervor to the exiled slave's lament for
   their lost homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were
   expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would
   have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this
   to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not
   for Va, pensiero but rather for the hymn Immenso Jehova, sung by the
   Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving his people. In light of these new
   revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the
   Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed . On the other hand,
   during rehearsals, workmen in the theatre stopped what they were doing
   during "Va, pensiero" and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting
   melody.

   The myth of Verdi as Risorgimento's composer also reports that the
   slogan "Viva VERDI" was used throughout Italy to secretly call for
   Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia, referring to Victor Emmanuel II, then
   king of Sardinia.

   The Chorus of the Hebrews (the English title for Va, pensiero) has
   another appearance in Verdi folklore. Prior to his body being driven
   from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final
   resting place at the Casa di Risposa, Arturo Toscanini conducted a
   chorus of 820 singers in "Va, pensiero". At the Casa, the Miserere from
   Il trovatore was sung. .

Style

   Verdi's predecessors who influenced his music were Rossini, Bellini,
   Giacomo Meyerbeer and, most notably, Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio
   Mercadante. With the possible exception of Otello and Aida, he was free
   of Wagner's influence. Although respectful of Gounod, Verdi was careful
   not to learn anything from the Frenchman whom many of Verdi's
   contemporaries regarded as the greatest living composer. Some strains
   in Aida suggest at least a superficial familiarity with the works of
   the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, whom Franz Liszt, after his tour
   of the Russian Empire as a pianist, popularized in Western Europe.

   Throughout his career, Verdi rarely used to use the high C in his tenor
   arias, citing the fact that the opportunity to sing that particular
   note in front of an audience distracts the performer before and after
   the note comes on. However, he did provide high Cs to Duprez in
   Jérusalem and to Tamberlick in the original version of La forza del
   destino. The high C often heard in the aria Di quella pira was never
   written by Verdi.

   Although his orchestration is often masterful, Verdi relied heavily on
   his melodic gift as the ultimate instrument of musical expression. In
   fact, in many of his passages, and especially in his arias, the harmony
   is ascetic, with the entire orchestra occasionally sounding as if it
   were one large accompanying instrument - a giant-sized guitar playing
   chords. Some critics maintain he paid insufficient attention to the
   technical aspect of composition, lacking as he did schooling and
   refinement. Verdi himself once said, "Of all composers, past and
   present, I am the least learned." He hastened to add, however, "I mean
   that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of
   music."

   However, it would be incorrect to assume that Verdi underestimated the
   expressive power of the orchestra or failed to use it to its full
   capacity where necessary. Moreover, orchestral and contrapuntal
   innovation is characteristic of his style: for instance, the strings
   doing the rapid ascending scale in Monterone's scene in Rigoletto
   accentuate the drama, or, also in Rigoletto, the choir humming six
   closely grouped notes backstage portray, very effectively, the brief
   ominous wails of the approaching tempest. Verdi's innovations are so
   distinctive that other composers do not use them; they remain, to this
   day, Verdi's signature tricks.

   Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking
   out plots to suit his (or her) particular talents. Working closely with
   his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte,
   he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based
   was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous"
   participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich
   in drama remained.

Verdi's operas

     * Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio - Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1839
     * Un Giorno di Regno - Teatro alla Scala, 1840
     * Nabucco - Teatro alla Scala, 1842
     * I Lombardi - Teatro alla Scala, 1843
     * Ernani - Teatro La Fenice, Venice 1844
     * I due Foscari - Teatro Argentina, Rome, 1844
     * Giovanna d'Arco - Teatro alla Scala, 1845
     * Alzira - Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1845
     * Attila - Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1846
     * Macbeth - Teatro della Pergola, Florence, 1847
     * I masnadieri - Her Majesty's Theatre, London, 1847
     * Jérusalem - Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, 1847 (revised
       version of I Lombardi)
     * Il corsaro - Teatro Grande, Trieste, 1848
     * La battaglia di Legnano - Teatro Argentina, Rome, 1849
     * Luisa Miller - Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1849
     * Stiffelio - Teatro Grande, Trieste, 1850
     * Rigoletto - Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1851
     * Il trovatore - Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1853
     * La traviata - Teatro la Fenice, 1853
     * Les vêpres siciliennes - Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, 1855
     * Le trouvère - Académie Royale de Musique, Paris, 1857 (revised
       version of Il trovatore with a ballet added)
     * Simon Boccanegra - Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1857
     * Aroldo - Teatro Nuovo, Rimini, 1857 (revised version of Stiffelio)
     * Un ballo in maschera - Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1859
     * La forza del destino - Imperial Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 1862
     * Macbeth - Theâtre Lyrique, Paris, 1865 (revised version)
     * Don Carlos - Académie Royale de Musique Paris, 1867
     * La forza del destino - Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1869 (revised
       version)
     * Aida - Khedivial Opera House Cairo, 1871
     * Don Carlo - Teatro San Carlo, Naples, 1872 - (first revision of Don
       Carlos)
     * Simon Boccanegra - Teatro alla Scala, 1881 (revised 1857 version)
     * Don Carlo - Teatro alla Scala, Milan, 1884 (second revision, 4 Act
       version)
     * Don Carlo - Teatro Municipale, Modena, 1886 (third revision, 5 Act
       version)
     * Otello - Teatro alla Scala, 1887
     * Falstaff - Teatro alla Scala, 1893

Eponyms

     * The Verdi Inlet on the Beethoven Peninsula of Alexander Island just
       off Antarctica
     * Verdi Square at Broadway and West 72nd Street in Manhattan
     * Asteroid 3975 Verdi

Trivia

     * Musical humorist Victor Borge used to refer to Verdi as "Joe
       Green", saying that Giuseppe Verdi was just his "stage name". This
       comes from the fact that the English "translation" of "Giuseppe
       Verdi" is Joe Green.

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