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Giuseppe Verdi
Life
Born in 1813 in the Italian village of Le Roncole near
Busseto (Parma), Giuseppe Verdi spent his early years studying the organ.
By the age of seven, he had become an organist at San Michele Arcangelo.
It was there that the young Verdi was an altar boy and, according to myth,
his mother saved him from the French in 1814. In 1823, Verdi moved to
Busseto and attended the music school run by Antonio Provesi. By the age
of 13, he was an assistant conductor of the Busseto orchestra. After
finishing the school, Verdi applied for admission to the Milan
Conservatory.
He was rejected for admission, although one of the examiners suggested
that he "forget about the Conservatory and choose a maestro in the
city." Verdi studied composition in Milan with Vincenzo Lavigna, a
composer and the maestro at Teatro alla Scala. Verdi bounced back and
forth between Milan and Busseto until he was named maestro of the Busseto
Philharmonic in March 1836. By May 1836, he had married childhood
sweetheart, Margherita Barezzi, his greatest benefactor's daughter.
He returned to Milan several years later, this time with a
young family. Verdi's first opera, "Oberto", was brought to the
stage at "La Scala" in November 1839 and ran for multiple
performances. The noted Ricordi firm published "Oberto" and,
based upon his initial operatic effort, Verdi won a contract for three
additional operas. He began work on his next opera, "Un Giorno di
Regno", but was interrupted when, one by one, the Verdis fell ill. A
little over the course of a year, Verdi lost his son, his daughter, and
his beloved wife to illness. Unfortunately, "Un Giorno dei
Regno" was a complete failure. Verdi vowed never to compose another
comedy and developed a fatalistic belief in inescapable destiny. Even so,
the director at "La Scala" kept faith with Verdi, who later
declared that with his next work, "Nabucco", "my musical
career really began." At dress rehearsals for "Nabucco" in
the "La Scala" theater, carpenters making repairs to the house
gradually stopped hammering and, seating themselves on scaffolding and
ladders, listened with rapt attention to what the composer considered a
lackluster chorus rendering of "Va, pensiero." The opening of
Nabucco was a triumph. Verdi was famous, commanding a higher fee than any
other composer of his time.
"I Lombardi" followed "Nabucco" and
won an unprecedented victory over Austrian censors. Verdi's triumph in
retaining the libretto and melodic themes the censors had hoped to ban as
"religious" in nature forged the composer's lifelong reputation
as an ideological hero of the Italian people. This would be the first of
his many battles with censors for artistic freedom. Over the next seven
years, the composer penned ten additional operas of varied success,
gradually making the transition between two distinct eras of Verdi
composition. Initially captive of the "bel canto" style and heir
to Donizetti's artistic throne, Verdi continually experimented to produce
his own operatic genre in which melodic drama and identifiable musical
essence of character took center stage as an equal to vocal purity and
elegance. A brilliantly schooled musician, he placed emotional sensibility
above intellect in all that he wrote.
In the process, he created the remarkable marriage of
dramatic characterization and vocal power, an indelible artistic signature.
The creation of an operatic tour de force based upon his ingenious
artistic formulation assured Verdi's immortality, beginning in 1851 with
"Rigoletto", followed soon after by "Il Trovatore",
"La Traviata", and ultimately in 1871, by "Aida". Even
without the masterpieces that followed - "Simon Boccanegra",
"Un Ballo in Maschera", "La Forza del Destino", and
"Don Carlos" or his great "Requiem Mass" - the Maestro
could have afforded to rest on his musical achievements and stand
unchallenged as the premier operatic composer of any age. In fact, with
the success of "Aida", Verdi seemed to have abandoned composing
altogether, producing no new works for fifteen years. Fortunately for
posterity, an electrifying libretto, "Otello", created by poet
Arrigo Boito, brought the composer out of his self-imposed retirement.
The opening of "Otello" in February of 1887
attracted an international audience to Milan for a dramatic event which
ended only after the citizenry had showered Verdi with gifts and applause
throughout twenty curtain calls and towed his carriage to the hotel.
Public festivities continued until dawn. In 1893, with the premiere of
"Falstaff", Verdi and his adoring audience repeated the entire
sequence of events at "La Scala" - all in honor of a comedy he
had vowed as a young man never to write.
The maestro finally retreated to his country home in Sant'
Agata with his second wife, singer Giuseppina Strepponi. They spent
several peaceful years in retirement until her death in 1897. His wife's
death left Verdi in a state of unbearable grief. He immediately fled Sant'
Agata for the Grand Hotel in Milan and, after four unhappy years, Verdi
died in 1901, the victim of a massive stroke.
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