Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him.
"Verdi" redirects here. For other uses, see Verdi (disambiguation).
In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. The bicentenary of his birth in 2013 was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.
Personality[edit]
Not all of Verdi's personal qualities were amiable. John Rosselli concluded after writing his biography that "I do not very much like the man Verdi, in particular the autocratic rentier-cum-estate owner, part-time composer, and seemingly full-time grumbler and reactionary critic of the later years", yet admits that like other writers, he must "admire him, warts and all...a deep integrity runs beneath his life, and can be felt even when he is being unreasonable or wrong".[139]
Budden suggests that "With Verdi...the man and the artist in many ways developed side by side." Ungainly and awkward in society in his early years, "as he became a man of property and underwent the civilizing influence of Giuseppina,...[he] acquired assurance and authority."[140] He also learnt to keep himself to himself, never discussing his private life and maintaining, when it suited him, legends about his supposed 'peasant' origins, his materialism and his indifference to criticism.[141] Gerald Mendelsohn describes the composer as "an intensely private man who deeply resented efforts to inquire into his personal affairs. He regarded journalists and would-be biographers, as well as his neighbours in Busseto and the operatic public at large, as an intrusive lot, against whose prying attentions he needed constantly to defend himself."[142]
Verdi was never explicit about his religious beliefs. Anti-clerical by nature in his early years,[143] he nonetheless built a chapel at Sant'Agata but is little recorded as attending church. Strepponi wrote in 1871 "I won't say [Verdi] is an atheist, but he is not much of a believer."[144] Rosselli comments that in the Requiem "The prospect of Hell appears to rule...[the Requiem] is troubled to the end," and offers little consolation.[145]
