Giuseppe Verdi - Revered Composer, History and Image Gallery

He was born Joseph Fortunin François, on October 10th, 1813, at La Roncole, a small village near Busseto in the Duchy of Parma, Italy. The world knows him as Guiseppe Verdi.

He is Italy’s most revered composer, and, though he died as long ago as 1901, his music still moves the world.

His father owned a general store which doubled as an inn, and his mother was a spinner. Though Guiseppe’s father was more or less illiterate, he recognized that his son had an extraordinary talent for music, and acquired a second-hand spinet for him. This the child played with such talent that the man who once came to repair it decided to do it for free.

Initially, he studied under Don Baistrocchi and Maestro Provesi, an organist at La Collegiata of San Bartolomeo. They taught him Latin as well as the rudiments of musical composition and playing instruments.

The 14-year-old boy came to be considered the best pianist in the village, and, by the time he was 17, he had made a name of sorts as a composer, writing numerous pieces for La Collegiata and the Philharmonic Society.

In the meanwhile, Guiseppe’s father consulted Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy man with whom he did business, who played several instruments and was president of the Busseto Philharmonic.

Impressed by the abilities of the boy Guiseppe, Barezzi persuaded Verdi's father to let him go to Milan to study music, and bore all the expenses himself.

At Milan, he was denied admission to the Conservatory of Music on the grounds that he was over age. Instead, he studied under Vincenzo Lavigna, who had been harpsichordist at the Scala Theatre. He also frequented the theatres in Milan, getting to know the operatic repertoire of the time.

He subsequently returned to Besetto, and married Margherita Barezzi, daughter of his benefactor. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl. On October 17, 1839, Verdi’s first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio, was performed and received acclaim from critics and public alike, and he was offered a contract by La Scala's manager, Bartolomeo Merelli.

But tragedy lay round the corner.

Within the space of two years, between 1837 and 1839, Verdi lost his daughter, son and wife to illness. Margherita died a few months after Oberto was first staged. “A third coffin has gone out of my house”, said Verdi. “I am alone”. This last bereavement came while he was working on a comedy, Un giorno di regno, which flopped, and Verdi swore never to write a comedy again.

Legend has it that at 28, living alone in a Milanese garret and unable to write any music, a distraught Verdi was wandering the city’s streets one snowy night when he unexpectedly ran into Merelli. That chance meeting changed his life. Marelli persuaded him to write Nabucco, the Italian word for Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who took the people of Israel captive.
The story of how the Jews were delivered from slavery exactly matched the mood of the Risorgimento, or revolutionary movement then sweeping Italy. The people identified with the plight of the Hebrew slaves and took inspiration from the Jews’ hope of eventual liberation. The plaintive song of the slaves, gathered on the banks of the river Euphrates, lamenting their fate and recalling the psalms they had sung in their homeland, struck familiar chords in the minds of the Italians under Austrian domination.

Nabucco was a sensational success when it was premiered in 1842, and Verdi’s name was nade. He became rich and famous, and also a national hero.

I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Ernani, I due Foscari and Alzira followed, each as well-acclaimed as the other, and each exploring a different dramatic and musical experience. In Macbeth, 1847, Verdi took on a Shakespearean theme for the first time.

By the time he was 34 years old, Verdi was internationally famous and his operas were being performed all over the world. He combined the Italian operatic concept of Bela Canto or beautiful singing with a powerful sense of drama, putting him with the top-most composers of all time.

In Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, and ultimately in 1871, Aida, Verdi reached his zenith.

In between churning out one masterpiece after another, Verdi had struck up a relationship with Giuseppina Streponi, a soprano whom he had met during his early years as a composer, and whom he caught up with in France. The two of them lived together in defiance of custom, for ten years, till they eventually married in 1859.

After Aida, Verdi retired from the world of music. But an exciting libretto, Otello, enticed him back to an active musical life and when it opened in Milan in 1887, he had to take about 20 curtain calls and the audience was not satisfied till they had showered him with gifts and towed his carriage to his hotel.

At the death of national Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni in 1874, Verdi composed his Messa da Requiem, which many consider his greatest operatic work.

With Falstaff, he broke his vow not to write a comedy, to rollicking success.

Giuseppina and he moved into Sant’Agasta, a run-down farm he had purchased and breathed new life into. He took to farming, introducing innovative agricultural processes with great success, and transformed the farm profile of the region.

When Giuseppina died in 1897, a heart-broken Verdi moved into the Grand Hotel in Milan, where he suffered a stroke four years later, and died on January 27, 1901.

Verdi, was elected deputy to the first Italian parliament, and was a generous philanthropist. He founded La Casa di Riposo, a retirement home for musicians. He gave of his time, talents and money to organizations dedicated to bettering the lives of those less fortunate than himself.

He and Giuseppina were buried at La Casa di Riposo while Italy mourned. The crowds sang 'Va, pensiero', from the chorus of the Hebrew slaves in Nabucco.

Even those in today’s world who are uninitiated into the beauties of Italian opera heard Verdi when the strains of ‘Libera Me’ (Liberate Me) filled Westminster Abbey in 1997 at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales. ‘Libera Me’ is the final part of Verdi’s Requim.

Verdi is no more, but his music lives on. Every year, since 1993, the Czech State Opera opens its theatrical season with a celebration of his life and works. It holds an annual three-week end-of-summer season devoted to this Italian musical giant.

The festival focuses on three of Verdi’s most popular works: Rigoletto, Aida and La traviata, as well as the spectacular Nabucco. Rigoletto is based on Victor Hugo's novel Le roi s'amuse, while La traviata is also based on a French novel, this one Dumas fils' La dame aux camélias. Aida, the tragic tale of star-crossed lovers - the triumphant Egyptian captain Radamès and the captured Ethiopian slave-girl, Aida – is one of the best-loved operas of all time.

The festival starts on the third Tuesday of August every year. It is held at the State Opera House, which opened to the public with the staging of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg on 5 January 1888. Carl Muck, Franz Schalk, Leo Blech, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Arthur Nikisch, Felix Weingartner, Alexander Zemlinsky and Georg Szell are among those who have graced its premises, and the works of composers like Krenek, Hindemith, Korngold and Schreker have all found a venue here. In 1991, with the foundation of the Prague State Opera, it took got a new lease of life.

As in previous years, this year too, the festival will feature some outstanding international singers, and Prague is a favoured destination for Verdi fans and music lovers.