Evoking humanity’s response to the terrifying majesty of God, it ends in a numbed void with the endless reiteration of the words Libera Me (“Set me free”).Īfter the Requiem, Verdi ostensibly retired from public life, though this was by no means the end of his career. Verdi’s ambivalence towards religion ran deep, and informs the ambiguities of his Requiem, written in 1873 as a memorial to the Risorgimento writer Alessandro Manzoni. Don Carlos (written in French for Paris in 1867, then revised in Italian as Don Carlo) constitutes his most profound analysis of how the powers of church and state conspire to destroy the individual, while behind the orientalism of Aida lurks a depiction of life in a theocracy on a war footing. The mix of comedy and tragedy in Un Ballo in Maschera (1859) and the fatalism and edgy humour of La Forza del Destino (1862) reveal a debt to Shakespearean dramaturgy. His operas from Simon Boccanegra (1857) to Aida (1871) are concerned with power, organised religion and freedom. Why his music still mattersĪfter La Traviata, Verdi’s output slowed, and his operas became larger in scale. Marcel Proust hugely admired La Traviata, writing that Verdi had transformed what he considered to be indifferent source material, the novel and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, into truly great art. Though a man of the theatre, he lived in an era of great novelists and his depth of characterisation and the social concerns of many of his operas find parallels in the works of Dickens, Balzac, George Eliot and Flaubert, among others. Marcel Proust, a great admirer of Verdi’s La Traviata. Local opposition to their unmarried status colours Verdi’s depiction of Giorgio Germont’s disapproval of his son’s affair with Violetta in La Traviata. He and Giuseppina, although in a relationship since 1847, did not marry until 1859. With success came affluence, and in 1851 he moved with his partner, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, into a new villa where he lived until the end of his life. The realism of La Traviata, with its courtesan heroine and contemporary setting, caused consternation, and throughout Verdi’s lifetime the opera was usually staged set in the 18th century.īusseto and its environs remained his home for much of his life. Verdi spent much of his career struggling to get his work past the censors, who frequently raised objections on political or moral grounds, and he had to make substantial changes to the text of Rigoletto, based on a play by Victor Hugo, banned as both inflammatory and obscene, before it was permitted on stage. They were not, however, without controversy in their day. Verdi’s discouragement, combined with depression at the death of his first wife, almost made him abandon composition, though his third opera, Nabucco, undertaken at Merelli’s insistence, made him famous overnight.īetween 18 he composed three masterpieces, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, which remain among his most popular operas. Un Giorno di Regno was a fiasco the following year, however. His first opera, Oberto, was well received at its La Scala premiere in 1839, and the theatre’s manager, Bartolomeo Merelli, wanted more. At 18 he was rejected by the Milan conservatory, but remained in the city (at Barezzi’s expense) to study privately. The son of an innkeeper, Verdi was born in Le Roncole, near Parma, and went to school in nearby Busseto, where his talent was noticed by Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant, who oversaw his early musical education. It even features in the video game Grand Theft Auto. The Grand March from Aida, meanwhile, has become a staple of the brass band repertory and is sometimes used at weddings, and Verdi’s music can be heard on the soundtracks of films from Zack Snyder’s 300, Claude Berri’s Manon des Sources to Luchino Visconti’s Senso, it has advertised lager, jeans and pasta sauce. In Italy, the Chorus of Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco has long been associated with national unity and solidarity. Verdi was an outstanding melodist, and some of his arias and choruses – such as La Donna è Mobile from Rigoletto, La Traviata’s Brindisi (the drinking song) and the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore – are familiar to millions.
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