Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi
1864
Paris, France
The Institut de France; seat of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Kingdom of Italy
Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus
Kingdom of Sardinia
Civil Order of Savoy
Italy
Order of the Crown of Italy
France
Legion of Honour
Prussia
Pour le Mérite
Austria-Hungary
Order of Franz Joseph
Ottoman Empire
Order of the Medjidie
Russian Empire
Order of Saint Stanislaus
1861
Russia
Verdi in Russia, 1861 - 1862
Paris, France
The Institut de France; seat of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Kingdom of Italy
Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus
Kingdom of Sardinia
Civil Order of Savoy
Italy
Order of the Crown of Italy
France
Legion of Honour
Prussia
Pour le Mérite
Austria-Hungary
Order of Franz Joseph
Ottoman Empire
Order of the Medjidie
Russian Empire
Order of Saint Stanislaus
Le Roncole, Parma, Italy
Verdi's childhood home at Le Roncole
Casa di Riposi per Musicisti, Milan, Lombardia, Italy
Giuseppe Verdi's grave
Busseto, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Luigi Secchi's 1913 statue of Verdi
Margherita Barezzi
Giuseppina Strepponi in the early 1840s. She is holding her of Verdi's operas "Nabucco", in which she created the role of Abigaille.
Donnino Emanuele Muzio
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giulio Ricordi
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Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813, in Le Rancole, a village near Bussetto, to a family of innkeepers. His parents were Carlo Giuseppe Verdi and Luigia Uttini. He also had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who passed away at the age of 17 in 1833.
Verdi became associated with their local church at the tender age of seven, serving in the choir, acting as an altar boy, as well as well as taking organ lessons.
He was enrolled by his parents in a school, when he was ten, but he returned to Bussetto every Sunday to play the organ, by covering several kilometers of distance on foot. When he was 13, he was asked to act as a replacement in the first public event that took place in his home town. He played his own music, and his performance was a great success, earning him much local recognition.
After completing his studies, he set his sights on Milan, where he was introduced to an amateur choral group, Società Filarmonica, which was led by Pietro Massini. He attended the Societa frequently. Later, he got an opportunity to function as rehearsal director and continuo player for an opera by Giaochino Rossini, which proved to be the turning point in his career. It was after this, that he wrote his first opera, which was titled Rocester.
Giuseppe Verdi was composing his second opera Un giorno di regno when his wife passed away at just the age of 26. His work was premiered shortly, after but it turned out to be a flop, which led Verdi into a state of depression.
He started composing again, and began to work on the music for Nabucco. It was first performed on March 9, 1842, and its success made Verdi a new hero of Italian music. It became so successful and popular that within a decade it reached as far as Petersburg, Russia and Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Following the success of Nabucco, he settled in Milan, where he became acquainted with several influential people. Later, he wrote, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, based on an epic poem by Tommasso Grossi. It was dedicated to Margia Luigia, the Habsburg Duchess of Parma, who died shortly after the premier in 1843.
Verdi took on Emanuele Muzio, a junior, as his only pupil. Shortly, as he grew close to Verdi, he became indispensable. He used to assist Verdi in preparing scores, transcriptions, and in conducting many of his works in the USA and places outside of Italy.
Rigoletto (1851), II trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), and Don Carlos (1867) were some of his successful and popular works. In 1874, he completed Messa da Requiem, which was also a huge success.
Having become an international celebrity, he devoted himself to creating new works for the Opera at Paris, as well as other theatres. Les Vepres siciliennes (The Sicilian Nespers, 1855), Simon Boccanegra (1857), and Un ballo in Maschera (A masked ball, 1857), were three of his most popular works during that time.
Later, he wrote Macbeth based on Shakespeare’s drama of the same name, which was best known for its originality, and for being independent of tradition.
Verdi challenged Giacomo Meyerbeer, a European composer much more renowned and wealthier, whom he surpassed with Don Carlos (1884), a work regarded by many as a masterpiece.
He had plans to retire in the mid 1880s but because of a connection initiated by longtime friend Giulio Ricordi, Verdi along with Arrigo Boito, a well known composer and novelist, started to work on Otello. It was completed in 1886, and was premiered on February 5, 1887, at Teatro alla Scala. Not only was it met with incredible acclaim throughout Europe, but the opera is also regarded as one of the best operas ever written.
After the success of Otello, Verdi started writing Falstaff. It was first premiered on February 9, 1893, at La Scala, in which influential figures including aristocrats and critics from all over Europe were present. The performance needless to say, was a huge success.
During his last years, Verdi got involved in several philanthropic ventures, which included publishing a song for the welfare of the earthquake victims in Sicily in 1894, as well as building rest houses for retired musicians and hospitals.
Giuseppe Verdi had a stroke while he was in Milan in early 1901, which led to his death six days later on January 27, 1901, at the age of 87. His funeral was attended by musicians from all over Italy.
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was a leading Italian composer of opera in the 19th century, noted for operas such as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893) and for his Requiem Mass (1874).
Three Italian conservatories, the Milan Conservatory and those in Turin and Como, are named after Verdi, as are many Italian theatres.
Verdi had early acquired a reputation as a strongly anticlerical, young man, fervently convinced that Italy should be liberated from any form of autocratic government, whether it be the Church or Austria. He devoted himself to a series of operas in which the causes of individual freedom, patriotism, loyalty, and nobility of the human spirit were paramount.
Considered one of the most distinguished of Italian citizens as well as the undisputed leader of the Italian theater, Verdi became a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1860, representing Busseto after Parma declared by plebiscite its intention to join the kingdom of Italy. His fame had been carried throughout Italy not only by his musical accomplishments but by use of his name as an anagram-V(ittorio) E(mmanuele), R(e) D'l(talia), that is, "Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy" - often shouted in the streets as a revolutionary slogan during the struggle for Italian independence and unification.
King Victor Emmanuel II made Verdi a senator in 1875.
Quotations:
"The artist must yield himself to his own inspiration, and if he has a true talent, no one knows and feels better than he what suits him."
"Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned. I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music."
"I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear."
"I deny that either singers or conductors can create or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss."
In May 1836, Giuseppe Verdi married Margherita Barezzi, and by March 1837, she had given birth to their first child, Virginia Maria Luigia on March 26, 1837. Icilio Romano followed on July 11, 1838. Both the children died young, Virginia on August 12, 1838, Ilicio on October 22, 1839. To add to Verdi’s tragedies, Margherita too died young after suffering from encephalitis.
On August 29, 1859, he married Giuseppina Strepponi, after a long time of cohabitation. She was quite a loving and supportive wife, who supported him in every way possible.
Clelia Maria Josepha (Giuseppina) Strepponi was a nineteenth-century Italian operatic soprano.
Donnino Emanuele Muzio (or Mussio) was an Italian composer, conductor and vocal teacher.
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jacob Liebmann Beer) was a German opera composer, who has been described as perhaps the most successful stage composer of the nineteenth century.
Giulio Ricordi was an Italian editor and musician.
