Giuseppe Verdi: biography, interesting facts, creativity

Giuseppe Verdi

One of the colors of the flag of the Italian Republic is green, verde, verdi ... Amazing providence chose a person with a consonant name, Giuseppe Verdi, to become a symbol of the unification of Italy and a composer, without whom the opera would never be what we know it, therefore contemporaries called the maestro's voice your country. His works, reflecting a whole epoch and becoming the pinnacle of not only Italian, but also the entire world opera, after centuries are the most popular and most performed on the stages of the best musical theaters. From Verdi’s biography you will learn that the composer had a difficult fate, but, overcoming all the difficulties of life, he left invaluable creations to future generations.

Short biography Giuseppe Verdi and many interesting facts about the composer read on our page.

Short biography of Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813 in a poor family of innkeeper and spinner who lived in the village of Roncole near the town of Busetto (now this is the region of Emilia-Romagna). From the age of five, the boy begins to learn musical notation and playing the organ in the local church. Already in 1823, a young talent was noticed by a wealthy merchant, and at the same time a member of the Philharmonic Society of Busetto, Antonio Barezzi, who until his death would support the composer. Thanks to his help, Giuseppe moved to Busetto to study at the gymnasium, and two years later he began to take lessons from the counterpoint. Fifteen-year-old Verdi is already the author of the symphony. After graduating from the gymnasium in 1830, the young man settled in the house of his benefactor, where he gives vocal and piano lessons to Margherite, the daughter of Barezzi. In 1836, the girl becomes his wife.

According to Verdi’s biography, an attempt to enter the Milan Conservatory was not successful. But Giuseppe cannot return to Busetto with his head bowed. Having stayed in Milan, he takes private lessons from one of the best teachers and the head of the orchestra of La Scala Vincenzo Lavigny. Due to a successful coincidence, he receives an order from La Scala for his first opera. In subsequent years, children are born to the composer. However, happiness is deceptive. Not having lived a year and a half, my daughter dies. Verdi moves with his family to Milan. This city was destined to witness both the loud glory of the maestro and his bitter losses. In 1839, a young son died suddenly, and in less than a year Margherita also died. So, by the age of twenty-six, Verdi had lost his entire family.

For almost two years, Verdi could barely make ends meet and wanted to quit music. But again, a case intervened, thanks to which Nabucco was born, after the premiere of which in 1842, deafening success and pan-European recognition came to him. 40-50 years were the most productive in terms of creativity: Verdi wrote 20 of his 26 operas. Since 1847, Giuseppina Strepponi, the singer who performed the role of Abigail at the premiere of Nabucco, becomes the composer’s actual wife. Verdi gently called her Peppina, but married her only 12 years later. Giuseppina had a questionable, from the moral point of view of that era, past and three children from different men. The couple did not have joint children, and in 1867 they took up a small niece.

Since 1851, Verdi has lived in Sant Agat, his own estate near Busetto, engaged in farming and horse breeding. The composer actively participated in the political life of his country: in 1860 he became a deputy of the first Italian parliament, and in 1874 - a senator in Rome. In 1899, a pension built for his money was opened in Milan. Verdi, who died in Milan on January 27, 1901, was buried in the crypt of this institution. He survived his Peppin by as much as 13 years ... His funeral turned into a big procession, more than 200,000 people came to the composer's last journey.

Interesting facts about Giuseppe Verdi

• The main operatic opponent G. Verdi - Richard Wagner - was born with him in one year, but died 18 years earlier. It is noteworthy that over the years Verdi wrote only two operas - "Othello"and"Falstaff"Composers have never met, but there are many intersections in their destinies. One of them is Venice. There were premieres in this city."Traviata"and"Rigoletto", and Wagner died in the Palace Vendramin Calergi. The hypothetical meeting of two great contemporaries is devoted to the book by F. Verfel" Verdi. Roman opera. "
• The composer’s native village is now officially called Roncole Verdi, and the Milan Conservatory is also named after him, to which the musician was not able to enter.
• The composer’s fifth opera, Ernani, brought Verdi a record fee for him, which allowed him to think about buying his own estate.
• The British Queen Victoria, visiting the premiere of "The Robbers", recorded in her diary that the music was "noisy and banal."
• The maestro rightly called "Rigoletto" a duet opera, almost completely devoid of arias and traditional choir finals.
• It is believed that not every opera house can afford to put "Troubadour" or "Masquerade ball"because both require four magnificent voices at once - soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone.
• Statistics show that Verdi is the most performed opera composer, and La Traviata is the most performed opera on the planet.
• "Viva VERDI" is both honoring the composer and the acronym of supporters of the unification of Italy, where VERDI meant: Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel is king of Italy).

• There are two "Dona Carlos" - French and Italian. They differ not only in the language of the libretto, in fact it is two different versions of the opera. So what is considered to be "genuine" "Don Carlos"? An unequivocal answer to this question is impossible, since there are differences even between the version presented at the Paris premiere and the one that was performed at the second performance two days later. There are not one Italian versions, but at least three: the first, created for production in Naples in 1872, the four-act version of 1884 for La Scala, the five-act version without the 1886 ballet for the performance in Modena. The most famous, performed and published on disks today are the classic French version and the "Milan" Italian.
• Since 1913, the Arena di Verona annual opera festival has been held in the Roman amphitheater of Verona. The first production was "Aida" in honor of the Verdi century. In 2013, Aida was also the center of the anniversary festival program.

Creativity Giuseppe Verdi

The first opera "Oberto, Count di San Banifacio", was approved to be staged for a charity show at La Scala. Its premiere was a success, and the theater signed a contract with a budding author for three more operas. But the next one, "The King for a Day," suffered a crushing fiasco. This work was given to Verdi with incredible difficulty. How to write a comic opera, just having buried a child and wife? All the pain experienced by the composer found its way into the music to the dramatic biblical story about Nebuchadnezzar. Verdi received the Libretto manuscript by Temistocle Solera, accidentally meeting impresario La Scala on the street. And at first I wanted to give it up, but the plot so captured him that the music Nabucco became a grand event. And the chorus from it "Va, pensiero" has turned into the unofficial anthem of Italy, which the Italians still know by heart today.

Repeat the success of "Nabucco" were called "Lombards in the First Crusade", which La Scala presented to the public a year later. A year later, the premiere of the opera, commissioned by another prestigious and influential theater, took place - for the Venetian La Fenice Verdi created "Ernani", which became the first joint work of the composer and librettist Francesco Maria Piave, a Venetian, with whom they will create seven more works. Hernani spoke with the audience in a completely different musical language than his previous works. It was a story about personalities and passions expressed so vividly and reliably that it is rightly called the first truly "Verdi" opera. The one in which the unique author's style of its creator was formed. They consolidated this style and subsequent works: "Two Foscari" and "Joan of Arc".

The third most important Italian theater of those years was the Neapolitan San Carlo, for which Verdi wrote in 1845 "Alzira" based on the eponymous tragedy of Voltaire. It was a work in collaboration with well-known librettist Salvatore Cammarano. However, the opera was hard for him and without inspiration, he was sick a lot. This is probably why her stage fate was short. Much later, the maestro recognizes her as perhaps the most unfortunate of his creation. The best reception expected in Venice premiere "Attila" in 1846, although his creation also did not bring the composer creative satisfaction. "The years of my imprisonment" - this is how he himself characterizes the period of 43-46, when he wrote 5 operas.

From Verdi’s biography, we learn that after a short recovery, the composer takes two operas at once: "Macbeth" for Florence and "Robbers" for London Covent Garden. And, if he works enthusiastically on the first, the second becomes another burden. Next appear "Corsair" and "Battle of Legnano", completing a series of maestro's heroic-heroic works. "Louise Miller", set in 1849, was a continuation of the theme "Ernani", in which human destinies and feelings come to the fore. The formation of the true style of Verdi cemented his next work, Stiffelio, and to this day is little known, completely, however, unfairly. In parallel with it, the composer begins to compose his first undoubted masterpiece, "Rigoletto".

"Rigoletto" since the premiere in Venice in 1851, has never ceased to be staged in theaters around the world. Verdi took up the plot of Victor Hugo’s play “The King Amuses Him”, taken from the Parisian scenes by local censorship for the immorality of the plot. The opera almost suffered the same fate, but Piave edited the plot, and the performance went out to the audience, becoming almost a revolution in operatic art: the orchestra no longer played as one accompanying instrument, its sounding became expressive and complex. "Rigoletto" tells a whole dramatic story, almost without breaking the outline of the narrative into isolated arias. The opera opens the so-called "romantic trilogy", continued by "The Troubadour" and "La Traviata".

"Troubadour", staged in Rome in 1853, became one of the most popular operas during the lifetime of Verdi. He is a real treasure trove of amazing tunes. The "Troubadour" is also interesting because one of the main parts was written for mezzo-soprano - voices, which usually had secondary roles. Subsequently, the composer will create a whole gallery of magnificent heroines for a low female voice: Ulrika, Eboli, Amneris. In the meantime, the maestro’s imagination has already captured the plot of Alexander Dumas-son’s recently released The Lady with Camellias, a tragic story of love and self-sacrifice. Verdi worked passionately on this opera, and the music was completely written in 40 days. "Traviata" - this is worshiping a woman, perhaps this is Verdi’s creative dedication to his companion Giuseppina Strepponi. It is hard to imagine, but this unconditional masterpiece was waiting for a deafening failure at the premiere in La Fenice. The public was outraged by the fact that the hero of the opera was a fallen woman, moreover, not from distant ages, but their contemporary. However, this Verdi fiasco takes it calmer than before - he is confident in his music, her genius fully protects his creator. And the maestro is again right: only a year will pass and, having undergone a small revision, La Traviata will triumphantly return to the Venetian scene.

The next order comes from Paris, and in 1855 on the stage of the Grand Opera is put "Sicilian Vespers" on the libretto of the famous French playwright Eugene Scribe. This opera is also significant because the composer again speaks of freedom from enslavers, in essence, of the freedom of his Italy, in which revolutionary sentiments mature. The following years go to the creation "Simone Boccanegra"which awaits a difficult fate. One of the most ambitious plans of the maestro, one of his darkest operas, one of the most significant for him, did not get success with the public after the Venetian production of 1857. The reason for this, probably, was the bleak, dark plot with a focus on the political line, depressed characters. Critics blamed the composer for heavy music, bold handling of harmony and a rough vocal style. It will take more than twenty years, and Verdi will return to the "Boccanegre", completely reworking it. This new version with the libretto Arrigo Boito goes to theaters today.

Scribe Verdi turns to the plot the next time. The choice fell on "Masked Ball" - The story of the death of the Swedish king Gustav III. Censorship rejected the libretto, since it was unthinkable to show on the scene the murder of a royal monarch, a deceived husband, and what happened so recently (the real event took place in 1792). As a result, the libretto had to be changed - the action was transferred to America, and the governor of Boston, Richard, fell victim to the jealous man. The success after the production in Rome was overwhelming, the opera quickly sold out to "hits", which even the passers-by on the street were humming. In 1861, Verdi finally agrees to another proposal from the Imperial Theater of St. Petersburg and at the end of the same year resides in the Russian capital for the production "Forces of Fate"which premiere was delayed until November 10, 1862 for a number of reasons. The opera was a success, however, more because of the composer’s name, rather than because of his own merits. Nevertheless, despite the tangled plot and the somewhat old-fashioned epic narrative, “The Power of Fate” established itself as an undoubted success even during the lifetime of Verdi.

It takes several years, which the composer spends in Sant-Agat for routine rural affairs and alteration of "Macbeth". Only in 1866, Verdi takes on a new work, which will be the longest and grandest. The original source again serves as a play by Schiller, this time - "Don Carlos". The libretto is created in French, because its customer is the Paris Grand Opera. Verdi works long and enthusiastically, but the premiere is met by the coolness of the public and critics. Paris did not appreciate the unusual musical style of "Don Carlos", the triumphal procession of opera on world scenes began with the London production of the same, in 1867.

In November 1870, the maestro finishes an opera commissioned by the Egyptian government. "Aida" goes out to Cairo and in just a few months - to La Scala. The Italian premiere has become an unqualified victory for the composer, and he considers it an appropriate end to his operatic career. In 1873, the writer Alessandro Manzoni died, whom Verdi admired. In memory of him, as well as of Rossini, to whose demise a few years before the composer had created a part of the requiem mass, Verdi wrote the Requiem, dedicating it to two great contemporaries.

After Aida, it was not easy to lure Verdi back to the theater. This could only be done by Shakespeare’s plot Othello. Since 1879, the maestro has been working on the operato of the libretto, Arrigo Boito, creating one of the most complex tenor parties of the 19th century. In Othello, Verdi’s mastery finds its completeness, his music has never been so inseparably linked to the dramatic basis. Six years later, the eighty-year-old composer will decide to make a real farewell to the stage, composing a comic opera, the second in his biography, which has been separated from the first for almost half a century. The plot, again by Shakespeare, was suggested by Boito. Verdi, who for many years has earned a reputation as an unsurpassed drama master, as the curtain of his career asserts itself as a comedy master. The culmination of the composer's work was the opera. Falstaff, filled with the joy of life, which is found only in the truly greatest works of art.

Verdi's music at the movies

You can list movies where Verdi’s music is infinite, there are more than a thousand of them, most new and popular:

• La La Land (2016)
• 007: SPECTRUM (2015)
• I am the beginning (2014)
• Django Unchained (2012)
• Madagascar 3 (2012)
• Twilight (2008)

Let us dwell on several interesting screen versions of Verdi's operas:

• Sophia Loren played Aida in the eponymous film of 1953, she sang for her Renata Tebaldi.
• In 1982, a striking picture of Franco Zeffirelli "La Traviata" with Teresa Strathas and Placido Domingo came out - beautiful, stylish, with incredibly authentic, deprived operatic characters.
• Creative Union Domingo and Zeffirelli found a continuation in the work four years later on the film adaptation of Othello.
• Curious is the transformation of Domingo in the baritone Rigoletto game in the 2010 film Rigoletto in Mantua, shot in historical interiors.

Films based on the biography of Verdi, on the contrary, not so much. The most famous of these is the Italian Verdi mini-series of 1982, in which the lead role was played by the British actor Ronald Pickup, and Giuseppina Strepponi was the famous ballerina Carla Fracci. Эта картина дает широкий взгляд на личность Верди и исторические события того времени, неразрывно связанные не только с жизнью композитора, но и с судьбой всей Европы. Ренато Кастеллани создал объемный кинопортрет Верди, в фильме звучат подлинные слова маэстро из его писем и воспоминаний современников. Рональд Пикап точно передал взрывной, часто пасмурный, но простой и искренний характер неистового гения.

Меняется мода, проходят десятилетия, а музыка Verdi not only does not lose popularity, but also finds all new listeners. What is her secret? The fact that it is timeless and speaks the language of human feelings, understandable to everyone who hears, regardless of nation, religion or culture. She loves and doubts, sympathizes and comforts, laughs and exults with us. Perhaps it was thanks to such a difficult fate that the composer gave to many generations an incredible happiness in getting to know his immortal talent.