Giuseppe Verdi

Two composers dominated Italian opera in the 19th century. Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868) ruled the age of bel canto and his successor Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) carried the art form through grand opera to Wagnerian music drama. Puccini (1858 - 1924) might nowadays vie for Verdi in the popularity stakes, but the elder composer holds the record for the number of works in the core operatic repertoire and his music is the the bread and butter of the majority of singers performing today.

Verdi's early career was overshadowed by the need to establish himself as an opera composer in a crowded field. When Verdi's first opera, Oberto was premiered at La Scala in 1839, Donizetti was still active (La fille du régiment, La favorite and Don Pasquale were still to come) although Bellini had died tragically young a few years before and Rossini had settled into a long and comfortable retirement following the mixed reception of his epic Guillame Tell in 1829. Verdi was forced to be prolific, churning out operas regularly - in ten years from 1839 he had composed over half of his eventual output. Verdi called this period his 'galley years' but remarkably his level of inspiration remained high throughout. His third opera Nabucco (1842) has always remained one of the composer's most popular works; it gave Verdi his first 'hit', the haunting chorus 'Va pensiero' (also known as the 'Chorus of the Hebrew slaves').

Verdi's 'middle period' arrived with the composition of three of his greatest, and most popular, operas: Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore and La traviata (both 1853). Popular excerpts from these operas include 'la donna e mobile' (Rigoletto), The Anvil Chorus (Il trovatore) and the Brindisi (La traviata). From this point on Verdi's operatic output declined with a new opera only appearing every 2 - 3 years. Verdi was now comfortably well off and could afford to take more time away from his work. He married his second wife (the first died in 1840), the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, in 1859 with whom he had been living with for many years before. One of the greatest highlights of Verdi's later operatic career was his grand opera Aida (1871) which was premièred in spectacular fashion in Cairo. Outside of the operatic sphere Verdi composed his Requiem (1874), in memory of the poet Alessandro Manzoni, though it was as dramatic as any of his operas.

Verdi retired, or so he thought, from operatic composition after Aida. However he had not reckoned on the enthusiasm of the librettist/composer Arrigo Boito (1842 - 1918), who urged the elder composer to write an opera based on his libretto of Shakespeare's Othello. Otello (1887) marked a further advance in Verdi's style, even at this late stage of his life, with a through-composed approach reminiscent of Wagner's music dramas. It is widely regarded as Verdi's greatest masterpiece. Still, Verdi had one more opera left to give with Falstaff (1893), again set to a libretto by Boito and only his second comic opera since Un giorno di regno way back in 1840 . It was hardly as less an achievement as Otello.

Apart from the Four Sacred Pieces (1898) this was Verdi's last large-scale work and he eventually died in 1901 from a stroke. He was buried with unprecedented pomp and widespread mourning by the Italian people.

Key Works: Requiem, Aida, Un ballo in maschera, Don Carlos, La forza del destino, Macbeth, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, La traviata, Il trovatore

Key Artists: Carlo Bergonzi, Maria Callas, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Geraint Evans, Mirella Freni, Angela Gheorghiu, Anna Netrebko, Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, Giuseppe Taddei, Bryn Terfel