Classical Music / Composer's Datebook : October 10
Verdi's operas range from the tragic to the comic. He was master of theatrical drama, who also inherited the 'bel canto'
singing style from predecessors Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini. Verdi's music are instantly recognised, for example, "La donna รจ mobile" (woman is fickle) from Rigoletto or "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore, often used in numerous TV commercials, are as acclaimed today as when it was first written.
Greatest 19th
Century Italian opera composer who raised the opera's heights. He created some of the most dramatically effective music ever heard on stage.
Giuseppe Verdi's brief biography –
his life and list of major works. Famous for operas Rigoletto, Aida, Nabucco,
La Traviata. Il Trovatore, and more, popular then and now.
Verdi's operas range from the tragic to the comic. He was master of theatrical drama, who also inherited the 'bel canto'
singing style from predecessors Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini. Verdi's music are instantly recognised, for example, "La donna รจ mobile" (woman is fickle) from Rigoletto or "Anvil Chorus" from Il Trovatore, often used in numerous TV commercials, are as acclaimed today as when it was first written.
Early
Life
Giuseppe (Fortunino Francesco) Verdi was born in Roncole near Parma, Italy
on October 10 (9?), 1813. He came from the family of small landowners and taverners.
However as a composer, his success was so great that by today’s standard, he
would be considered a multimillionaire.
Training
and Education
At age 12, he studied with the organist at the
main church in nearby Busseto where he became assistant in 1829. In 1831 he was
sent to Milan
with a scholarship, but was rejected over entrance age and studied privately
instead.
Family
Life
At 23, he married Margherita Barezzi. Five
years later, the deaths of his two children and his wife brought him to the
heights of a nervous collapse, only restored by his opera Nabucco. Ten years
later, he scored another success with Rigoletto.
Verdi remarried to soprano Giuseppina Strepponi,
his mistress.
Italian
Composer
Giuseppe Verdi was an Italian composer of the
Romantic period who took his native operatic style to new heights of dramatic
expression. In 1840 he wrote the opera Un giorno di Regno (King of the Day, with
librettist Felice Romani), then Nabucco, followed by Ernani and Rigoletto. Rigoletto is based on the play by Victor Hugo. It includes the popular aria "La donna e mobile" (Woman is fickle), sung in the opera by the Duke of Mantua. Other operas followed: Il
trovatore (The Troubadour) and La traviata (The Erring One), Aida, considered
by many opera buffs as his masterpiece, Otello and his last opera,
Falstaff. He is also known for his famous sacred music Requiem. Although his name has always been associated
with operas, he also wrote songs and a string quartet, as well as a choral work
Hymn of Nations for the London Exhibition of 1862.
Over the period of his long life, he
continuously invested his operas, like Aida, with more dramatic depth, making
him the greatest Italian composer of the opera, although not necessarily the
greatest operatic composer in history. During the mid-1800s, he became a symbol
of Italy’s fight for independence from Austria which found himself in conflict with the authorities who felt his operas
encouraged Italian nationalism.
Verdi spent his last years in Milan, rich, authoritarian but charitable,
revered and honoured. He died in Milan,
January 27, 1901, aged 88.
Here's opera Nabucco with the famous "Song of the Jewish Slaves" ("Va, pensiero", Hebrew slaves chorus.) WATCH in YouTube - here. (Embedding has been prohibited.)
The opera is based on the historical story of the Jewish people's exile by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The biblical verse this piece is: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" (Psalms, Chapter 137, 1).
Here's opera Nabucco with the famous "Song of the Jewish Slaves" ("Va, pensiero", Hebrew slaves chorus.) WATCH in YouTube - here. (Embedding has been prohibited.)
The opera is based on the historical story of the Jewish people's exile by Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. The biblical verse this piece is: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion" (Psalms, Chapter 137, 1).
List of Verdi's More known Operas
Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) - Va, pensiero with Riccardo Muti/Bis- Roma 2011. (It/En/Fr Lyrics)
Rigoletto (based on the play by Victor Hugo)
Il Trovatore (The Troubadour)
La Traviata (The Woman Gone Astray or The
Erring One)
Simon Boccanegra
Un Ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball)
La Forza del destino (The Force of Destiny)
Otello
Falstaff
Video Credit:
Verdi:Aida - triumphal march "Gloria all´Egitto". Czech Philharmony choir Brno choirmaster - Petr Fiala Czech Radio symphony orchestra cond. Vladimir Valek. Accessed October 10, 2019.
Image Credit:
Giuseppe Verdi. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain.
Resources:
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera by Harold
Rosenthal and John Warrack (1972)
The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music,
Edited by Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers, 1994.
Note: This piece was first published at Suite101.com, October 10, 2007. Tel / Oct 10, 2017.
(c) October 2016. Updated October 10, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
(c) October 2016. Updated October 10, 2019. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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