Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer, was born in 1813 in a small town near Parma, Italy. When he was 12 years old, he was appointed organist in the town church. In 1832, when he was 19, a wealthy merchant friend of Verdi’s father noticed his great talent and offered him a music scholarship in Milan. Accompanied by his father and his teacher, Verdi arrived in Milan in May 1832. However, a great disappointment awaited him there: he applied to the Milan Conservatory, but after hearing him play the piano, the school rejected his application.
The same year, he experienced another blow: his beloved sister Josefina died. And in 1837, another misfortune found him. From his marriage to Margherita Barezzi in 1836, he had a daughter, Virginia, whom he adored. But Virginia died when she was only a few months old. In a dispirited condition, Verdi isolated himself in his home in Milan and faced tremendous difficulties: he had no job, no money, and often only had one meal a day in miserable inns. As if all this were not enough, in 1839 his second son also died -a little son-. Verdi’s life became unbearable. In 1840, he received the most tragic blow of all: his beloved wife, Margherita Barezzi, died. Grief-stricken, Verdi fled Milan to his town, Busseto, in order to find solace.
But the businessman Merelli visited him there and asked him if he would like to compose the music for a work called Nebuchadnezzar. Verdi, of course, refused. He had lost the desire to compose music. Merelli insisted, however, on putting the libretto for that work in Verdi’s pocket. Halfway, he tried later to start composing. But the notes did not appear – or if they did appear, they were filled with sorrow, like the composer’s soul.
However, he finished it in 1841. Rehearsals for the opera Nebuchadnezzar – or Nabucco as it came to be called in the meantime – began in early 1842. But it was immediately clear that Verdi had composed a masterpiece. Nabucco was first performed at La Scala in Milan on March 9, 1842. What followed was an unprecedented triumph. The ecstatic audience responded with a standing ovation, demanding – amid a frenzy of applause – repeated encores of the poignant refrain “Va, pensiero, sull’ ali dorate”, which still sends shivers of emotion.
Verdi, now 29, had suddenly become famous. People sang the Nabucco choir in the streets, while hats and ties inscribed with Verdi’s name were sold everywhere. The richest families in Milan opened their homes to him. In the same year (1842), the composer met a famous soprano, Josephina Strepponi, and developed a long-lasting relationship with her that lasted until her death in 1897.
Over the next nine years, between 1843 and 1851, Verdi composed thirteen operas, which were staged in all the major cities of Italy—Milan, Rome, Venice, Naples, Trieste—as well as in London, all of which were enormously successful. The first of these operas was I Lombardi, which was performed at La Scala in Milan on February 11, 1843. On the day of its premiere, enthusiastic crowds packed the theater, and the success of that opera was similar to that of Nabucco.
The opera Ernani followed in 1844, based on Victor Hugo’s play of the same name. It premiered in Venice on March 9, 1844, with great success. Exuberant Venetians lifted Verdi onto their shoulders and carried him triumphantly around St. Mark’s Square. With the money he earned from Ernani, Verdi was able to buy a small farm near his town. The opera Joan of Arc (Giovanna d’Arco) followed in 1845, with equally great success. Verdi now had so much money that he acquired a mansion in the town of Busseto from him.
Other achievements included the operas Attila in 1846 and I Masnadieri (The Bandits) in 1847. The premiere of The Bandits was held in London to particular fanfare: Queen Victoria and almost all members of Parliament were present. The opera was a great success, and Verdi made staggering amounts of money. He bought a large estate with woods and vineyards near Busseto and an apartment in Paris, where he retired from time to time to relax with his partner, Josephina Strepponi.
The tension between Italy and Austria was increasing in this period and, to arouse patriotic sentiments, Verdi composed the opera La Battaglia di Legnano (The Battle of Legnano). That opera was first performed in Rome in 1849. Tickets for the premiere were sold out. It was another great success. Ecstatic, the audience demanded the repetition of the entire fourth act as an encore. Verdi had become a national hero. At the end of the same year, an opera by Verdi was also performed in Naples: Luisa Miller, based on the tragedy of the same name by Schiller.
Over the next eight years (1851-1859), Verdi composed his extraordinary masterpieces, the operas Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Simon Boccanegra, Un Ballo in Maschera, and others – and reached the culmination of his fame. He finished the first of these masterpieces, Rigoletto, at the beginning of 1851, and its premiere took place in Venice on March 11 of the same year. All night the canals of Venice resounded with the voices of gondoliers singing “Feather on the Wind,” a song well known even now. After 21 performances in Venice, Rigoletto began to be performed all over the world.
In 1851 Verdi also began composing his next masterpiece, the opera Il Trovatore, which he completed the following year. The premiere was held in Rome in January 1853, again with great success. Two months later, his third masterpiece, the opera La Traviata, premiered in Venice. It was again an instant hit and was even performed in America.
In 1855 Verdi finished the opera Les Vêpres Siciliennes. Its premiere was held at L’Opera de Paris; in 1856 it was performed at La Scala in Milan with great success. His fiery patriotism touched the souls of Italians. In 1857 the opera Simon Boccanegra was performed in Venice, and that same year Verdi composed the opera Un Ballo in Maschera. This last opera was performed in Rome in February 1859 with great success: ticket prices were seven times higher than normal.
Verdi had reached the pinnacle of his career; at the age of 46 he was considered the greatest composer in Europe. To complete his success, he married in early 1859 the woman with whom he had lived for the past 17 years, Josephina Strepponi.
In the following years, Verdi composed many other operas. In 1862 he completed his work La Forza del Destino, which had been commissioned by the Russian Theater in Petrograd. In March 1867 the opera Don Carlos premiered in Paris. At the end of 1871 his opera Aïda was performed in Cairo. The performance lasted more than eight hours -from 7:00 p.m. to 03:00 a.m.
In 1874 he expressed his sentiments in his next work, the lugubrious Messa da Requiem, performed in May 1874 in the church of San Marco in Milan. The next year the sad Requiem achieved enormous success. After having conquered all of Italy, he did the same in the rest of Europe, while in London an incredible choir of 1,200 voices would participate in the function, a fact that moved critics to write rave reviews.
Verdi, who is now 62 years old, began to enjoy the delights of life. He met a young intellectual, Arrigo Boito, who shared with him the pleasures of culture, exposing him to new currents and intellectual fashions. In 1876 Verdi conducted his opera Aïda in Paris, and soon the opera was being performed triumphantly throughout Europe. In 1881 he rewrote his opera Simon Boccanegra, which was performed that same year in its new form with great success.
As early as 1879, he had begun setting the music for Shakespeare’s Othello, which he finally finished in 1886. The premiere took place at La Scala in 1887. Celebrities from all over Europe came for the performance, and ticket prices reached unprecedented levels. At the end of the show, the cheers of the public could be heard blocks away. When Verdi left the theater overcome with emotion, the people unharnessed the horses of his carriage and drove themselves to his hotel. Between 1888 and 1892 Verdi composed another masterpiece, the opera Falstaff, again based on Shakespeare. Falstaff was performed at La Scala in 1894.
In 1897, Verdi’s beloved companion, his wife Josephina Strepponi, died. Thereafter his health declined and in 1900 he found him confined to a wheelchair. In 1901, the great composer -one of the greatest in the world- left this life, at the age of 88.
Conclusion
Verdi’s life reveals that sometimes wrong can lead to enormous success. As you will remember, when Verdi was 24 years old, in 1837, his beloved daughter Virginia died, and two years later, his second son also died. The following year, in 1840, his beloved wife Margherita Barezzi also died. Grief-stricken, he fled from Milan to his town. But the businessman Merelli visited him there and asked him to compose the music for the opera Nabucco. Verdi refused, but then began to compose, though he was filled with sadness. The result was a masterpiece. When Nabucco was performed, it was an unprecedented success. The wrong had led to the triumph. From now on, Verdi became one of the greatest composers in the world.