Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Le Roncole, Busseto, October 10, 1813 - Milan, January 27, 1901) was an Italian romantic opera composer, one of the most important of all time. His work serves as a bridge between the bel canto of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, and the current of verismo and Puccini.
In his early operas, he showed sympathy for the Risorgimento movement, which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The “Va, pensiero” chorus of his third opera, Nabucco (1842) —and similar choruses in later operas— were very much in the spirit of the unification movement and the composer himself came to be regarded as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, however, Verdi did not try to ingratiate himself with the popular movements and, as he gained professional success, he reduced his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874) and the operas Othello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
He was the author of some of the most popular titles in the lyrical repertoire, such as those that make up his popular or romantic trilogy of his middle period: Rigoletto, The Troubadour and < i>La traviata.
Biography
Childhood and education
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born on October 10, 1813 in Le Roncole, a town near Busseto (Duchy of Parma, Italy). He was the first child of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi (1785-1867) and Luigia Uttini (1787- 1851). The baptismal register, dated October 11, 1813, lists his parents Carlo and Luigia as "innkeeper" and "spinner" respectively. Furthermore, he lists Verdi as "born yesterday", but since days were often taken to begin at sunset, this could have meant October 9 or 10. Like his mother, Verdi always celebrated his birthday on October 9, the day he himself believed he was born.
She had a younger sister, Giuseppa, who died at the age of 17 in 1833. She is said to have been her best friend during childhood. From the age of four, she received private lessons in Latin and Italian from the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi, and at six attended the local school. After learning to play the organ, he showed such an interest in music that his parents eventually provided him with a spinet. His gift for music was already evident in 1820-1821, when he began his association with the local church, where he served in the choir, served as an altar boy for a time, and received organ lessons. After Baistrocchi's death, Verdi, at the age of eight, became the official paid organist.
Music historian Roger Parker notes that Verdi's parents "were from families of small landowners and merchants, certainly not the illiterate peasants from whom Verdi later liked to portray himself as sprung... Carlo Verdi was energetic in his son's education...something Verdi tended to hide in later life...[The] image emerges from a youthful precocity enthusiastically nurtured by an ambitious father and from a sustained, sophisticated and elaborate formal education».
In 1823, when he was ten years old, his parents decided that the boy should attend school in Busseto and enrolled him in a Ginnasio, a higher school for boys, directed by Pietro Seletti, while they continued running his inn at Le Roncole. Verdi returned to Le Roncole regularly to play the organ on Sundays, covering the distance of several kilometers on foot.At eleven years old, he was educated in Italian, Latin, humanities, and rhetoric. When he was twelve, he began classes with Ferdinando Provesi, choirmaster of the Collegiate Church of San Bartolomeo Apostolo in Busseto, director of the municipal music school and co-director of the local Società Filarmonica. Verdi later stated: "From the age of thirteen to eighteen I wrote a wide variety of pieces: marches for band by the hundreds, perhaps as many little symphonies that were used in church, theater and concert, five or six concertos and sets of variations for piano, which I played myself in concerts, many serenades, cantatas (arias, duets, many trios) and various pieces of church music, of which I only remember one Stabat Mater”. This information comes from the autobiography that Verdi dictated to the publisher Giulio Ricordi at the end of his life, in 1879, and remains the main source for his early life and career. controversial than those of his childhood.
The other director of the Società Filarmonica was Antonio Barezzi, a merchant and distiller, who was described by a contemporary as an "excited dilettante" of music. The young Verdi did not immediately become involved with the Philharmonic. By June 1827, he had graduated with honors from the Ginnasio and was able to concentrate solely on the music of Provesi. By chance, when he was thirteen years old, he was asked to fill in for a musician, in what became his first public event in his hometown. It was an immediate success, mainly because he played his own music, to the surprise of many, and received strong local acclaim.
By 1829-1830, he had established himself as the leader of the Philharmonic: "none of us could rival him," reported the organization's secretary, Giuseppe Demaldè. He wrote an eight-movement cantata, I deliri di Saul, based on a drama by Vittorio Alfieri, when he was fifteen and performed in Bergamo. He was acclaimed by Demaldè and Barezzi, who commented: "He shows a vivid imagination, a philosophical outlook, and good judgment in the arrangement of instrumental parts." By the end of 1829, he had completed his studies with Provesi, who declared that he had no rather than teach him. By this time, Verdi had been giving voice and piano lessons to Barezzi's daughter, Margherita, and by 1831 they were unofficially engaged.
He settled in Milan, the cultural capital of northern Italy, where he unsuccessfully applied to study at the Conservatory. Barezzi arranged for him to become a private student of Vincenzo Lavigna, who had been concertmaster at La Scala and who described Verdi's compositions as "very promising". Lavigna encouraged him to subscribe to La Scala, where he heard María Malibrán in operas by Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini. Verdi began to establish contacts in the world of Milanese music. that helped him make a place for himself. These included an introduction by Lavigna to an amateur choral group, the Società Filarmonica, conducted by Pietro Massini. He attended the Società frequently by 1834 and soon found work as conductor. rehearsal —for Rossini's Cinderella— and basso continuo performer. It was Massini who encouraged him to write his first opera, originally titled Rocester, with a libretto by the journalist Antonio Piazza.
Early operas
In the middle of 1834, Verdi sought to secure Provesi's old position in Busseto, but without success. With the help of Barezzi, he achieved the secular position of maestro di musica . He taught, gave lessons, and conducted the Philharmonic for several months before returning to Milan in early 1835. By the following July, he obtained his certification at Lavigna. Finally, in 1835, he became director of the Busseto school. with a three-year contract. He married Margherita in May 1836 and their first daughter, Virginia Maria Luigia, was born on March 26, 1837, followed by Icilio Romano on July 11, 1838. Both children died young: Virginia on August 12, 1838, and Icilio on October 22, 1839.
In 1837, the young composer enlisted Massini's help to stage his opera in Milan. La Scala's impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, agreed to have Oberto performed. —as the reworked opera was now called, with a libretto rewritten by Temistocle Solera—in November 1839. It achieved a respectable thirteen additional performances, after which Merelli offered him a contract for three more works.
While Verdi was working on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, Margherita died of encephalitis at the age of twenty-six. Verdi adored his wife and his children and was devastated by their deaths. The comedy Un giorno di regno was released only a few months later. It was a failure and only had a single performance.After his failure, Verdi is said to have vowed never to compose again, but in his autobiography he recounts how Merelli persuaded him to write a new opera.
Verdi stated that he gradually began working on music for Nabucco, whose libretto had originally been rejected by composer Carl Otto Nicolai: "this verse today, tomorrow that one, here a note, there a complete sentence and little by little the opera was written", he later recalled. By the autumn of 1841 he had finished it, originally under the title Nebuchadnezzar. It was well received at its premiere on March 9, 1842, and sustained Verdi's success until his retirement from the theatre, twenty-nine operas—including some revised and updated versions—later. On his return to La Scala for the fall season of 1842, received a total of 57 performances, something unprecedented and not equaled later. In three years he reached —among other places— Vienna, Lisbon, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris and Hamburg. In 1848, it was heard in New York and, in 1850, in Buenos Aires. Porter comments that "similar figures could be provided... to show how widely and rapidly all [Verdi's] other successful operas were disseminated".
The "Prison Years" (1842-1849)
A period of hard work for Verdi, with the creation of twenty operas—excluding revisions and translations—continued for the next sixteen years, culminating in A Masquerade Ball. This period was not without its frustrations and setbacks for the young composer and he was frequently demoralized. In April 1845, regarding I due Foscari, he wrote: «I am happy, no matter what reception I have, and I am completely indifferent to everything. I can't wait for these next three years to pass. I have to write six operas, then addio to everything.” In 1858, he complained: “since Nabucco , it can be said, I have never had an hour of peace. Sixteen years in prison."
After the initial success of Nabucco, he settled in Milan and made a number of influential acquaintances. He attended the Salotto Maffei, the salons of Countess Clara Maffei in Milan, and became her lifelong friend and correspondent. In 1842, there was a new production of Nabucco at La Scala, where a series of fifty-seven performances were given, and this led to a commission from Merelli for a new opera for the 1843 season. I Lombardi alla prima crociata was based on a libretto by Solera and was premiered in February 1843. Comparisons were inevitably drawn with Nabucco, but one contemporary writer noted: "If [Nabucco] created this young man's reputation, I Lombardi served to confirm it".
Verdi paid close attention to his financial contracts, ensuring that he received adequate remuneration as his popularity increased. For I Lombardi and Ernani (1844) in Venice he was paid 12,000 lire (including supervision of productions); For Attila and Macbeth (1847), he received 18,000 lire each. His contracts with the Ricordi publishers in 1847 were very specific about the amounts he would receive for new works, first productions, musical arrangements, etc. He began using his growing income to invest in land near his birthplace. of the. In 1844, he bought Il Pulgaro, 23 hectares of farmland with a farm and outbuildings, which was the home for his parents beginning in May 1844. Later that year, he also bought Palazzo Cavalli—now known as Palazzo Orlandi. — on Via Roma, Busseto's main street. In May 1848, Verdi signed a contract for land and houses in Sant'Agata in Busseto, which had previously belonged to his family. It was here that he built his own house, completed in 1880, now known as Villa Verdi, where he lived from 1851 until his death.
In March 1843, he visited Vienna—where Gaetano Donizetti was musical director—to supervise a production of Nabucco. The old composer, acknowledging Verdi's talent, noted in a January 1844 letter: "I am very, very happy to make way for talented people like Verdi... Nothing will prevent the good Verdi from soon reaching one of the most honorable in the cohort of composers". He traveled to Parma, where the Teatro Regio was producing Nabucco with Giuseppina Strepponi in the cast. For Verdi, the performances were a personal triumph in his native region, especially when his father, Carlo, attended the first one. The composer remained in Parma for a few weeks beyond his scheduled departure date. This fueled speculation that the delay was due to Verdi's interest in Strepponi—who stated their relationship began in 1843. She was in fact known for her love affairs—and many illegitimate children—and her story was an awkward factor in their relationship until they finally agreed to the marriage.
After the successful staging of Nabucco in Venice —with twenty-five performances in the 1842-1843 season—, Verdi began negotiations with the impresario of La Fenice for the performance of I Lombardi and to write a new opera. Finally, he chose Victor Hugo's Hernani, with Francesco Maria Piave as librettist. Ernani had its successful premiere in 1844 and within six months had performed at twenty other theaters in Italy and also in Vienna. Writer Andrew Porter notes that for the next ten years, his life "reads like a travel diary: a calendar of visits... to bring new operas to the stage or to supervise local premieres». La Scala did not premiere any of these new works, except Joan of Arc. Verdi "never forgave the Milanese for their reception of Un giorno di regno".
During this period, he began to work more consistently with his librettists. He again trusted Piave for I due Foscari, performed in Rome in November 1844, then in Solera once more for Joan of Arc, at La Scala in February 1845., while in August of that year he was able to work with Salvatore Cammarano in Alzira for the San Carlos Theater in Naples. Solera and Piave worked together on Attila for La Fenice (March 1846).
In April 1844, Verdi accepted Emanuele Muzio, eight years his junior, as a student and copyist. He had known him as another of Barezzi's protégés since about 1828. Muzio, who was in fact his only student, became indispensable to the composer. He informed Barezzi that Verdi “has a breadth of spirit, of generosity, of wisdom.” In November 1846, Muzio wrote of Verdi: “If you could see us, he would seem more like a friend than a student. We are always together at dinner, in cafes, when we play cards... In general, he doesn't go anywhere without me next to him. In the house we have a big table and we both write there together, so I always have his advice." Muzio remained associated with Verdi, assisting him in the preparation of scores and transcriptions, and later conducted many of his works at his premieres in the United States and elsewhere outside of Italy. He was chosen by him as one of the executors of his will, but predeceased the composer, in 1890.
After a period of illness, Verdi began work on Macbeth in September 1846. He dedicated the opera to Barezzi: "I have long intended to dedicate an opera to you, as you have been father, benefactor and friend to me. It was a duty that I should have performed sooner if compelling circumstances had not prevented me from doing so. I now send you Macbeth, which I value above all my other operas and therefore deem most worthy of presenting to you." In 1997, Martin Chusid wrote that Macbeth was the only of Verdi's operas from his "first period" to remain regularly in the international repertoire, albeit in the 21st century Nabucco also made the charts.
Strepponi's voice waned and his engagements dried up in the 1845-46 period, so he returned to live in Milan while maintaining contact with Verdi as his "supporter, promoter, unofficial adviser, and occasional secretary," until that he decided to move to Paris in October 1846. Before leaving, Verdi gave her a letter promising his love. On the envelope, Strepponi wrote: "October 5 or 6, 1846. They will put this letter in my heart when they bury me."
Verdi had completed I masnadieri for London in May 1847, except for the orchestration. This he kept until the opera was in rehearsal, as he wanted to hear "[Jenny] Lind and modify her part to suit her more exactly". Verdi agreed to hold the premiere on 22 July 1847 at the Her Majesty's Theatre, as well as the second performance. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert attended the premiere and, for the most part, the press was lavish in their praise.
For the next two years, except for two visits to Italy during periods of political unrest, Verdi lived in Paris. Within a week of his return to the city, in July 1847, he received his first commission from the Opera from Paris. He agreed to adapt I Lombardi to a new French libretto. The result was Jerusalem, which contained significant changes to the music and structure of the work (including an extensive ballet scene) to meet Parisian expectations. He received the Order of Knight of the Legion of Honor. To satisfy his contracts with the publisher Francesco Lucca, Verdi composed The Corsair at full speed. Budden comments: "In no other opera of his does Verdi seem to have taken so little interest before it was staged".
Hearing the news of the Five Days of Street Fighting that took place between March 18 and 22, 1848 that temporarily drove the Austrians out of Milan, Verdi arrived there on April 5. He discovered that Piave was now "Citizen Piave" of the recently proclaimed Republic of San Marco. Writing him a patriotic letter in Venice, Verdi concluded: "Banish all small municipal ideas! We must all extend a fraternal hand and Italy will become the first nation in the world... I am intoxicated with joy! Imagine there are no more Germans here!"
The poet Giuseppe Giusti admonished Verdi for straying from patriotic themes and urged him to "do what you can to feed the [sorrow of the Italian people], strengthen it and direct it to its goal". Cammarano suggested adapting the work of Joseph Méry's 1828 La Bataille de Toulouse, which he described as a story "which should move every man with an Italian soul in his chest". The premiere was set for the end of January 1849. Verdi he traveled to Rome before the end of 1848. He found that city on the verge of becoming a (short-lived) republic, beginning a few days after the premiere of The Battle of Legnano, which was received with enthusiasm. The tenor hero's last words were in keeping with the spirit of the times: "He who dies for his country cannot be evil."
Verdi intended to return to Italy in early 1848, but was prevented by work and illness, as well as, most likely, by his growing attachment to Strepponi. Verdi and Strepponi left Paris in July 1849: the immediate cause was an outbreak of cholera, and the composer went directly to Busseto to continue working on completing his last opera, Luisa Miller, for a production at Naples at the end of the year.
The popular trilogy (1849-1853)
Verdi became engaged to the publisher Giovanni Ricordi in an opera for Trieste, which became Stiffelio, in the spring of 1850. Later, following negotiations with La Fenice in Venice, Piave he developed a libretto based on Victor Hugo's The King's Amusement and the composer wrote the music for Rigoletto, in March 1851. It was the first of a series of three operas, known as the "popular trilogy" —followed by El troubadour and La traviata—, which would consolidate his fame as a master of opera.
The failure of Stiffelio —attributable no less to the censors of the time, who took offense at the taboo subject of the alleged adultery of a clergyman's wife and interfered with the text and characters— prompted Verdi to strive to rework it, though even the completely recycled version of Aroldo (1857) did not please him either. attributes, also annoyed the censors. Verdi would not give in:
What does the matter to the police? Are they worried about the effect it will produce?...Do they think they know better than I?...I see the hero has been made no longer ugly and hunchbacked!! Why? A singing hunchback...why not?...I think it splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, and inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these very qualities...if they are removed I can no longer set it to music.What does the police care? Are you worried about the effect it will produce?... You think you know better than me? I see the hero is no longer ugly and hunched! Why? A hunchback singing... why not? I think it's splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, but inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these same qualities... if they are eliminated, I can no longer put it in music.
He replaced the king with a duke and the public response and subsequent success of the opera throughout Italy and Europe fully vindicated the composer. Mindful that the tune of the duke's song "La donna è mobile " would become a popular success, Verdi excluded it from the orchestral rehearsals for the opera and rehearsed the tenor separately.
For several months, Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These arose from the way the citizens of Busseto treated Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he lived openly without being married. She was shunned in the village and in the church, and while the composer seemed indifferent, he certainly was not. Furthermore, he was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property in Sant'Agata. and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi. In January 1851 Verdi broke relations with his parents and in April they were ordered to leave Sant'Agata. He found a new location for them and financially helped them settle into their new home. It may not be a coincidence that his six operas written in the period 1849-1853 (The Battle, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto , El trovador and La traviata), have, exclusively in their work, heroines who are, in the words of opera critic Joseph Kerman, “women who suffer for actual or perceived sexual transgressions.” Kerman, like psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subject matter as influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi.
Verdi and Strepponi moved to Sant'Agata on May 1, 1851. In that month, an offer came to him for a new La Fenice opera, which he eventually performed as La traviata. It was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to perform The Troubadour in January 1853. At that time he had enough earnings to retire, if he had wished. He had reached a stage in the that he could develop his operas as he wished, instead of depending on commissions from third parties. The Troubadour was, in fact, the first opera he wrote without a specific commission, apart from Oberto. Around the same time, he began to consider creating an opera by King Lear by William Shakespeare. After first looking (1850) for a libretto by Cammarano —which never came—, later (1857) he commissioned one from Antonio Somma, but this turned out to be very complicated and he never wrote the work. troubadour after the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is "the only Verdi opera to focus on a mother rather than a father" is perhaps related to that death.
In the winter of 1851-1852, Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he entered into an agreement with the Opéra to write what became The Sicilian Vespers, his first original work to date. style of the grand opéra. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of Alexandre Dumas's Lady with the Camellias and Verdi immediately began composing music for what would later become La traviata.
After his visit to Rome for The Troubadour in January 1853, he worked to complete La traviata, but with little hope of success, due to his lack of confidence on any of the singers committed for the season. In addition, the management insisted that the opera have a historical, not a contemporary, setting. The premiere in March 1853 was a failure. Verdi wrote: "Was it my fault or the singers'? Time will tell." Subsequent productions, after some rewriting, throughout Europe over the next two years fully vindicated the composer. Roger Parker wrote "The Minstrel remains one of the three or four most popular operas in the Verdian repertoire: but it has never pleased the critics".
Consolidation and Politics (1853-1860)
In the eleven years since he composed La traviata, Verdi had written sixteen operas. Over the next eighteen years—until Aida—he wrote only six new works for the stage. He was happy to return to Sant'Agata and, in February 1856, reported a "total abandonment of music, read a little, occupy myself a little with agriculture and horses, that's all». A couple of months later, he wrote in the same vein to Countess Maffei: "I'm not doing anything. I do not read. I do not write. I walk through the fields from morning to evening, trying to recover, so far without success, from the stomach problems caused by The Sicilian Vespers. Damn operas!» An 1858 letter from Strepponi to the publisher Léon Escudier describes the kind of lifestyle that increasingly appealed to the composer: «his love of country has become mania, madness, rage and rage. Anything you like is exaggerated. He rises almost at dawn, to go and examine the wheat, corn, vines, &c. Fortunately, our tastes for this type of life coincide, except for what concerns the sunrise, which he likes to see and dress himself, and I from my bed ».
Nonetheless, on May 15, Verdi signed a contract with La Fenice for an opera the following spring. This was going to be Simón Boccanegra. The couple stayed in Paris until January 1857 to discuss these proposals and also the offer to present the translated version of The Troubadour as a grand opéra. Verdi and Strepponi traveled to Venice in March for the premiere of Simon Boccanegra, which turned out to be a "fiasco"—as Verdi reported, though on the second and third nights, the reception improved considerably.
With Strepponi, Verdi went to Naples in early January 1858 to work with Somma on the libretto for the opera Gustave III, which more than a year later would become A Ball of masks. By this time, he had begun writing about Strepponi as "my wife" and was signing her letters "Giuseppina Verdi". He raged against the strict requirements of the Neapolitan censor by stating: "I am drowning in a sea of trouble. It is almost certain that the censors will ban our script.” With no hope of seeing his Gustave III staged as he had written it, he broke his contract. This gave rise to litigation and counter-litigation. With the legal issues resolved, the composer was free to submit the libretto and musical scheme for Gustave III to the Rome Opera. There, the censors demanded more changes. At this point, the opera took on the title A Masquerade Ball.
Arriving in Sant'Agata in March 1859, Verdi and Strepponi found the nearby city of Piacenza occupied by some 6,000 Austrian troops who had made it their base to combat rising Italian interest in unification in the Piedmont region. In the Second Italian War of Independence that followed, the Austrians abandoned the region and began to leave Lombardy, although they retained control of the Venetian region under the terms of the armistice signed at Villafranca di Verona. Verdi was disgusted by this result: 'Where then is the independence of Italy, so long hoped for and promised?... Is Venice not Italian? After so many victories, what result?... It's enough to drive one mad», he wrote to Clara Maffei.
Verdi and Strepponi decided to get married and traveled to Collonges-sous-Salève, a town that was then part of Piedmont. On August 29, 1859, the couple were married there, with only the coachman who had driven them and the church bell ringer as witnesses. In late 1859, Verdi wrote to his friend Cesare De Sanctis "[Since I finished A dance] I haven't made more music, I haven't seen more music, I haven't thought about music anymore. I don't even know what my last opera looks like and I hardly remember it." He began remodeling Sant'Agata, which took most of 1860 to complete and on which he continued to work for the next twenty years. This included major work in a square room that became his workshop, his bedroom, and his office.
From The Force of Fate to Othello (1860-1887)
In the months after The Masquerade Ball was staged, he was approached by several opera companies seeking a new work or making offers to present an existing one, but he refused all of them. However, when in December 1860 the Imperial Theater in Saint Petersburg made an offer of 60,000 francs plus all expenses, it was undoubtedly a strong incentive. Verdi came up with the idea of adapting the 1835 Spanish play Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino of the Duke of Rivas, which became La fuerza del destino, with Piave's booklet. The Verdis arrived in Saint Petersburg in December 1861 for the premiere, but due to casting problems it had to be postponed.
Returning from Russia, via Paris, on February 24, 1862, Verdi met two young Italian writers, twenty-year-old Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio. The composer had been invited to write a musical piece for the Universal Exhibition in London in 1862 and commissioned Boito to write a text, which became the Hymn of the Nations, which includes the melodies of the Italian, French and English hymns. Boito, as a supporter of Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand opéra and an opera composer in his own right, was later in the 1860s critical of Verdi's "reliance on formula rather than form"., which provoked the wrath of the composer. However, he became a close collaborator of the composer on his later operas.The St. Petersburg premiere of The Force of Fate finally took place in September 1862 and Verdi was awarded the Order of St. Stanislaus.
Macbeth's return to Paris in 1865 was not a success, but he obtained a commission for a new play, Don Carlos, based on the play Don Charles by Friedrich Schiller. Together with Giuseppina they spent the end of 1866 and much of 1867 in Paris, where they listened, without much enthusiasm, to Giacomo Meyerbeer's last opera, L'Africaine, and to Richard Wagner's overture Tannhäuser. The premiere of the opera in 1867 attracted mixed commentary. While critic Théophile Gautier praised the work, composer Georges Bizet was disappointed by the composer's changing style: "Verdi is no longer Italian. He is following Wagner ».
During the 1860s and 1870s, he paid great attention to his property around Busseto, bought additional land, dealt with unsatisfactory stewards—one even embezzled funds—installed irrigation, and weathered fluctuating harvests and economic downturns. In 1867 His father, Carlo, with whom he had reestablished good relations, and his former patron and father-in-law, Antonio Barezzi, died. Verdi and Giuseppina decided to adopt Carlo's great-niece, Filomena Maria Verdi, then seven years old, as her own daughter. She married the son of Verdi's friend and lawyer Angelo Carrara in 1878, and her family eventually became heirs to the composer's estate.
The Egyptian government commissioned Aida for the opera house built by Ismail Pasha to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto . Camille du Locle's French prose libretto, based on a setting by the Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, was transformed into Italian by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Verdi was offered the huge sum of 150,000 francs for the opera—although he confessed that the Ancient Egypt was "a civilization I have never been able to admire"—and it premiered in Cairo in 1871. He spent much of 1872 and 1873 supervising Italian productions of Aida in Milan, Parma, and Naples, where he acted effectively as a producer and demanded high standards and adequate rehearsal times. During rehearsals for the Naples production, he wrote his String Quartet in E minor (1873), the only surviving work of chamber music and the only major work in that form by an Italian of the 19th century.
In 1869, he was asked to compose a section for a requiem mass in memory of Gioachino Rossini. He collected and completed the requiem, but its work was not performed and its premiere did not take place until 1988. Five years later, Verdi reworked his "Libera Me" section of Rossini's Requiem and turned it into part of his Requiem in honor of Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was performed for the first time in Milan Cathedral on the anniversary of the death of Manzoni on 22 May 1874. Spinto soprano Teresa Stolz, who had sung in La Scala productions from 1865 onwards, was the soloist in the first and subsequent performances of the Requiem. In February 1872, she performed Aida at its European premiere in Milan. She had a close personal relationship with Verdi—exactly how close is conjectured—which caused Giuseppina's concern. The women reconciled, and Stolz remained Verdi's partner after Giuseppina's death in 1897 until her own death.
Verdi conducted his Requiem in Paris, London and Vienna in 1875 and in Cologne in 1876. It seemed to be his last work. In the words of his biographer John Rosselli, "it confirmed him as the only presiding genius of Italian music. No other composer... came close to him in popularity or reputation." Verdi, now in his sixties, seemed headed for retirement. He deliberately avoided opportunities to publicize himself or get involved with new productions of his works, but secretly began working on Othello, which Boito—with whom he had reconciled through Ricordi—had privately proposed to him. in 1879. The composition was delayed by a revision of Simón Boccanegra that Verdi undertook with Boito, produced in 1881, and a revision of Don Carlos. Even when Othello was nearly complete, Verdi quipped “Shall I finish it? I do? It's hard to say, even for me." When the news leaked, opera houses across Europe lobbied him with petitions. Finally, the opera had its triumphant premiere at La Scala in February 1887.
Falstaff and later years (1887-1901)
After the success of Othello, Verdi commented: "After having relentlessly slaughtered so many heroes and heroines, I finally have the right to laugh a little." He had considered a variety of comic themes, but had found none of them quite suitable and entrusted his ambition to Boito. The librettist said nothing at the time, but secretly began working on a libretto based on The Merry Wives of Windsor with additional material taken from Henry IV, Part 1 and part 2. Verdi received the draft of the libretto probably in early July 1889, after having read Shakespeare's play: "Benissimo! Benissimo !... No one could have done it better than you », he wrote to Boito. But he still had doubts: his age, his health—which he admitted was good—and his ability to complete the project: “If I didn't finish the music? If the project failed, it would have been a waste of Boito's time and would have distracted him from completing his own new opera." Finally, on July 10, 1889, he wrote again: "So be it! Let's make Falstaff! For now, let's not think about obstacles, age or illnesses!" Verdi emphasized the need for secrecy, but continued: "if you're in the mood, start writing". Later, he wrote to Boito: "what a joy to be able to tell the public: HERE WE ARE AGAIN!!! COME SEE US!”
The premiere of Falstaff took place at La Scala on February 9, 1893. On the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times higher than usual. Royalty, the aristocracy, critics and leading figures in the arts from across Europe were in attendance. The performance was a great success, the numbers had encores and at the end the applause for Verdi and the cast lasted for an hour. It was followed by a tumultuous welcome when the composer, his wife, and Boito arrived at the Grand Hotel in Milan. Even more turbulent scenes ensued when he went to Rome in May for the opera's premiere at the Teatro Costanzi, when crowds of supporters in the railway station initially forced Verdi to take refuge in a tool shed. He witnessed the performance from the royal box next to King Umberto and Queen Margarita Teresa of Savoy.
In his later years, Verdi undertook a series of philanthropic ventures, publishing a song in 1894 to benefit earthquake victims in Sicily, and from 1895 onward planning, building, and endowing a rest home for retired musicians in Milan, the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti (Verdi House), and the construction of a hospital in Villanova sull'Arda, near Busseto. His last major composition, the choral ensemble Quattro Pezzi Sacri, was published in 1898. In 1900, he was deeply upset by the assassination of King Umberto and sketched a poem in his memory, but was unable to complete it.
Death
On New Year's Day 1901, the Roman poet Cesare Pascarella was among their guests. Due to the cold, Verdi stayed indoors from about January 3 until January 18, when he wrote to Barberina Strepponi. In his last letter to De Amicis, Verdi told him that he was vegetating, not living, and that he did not know what he was still doing in this world. On the morning of January 21, he suffered a stroke, just after a visit from his doctor. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he began to shake as he buttoned up his vest. When the maid spoke to him, he replied, "A button more or a button less," and fell unconscious on the bed. The maid's screams brought her daughter Maria, who called the hotel doctor while they waited for the head doctor to return. Her diagnosis was paralysis on the right side of his body, due to a stroke. Doctor Grocco, who hastened back to Milan from Florence to be with his illustrious patient, could do nothing. Although Verdi's eyes showed no reaction to the light, there was some movement in his arms and hands. For several days his breathing was regular and he had good color.
Since the day Verdi became ill, the Grand Hotel and the city of Milan have made tremendous efforts to reduce the noise and traffic around the hotel. The news of the composer's illness was somewhat overshadowed by the death of Queen Victoria, but within a day he was once again the center of attention in the press. On the morning of January 26, no one thought he would survive that day. Bulletins were issued at 10:15 and 10:30, and later at 15:45. At 16:00, the doctors said that no more bulletins would be published. Two hours later, Verdi stopped breathing, but only for a few moments. Gathered in the hotel were Boito, Giacosa, Stolz, Campanari, Maria and Peppina Carrara, Alberto Carrara and all the Ricordi. No one was allowed into the building, because Stolz locked the doors with the journalists inside. All the blinds were lowered and all the lights were turned off outside the hotel. At 11 pm, the doctors told the family that Verdi had entered an irreversible coma. Verdi passed away at 2:50 a.m. on January 27, 1901. After a few minutes, a crowd began to gather in the street, which fell into respectful silence. At dawn, the flags of the city and those of the churches presented black ribbons as a sign of mourning.
For the next three days, most shops in Milan were closed. The Chamber of Deputies devoted most of Monday to a commemoration of its former member, who was described as "one of the greatest expressions of national genius, our brightest, purest and most favored glory".
Verdi was initially buried in a private ceremony at the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. A month later, his body was transferred to the Casa Verdi crypt. On this occasion, Arturo Toscanini directed a choir of 820 singers who performed the chorus of Nabucco's slaves, “Va, pensiero”. A large crowd attended, estimated at 300,000. His funeral caused a great popular commotion and as the funeral procession passed by, the public spontaneously sang "Va, pensiero." Boito wrote to a friend, in words reminiscent of the mysterious final scene of Don Carlos, "[Verdi] sleeps like a king of Spain in his Escorial, under a bronze slab that covers completely."
Work
The writer Friedrich Schiller—four of whose plays were adapted as operas by Verdi—distinguished two types of artist in his 1795 essay Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Poetry naive and sentimental). The philosopher Isaiah Berlin classified Verdi in the "naive" category: "They are not... self-aware. No... they stand back to contemplate their creations and express their own feelings... They are capable... if they have genius, to fully embody their vision." Verdi's operas are not written according to an aesthetic theory or with the purpose of changing the tastes of their audiences. In conversation with a German visitor in 1887, he is recorded as saying so, while "there was much to admire in [Wagner's operas] Tannhäuser and Lohengrin... in his later operas [Wagner] seemed to be overstepping the limits of what can be expressed in music. To him "philosophical music" was incomprehensible". Although Verdi's works belong, as Rosselli admits, "to the most artificial of genres...they ring emotionally true: truth and directness make them exciting, often enormously"..
Periods
The first study of Verdi's music, published in 1859 by the Italian critic Abraham Basevi, already distinguished four periods in Verdi's music. The first “grandiose” period ended according to Basevi with The Battle of Legnano (1849) and he began a “personal” style with the next opera, Luisa Miller . Critics agree that these two operas mark the division between Verdi's "early" and "middle" periods. The "middle" period is thought to end with La traviata (1853) and The Sicilian Vespers (1855), with a "late" period beginning with Simon Boccanegra (1857) to Aida (1871). The last two operas, Othello and Falstaff, together with the Requiem and the Quattro Pezzi Sacri, represent a period "end".
Early Period
Verdi stated in his autobiography that during his initial apprenticeship with Lavigna "I did nothing but canons and fugues... No one taught me orchestration or how to handle dramatic music". He is known for having written a variety of music for the Società Filarmonica of Busseto, including vocal music, band music and chamber works—and an alternative overture to Rossini's The Barber of Seville—, but few of these works survive.
Verdi used in his early operas—and, in his own stylized versions, throughout his later work—the standard elements of Italian opera content of the day, referred to by opera writer Julian Budden as the " Rossini Code", by the composer who established through his work and popularity the accepted patterns of this form. They were also used by the dominant composers during the early years of Verdi's career, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Saverio Mercadante. Among the essential elements are the aria, duet, ensemble, and one-act finale sequence. The aria format, centered on a soloist, typically involved three sections: a slow introduction, typically marked < i>cantabile or adagio, a tempo di mezzo that could involve chorus or other characters, and a cabaletta, an opportunity to sing bravura for the soloist. The duet had a similar format. For the finales, which encompass climactic action sequences, he used the various casts of soloists, ensembles, and choirs, usually culminating in a rousing stretto section. Verdi was to develop these and other formulas of the generation that preceded him with increasing sophistication during his career.
Operas of the early period show how Verdi was learning, doing, and gradually establishing mastery over the different elements of opera. Oberto is poorly structured, and the orchestration of early operas is generally simple, sometimes even basic. Musicologist Richard Taruskin suggests that "the most striking effect in Verdi's early operas, and the most obviously related to the feeling of the Risorgimento, was the great choral number sung, crudely or sublimely, depending on the ear of the spectator in unison». The success of "Va, pensiero" in Nabucco—which Rossini noted approvingly as "a great aria sung by sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses"—was replicated in the similar “O Signor, dal tetto natio” in I lombardi and, in 1844, in the chorus “Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia” in Ernani, the battle hymn of the conspirators seeking freedom. In I due Foscari Verdi first used recurring themes identified with main characters. Here and in future operas, the accent shifts away from the "oratorio" characteristics of early operas towards individual action and intrigue.
From this period, Verdi also developed his flair for "ink" (literally "color"), a term he used to characterize elements of an individual opera score: Parker gives as an example "the crescent major sixth that begins so many lyrical pieces in Ernani"., the witches in flat keys—, a preponderance of music in a minor mode and highly original orchestration. In the "dagger scene" and the duet after Duncan's murder, the forms transcend the "Rossini Code" and propel the drama convincingly. Verdi was to comment in 1868 that Rossini and his followers missed "the thread gold that unites all the parts and, instead of a set of numbers without coherence, makes an opera ». «Ink» was for Verdi this «golden thread», an essential unifying factor in his works.
Average period
Writer David Kimbell claims that in Luisa Miller and Stiffelio—the early operas of this period—there seems to be “a growing freedom in structure on a grand scale... and great attention to small details." Others echo that thought. Julian Budden expresses the impact of Rigoletto and its place in Verdi's output as follows: “Just after 1850, at the age of 38, Verdi closed the door on a period of Italian opera. with Rigoletto. The so-called ottocento in music is over. Verdi will continue to draw on some of his forms for future operas, but in a totally new spirit." An example of the composer's desire to move away from "standard forms" appears in his sentiments about the structure of The troubadour . To his librettist, Cammarano, Verdi clearly stated in a letter of April 1851 that if there were no standard forms: "cavatinas, duets, trios, choruses, finales, etc.,... and if he could avoid beginning with an opening chorus...», I would be very happy.
Two external factors had an impact on Verdi's compositions of this period. One is that, with increasing reputation and financial security, he no longer needed to commit himself to the productive routine, he had more freedom to choose his own themes and had more time to develop them according to his own ideas.. In the years 1849 to 1859 he wrote eight new operas, compared with fourteen in the previous ten years.
Another factor was the change in the political situation. The failure of the 1848 revolutions led to both a decline in the spirit of the Risorgimento—at least initially—and a significant increase in theatrical censorship. This is reflected both in Verdi's plot choices that deal more with personal relationships than with political conflict, as in a—partly consequential—dramatic reduction in the operas of this period in the number of choruses—of the kind that had first made it famous—: not only are there on average 40% fewer choruses in middle period operas compared to early period, but virtually all early operas begin with a chorus, only one (Luisa Miller) of middle period operas it starts this way. Instead, Verdi experiments with a variety of media, for example, a stage band (Rigoletto), an aria for bass (Stiffelio), a party scene (< i>La traviata). Chusid also notes the composer's increasing tendency to replace large-scale overtures with shorter orchestral introductions. Parker comments that La traviata, the last opera of the middle period, is "once more a new adventure. It signals a level of realism...the contemporary world of waltzes permeates the score and the heroine's death from illness is graphically depicted in the music." Verdi's increasing mastery of musically highlighting mood swings and relationships is exemplified in act III of Rigoletto, where the duke's frivolous song “La donna è mobile” is immediately followed by the quartet “Bella figlia dell'amore ”, contrasted the rapacious duke and his love interest with the (hidden) indignant Rigoletto and his grieving daughter. Taruskin claims that this is "the most famous ensemble Verdi has ever composed".
Late Period
Chusid points to Strepponi's description of the operas of the 1860s and 1870s as "modern", while Verdi described works before 1849 as "the cavatina operas", as a further indication that "Verdi he was increasingly dissatisfied with the older and more familiar conventions of his predecessors which he had adopted at the beginning of his career". Parker sees a physical differentiation of the operas from The Sicilian Vespers (1855) to < i>Aida (1871) in that they are significantly longer and with larger casts than previous plays. They also reflect a shift towards the French genre of grand opéra, notable in more colorful orchestration, counterpoint of serious and comic scenes, and greater spectacle. The opportunity to transform Italian opera using such devices they attracted him. For a commission from the Paris Opera, he expressly demanded a libretto by Eugène Scribe, Meyerbeer's favorite librettist, telling him: "I want, indeed I must have, a great, passionate and original theme." The result was Sicilian Vespers and the scenes of Simon Boccanegra (1857), A Masquerade Ball (1859), The Force of destiny (1862), Don Carlos (1865) and Aida (1872) all meet the same criteria. Porter notes that A Masquerade Ball marks an almost complete synthesis of Verdi's style with the hallmarks of grand opéra, so that "the great spectacle is not a mere decoration, but is essential to the drama... the musical and theatrical lines remain taut [and] the characters still sing in a warm, passionate and personal way as in El troubadour".
When composer Ferdinand Hiller asked Verdi if he preferred Aida or Don Carlos, he replied that Aida had “more bite and — if you'll excuse the word—more theatricality." During rehearsals for the Naples production of Aida Verdi amused himself by writing his only string quartet, a joyous work that shows in its last movement that there was no lost the ability to write fugues that he had learned with Lavigna.
Final Works
Verdi's last three major works continued to show a new development in the conveyance of drama and emotion. The first to appear, in 1874, was his Requiem, scored for an operatic cast, but it was by no means an "opera in ecclesiastical dress"—the words in which Hans von Bülow condemned it even before Although Verdi used many of the techniques he learned in opera in the Requiem, its musical forms and emotions are not those of the stage. Verdi's tone painting at the opening of the < i>Requiem is vividly described by the Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti, writing in 1941: "In [the words] murmured by an invisible crowd over the slow sway of a few simple chords, fear and sadness are immediately felt." of a great crowd before the mystery of death. In the [following] Et lux perpetuum the melody spreads its wings... before falling in on itself... you hear a sigh of consolation and eternal peace."
By the time Othello premiered in 1887, more than fifteen years after Aida, the operas of Verdi's contemporary—and late—Richard Wagner had begun their ascendancy in popular taste, and many sought or identified Wagnerian aspects in Verdi's later composition. Budden notes that there is little in the music of Othello that relates to the verista opera of younger Italian composers and little or nothing that could be interpreted as a homage to the New German School. However, there was still much originality, building on the strengths that Verdi had already demonstrated: the powerful storm that opens the opera in medias res, the memory of the love duet of Act I in Othello's last words —more of an «ink» aspect than a leitmotif–, imaginative touches of harmony in Iago's «Era la notte» (act II).
Finally, six years later, Falstaff appeared, Verdi's only comedy, apart from the early and ill-fated Un giorno di regno. In this work, Roger Parker writes that “the listener is bombarded with an impressive diversity of rhythms, orchestral textures, melodic motifs and harmonic devices. Passages that in earlier times would have provided material for a whole number here crowd one another, smoothly assuming foreground in bewildering succession." Rosselli comments: "in Othello, Verdi had miniaturized the forms of the Italian romantic opera. In Falstaff, he miniaturized himself... Moments... crystallizes a feeling... as if an aria or duet had been precipitated into a phrase."
Instruments
When Giuseppe Verdi was a boy, he used to play at the Barezzi house. The instrument he played was an Anton Tomaschek piano. He was also fond of Johann Fritz pianos and used the Viennese Fritz six-pedal piano. from the time of Rigoletto in 1851 to Aida in 1871. This exact piano can be seen in the composer's Villa Verdi in the province of Piacenza in Italy. In 1857, for the inauguration of the Teatro A.Galli in Rimini, Verdi played a grand piano by Joseph Danckh.
Politics
After achieving some fame and prosperity, Verdi began to take an active interest in Italian politics in 1859. His initial involvement with the Risorgimento movement is difficult to estimate with precision. In the words of music historian Philip Gossett, "the myths that intensified and exaggerated [such] sentiment began to circulate" during the 19th century. An example is the claim that when the chorus "Va, pensiero" was sung in Nabucco for the first time in Milan, the audience, responding with nationalist fervor, demanded an encore. As codes were expressly prohibited by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely meaningful. But, in fact, the coded piece was not "Va, pensiero" but the hymn "Immenso Jehovah".
The growth of the "identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics" perhaps began in the 1840s. he asked the composer—and he complied—to write a patriotic anthem. Opera historian Charles Osborne describes The Battle of Legnano of 1849 as "an opera with a purpose" and argues that "while the fighters of the Risorgimento had frequently adopted parts of Verdi's early operas... this time the composer had given the movement his own opera". It was not until 1859 in Naples, and only then spread throughout Italy, that the slogan "Viva Verdi" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re < b>D'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), who was then King of Piedmont. After Italy was unified in 1861, many of him Verdi's early operas were increasingly reinterpreted as works of the Risorgimento with hidden revolutionary messages that might not have been originally intended by the composer or his librettists.
Beginning in the 1850s, Verdi's operas featured few patriotic themes due to heavy censorship by the ruling absolutist regime. The composer later became disillusioned with politics, but was personally involved in the political world of the events of the Risorgimento. In 1859, Verdi was elected to the new provincial council and was appointed to head a group of five that he would meet King Victor Emmanuel II in Turin. They were enthusiastically received along the way, and in Turin Verdi received much of the publicity. On October 17, he met with Cavour, the architect of the initial stages of Italian unification.Later that year, the government of Emilia was subsumed under the United Provinces of Central Italy and Verdi's political life came to an end. temporarily. While still harboring nationalist sentiments, he refused in 1860 the position of member of the provincial council to which he had been elected "in absentia". However, Cavour was eager to convince a man of the stature of Verdi to run for office. A political party was essential to strengthen and ensure the future of Italy. The composer confided to Piave some years later that "I accepted on the condition that after a few months I would resign". Verdi was elected on 3 February 1861 to the city of Borgo San Donnino (present-day Fidenza) for the Parliament of Piedmont-Sardinia in Turin —which from March 1861 became the Parliament of the Kingdom of Italy—, but after Cavour's death in 1861, which deeply distressed him, he hardly attended. Later, in 1874, Verdi was appointed to the Italian Senate, but did not participate in its activities.
Historians have debated just how political Verdi's operas were. In particular, the chorus of the Hebrew slaves (known as “Va, pensiero”) in the third act of the opera Nabucco was used as a hymn for Italian patriots, who they sought to unify their country and free it from foreign control in the years up to 1861—the theme of the chorus of exiles singing about their homeland and its lines such as "O mia patria, si bella e perduta" were thought to be >" ("Oh my homeland, so lovely and so lost") resonated with many Italians. "Marco Pizzo argues that after 1815 music became a political tool and many composers expressed ideals of freedom and equality. Pizzo affirms that Verdi was part of this movement, since his operas were inspired by love for country and the fight for Italian independence and spoke of the sacrifice of patriots and exiles. George Martin affirms that Verdi was "the greatest artist" of the Risorgimento: "throughout his work his values, his problems are constantly repeated and he expressed them with great power".
However, Mary Ann Smart argues that music critics at the time rarely mentioned political themes. Similarly, Roger Parker argues that the political dimension of Verdi's operas was exaggerated by nationalist historians who sought a hero at the end of the 19th century.
Legacy
Reception
Although Verdi's operas brought him a popular following, not all contemporary critics approved of his work. The English critic Henry Chorley admitted in 1846 that he "is the only modern man... who has a style, for better or for worse", but found his entire output unacceptable. "[His] flaws [are] grave, calculated to destroy and degrade taste beyond that of any Italian composer on the long list," Chorley wrote, while admitting that "however incomplete his training, however misguided that his aspirations may have succeeded...he has strove to achieve it." But by the time of Verdi's death, 55 years later, his reputation was secure and the 1910 edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians declared him "one of the best and most popular opera composers of the 19th century".
He had no students apart from Emanuele Muzio, and no school of composers sought to follow his style, which, as much as it reflected his own musical direction, had its roots in the period of his own youth. At the time of his death, verismo was the accepted style of young Italian composers. The New York Metropolitan Opera frequently staged Rigoletto, The Troubadour and La traviata during this period and featured Aida in every season from 1898 to 1945. Interest in operas awoke in the mid-1920s in Germany and this led to a revival in the UK and elsewhere. Beginning in the 1930s, scholarly biographies and documentation and correspondence publications began to appear.
In 1959 the Istituto di Studi Verdiani —since 1989, the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani— was founded in Parma and became a leading center for research and publication of studies on Verdi and, in the 1970s, the American Institute for Verdi Studies was founded at New York University.
In popular culture
Three Italian conservatories, the Milan Conservatory, the Turin Conservatory, and the Como Conservatory, are named after Verdi, as are many Italian theaters.
Verdi's hometown of Busseto displays Luigi Secchi's 1913 statue of a seated Verdi, next to the Teatro Verdi built in his honor in the 1850s. It is one of many statues of the composer in Italy. The Giuseppe Verdi Monument, a 1906 marble monument sculpted by Pasquale Civiletti, is located in Verdi Square in Manhattan, New York. The monument includes a statue of the composer himself and life-size statues of four characters from his operas (Aida, Othello and Falstaff from the operas of the same names and Leonora from El trovador).
Verdi has been the subject of a number of films and plays. These include the 1938 film Giuseppe Verdi directed by Carmine Gallone, starring Fosco Giachetti; the 1982 miniseries The Life of Verdi, directed by Renato Castellani, where Verdi was performed by Ronald Pickup, with narration by Burt Lancaster in the English version; and the 1985 play After Aida, by Julian Mitchell. In addition, his music has been used in more than 770 films and television shows. The second movement of his Requiem, "Dies Irae", is used in the death scene of Leonidas in the film 300 . Gilbert and Sullivan musically parodied the "Anvil Chorus" from The Minstrel in their 1879 operetta The Pirates of Penzance.
Verdi's music can still evoke a variety of cultural and political resonances. Extracts from the Requiem were performed at Diana of Wales's funeral in 1997. On March 12, 2011, during a performance of Nabucco at the Rome Opera House To celebrate 150 years of Italian unification, director Riccardo Muti paused after "Va pensiero" and turned to address the audience, which included then-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to complain about cuts in state funding for culture. The audience then joined in a repeat of the chorus.
Giuseppe Verdi is a character in Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero's 2011 opera Risorgimento!, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Italian unification of 1861.
In 2014, pop singer Katy Perry appeared at the Grammy Awards gala in a dress designed by Valentino, embroidered with the music of "Dell'invito trascorsa è già l'ora» from the beginning of La traviata. The bicentenary of Verdi's birth in 2013 was celebrated with numerous events around the world, both in performances and broadcasts. On October 27, 1982 an asteroid named after him, (3975) Verdi, was discovered. Verdi Inlet, located in the southwestern part of Alexander I Island in Antarctica, is also named after him.
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