When you hear the music of Verdi (1813-1901), it is often so powerful and passionate that the emotions you feel are overwhelming. In this way alone, it made sense for Verdi to become one of the most important and influential composers of his age.
Giuseppe Verdi: The Operatic Genius
Like many prodigies before him, Verdi showed obvious musical talent and interest from a young age. Neither of his parents was particularly musically skilled. His Mother was a spinner and his father a publican.
Verdi often commented in later life that his upbringing had been impoverished but his father found the money to purchase him a spinet to encourage his musical talents. Ferdinando Provesi, the director of Busseto’s music school where Verdi’s family moved to early in his life, supported him in learning the organ and by taking him to local orchestra rehearsals.
After a failed attempt to enter the Royal Imperial Conservatory in Milan, Verdi studied privately with Vincenzo Lavigna whose connections with La Scala, Milan would prove to be hugely beneficial to the young composer. In 1835, Verdi returned to Busseto and married Margarita Barezzi. It was at this time that Verdi was composing his first serious opera called Oberto.
Verdi was in a happy place but tragedy was about to strike a series of cruel blows. The couple’s first daughter died at only a year old, and a year later his son also passed away. Even though the reception for Oberto was a success, Verdi’s wife died of encephalitis later in 1840 at only 26 years old.
Remarkably, Verdi found the strength to continue composing. He turned next to a comic opera but regrettably, this second attempt at an opera was not cause for celebration.
Verdi was devastated to the extent that it wasn’t until the final years of his life that he composed another comic work. For two years Verdi struggled. His world had crumbled and he could no longer ride on the crest of the success of Oberto.
Bartolomeo Merelli’s Influence and Verdi’s Triumph
Between 1829 and 1850 Bartolomeo Merelli (1794-1879), was the leading figure and impresario at La Scala Milan. He had provided Verdi with much-needed guidance and now in Verdi’s time of need did not hold back in encouraging him to press on with another opera.
Merelli didn’t accept no for an answer and Verdi returned to his manuscript and began work on Nabucco (1841). Merelli was completely right to push Verdi as the result was a monumentally successful opera.
This opera was based on the biblical King Nebuchadnezzar the Second. It was an immediate hit with the Italian audiences and shot Verdi directly into the limelight. The opera contains some of Verdi’s most powerful and enduring music. It’s hardly surprising given the emotional and political nature of this work.
From one angle you have the adopted daughter of Nabucco, Abigaille, doing everything she can to get her hands on the King’s throne and the affection and love of her sister’s lover; whilst Zacarria, a tempestuous Hebrew priest wages war against Nabucco to free his oppressed people.
The tremendous success of Nabucco secured Verdi’s future. People could not get enough of his music. Inspired by the adoration Verdi embarked upon six years of frenzied composition.
He produced roughly two complete operas each year. When you consider the length and complexity of this task, let alone the fact that Verdi would have been handwriting his score, the achievement is astonishing.
A Shakespearean Masterpiece Transformed into Operatic Brilliance
In 1847 came Verdi’s opera Macbeth, based on the Shakespeare play of the same title. Verdi would return to the work of Shakespeare towards the end of his life with the operas Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893). Macbeth is in four acts. The musical intricacies are fine-tuned in this opera in a way that Nabucco wasn’t.
Verdi’s characterisation and dramatization throughout the score illustrate his almost innate facility for the genre. It is a harrowing and difficult opera to listen to as Verdi’s music so ably conjures the essence of the Shakespeare play. At times terrifying, at other times softly weeping.
(As a brief aside, Dimitri Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth is another version of the Shakespeare play that is worth hearing).
From Personal Tragedy to Operatic Mastery
At this stage in Verdi’s life, he had turned a corner. He had, against the odds, turned his personal tragedy into artistic triumph. Audiences across Italy and further afield were clamoring for the romantic genius of Verdi who appeared to effortlessly frame in his operas the universal struggle between men and women. Verdi was now composing at a terrifying speed.
Committed as he was to his publisher Ricordi, he completed Stiffelio in 1850 followed swiftly by the more famous Rigoletto. The subject matter of Stiffelio caused a degree of uproar amongst certain members of Italian society with an adulterous clergyman’s wife at the heart of the piece.
Rigoletto (1851), didn’t pull any punches either with equally controversial subject material. Verdi understood the need for a dramatic, substantial plot that would attract both audience and performers. By basing Rigoletto on Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse, Verdi had chosen another thorny play.
In Hugo’s five-act work, how the King was portrayed as a womanizer was seen as completely scandalous. For Verdi, this offered a brilliant opportunity to compose music that embraced this difficult plot and as we recognise now, his score is incredibly astute and innovative.
Turbulent Times and Musical Evolution
More sad news arrived at Verdi’s doorstep later that year with the death of his Mother. Il Trovatore was begun that same year and it is no coincidence that the focus of this opera is on a mother rather than a father figure. The premiere came in 1853, but as Verdi had feared, the singers were woefully underprepared and the opera was not an immediate success.
Life was becoming increasingly troublesome and Verdi all but withdrew from the musical world. His flurry of opera composition came to an abrupt halt. Instead, Verdi retreated into the country where he walked for hours each day trying to process the almost insurmountable heartbreaks of the past few years.
Despite the problems, Verdi’s middle-period music indicated what was to come in his final works. Verdi’s facility for composing powerful, stirring choruses matched his unfaltering facility for the portrayal of intimacy and character.
His music adroitly sidesteps the sentimental, in favour of the real world. Whilst the Romantic richness survives in part, Verdi’s scores do not shy away from evoking the ugly underneath of life.
French Influence and Operatic Legacy
During his final period of work, Verdi tended towards the French school of opera writing. We hear exuberant, almost extravagant orchestration, a swelling number of cast members together with the masterful juxtaposition of comic and tragic scenes within an act.
Of the many outstanding operas Verdi wrote, Aida, Don Carlos, Otello and Falstaff are amongst the finest and most enduringly popular. In each of these Verdi enthralls us with intricate plots, consummate orchestration and characterisation.
In Falstaff (1893), Verdi finally returns to comedy. This would be the last opera Verdi would complete, taking his total to twenty-eight operas. It was an immediate success with audiences although the complexities and compositional subtleties largely went over the heads of many. Falstaff was composed for Verdi’s pleasure rather than for specific singers, choruses and orchestras.
As such he reaches the pinnacle of his creative powers. The opera is deeply sophisticated and, in some corners, looks towards the work of the rising operatic composers from Germany. For many Falstaff is the jewel in the crown of Verdi’s extensive output, a summary of achievement, a consolidation of success.