Essential Verdi
No composer quite epitomises Italian opera as much as Giuseppe Verdi. From the Duke's "La donna è mobile" in Rigoletto – a surefire hit Verdi had to keep under wraps before its premiere – to the brindisi in La traviata to the Triumphal March from Aida, his music has huge popular appeal.
Read more…Verdi's career as an opera composer nearly stalled before it had really started. After his second opera, the composer's wife and two infant children had died. Verdi was a broken man and had vowed never to compose again. La Scala's impresario suggested a libretto for consideration: Nabucco, based on the story of the biblical king. The legend goes that Verdi took the libretto home, threw it angrily on the table… and it opened on the page "Va pensiero, sull' ali dorate" (Fly, thought, on golden wings), the text that became the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. The rest, as they say, is history.
After a spell writing several operas a year – what Verdi called his "galley years" – along came a trio of operas which cemented his place in the pantheon of great composers: Rigoletto, La traviata and Il trovatore. They are not just packed with wonderful music, but offer great character development and psychological insights. His vocal lines are gorgeous, yet offer immense challenges to the finest opera singers, even today.
Verdi loved great literature, setting Schiller (Don Carlos) and Shakespeare (Macbeth, Otello and Falstaff), the last of which he closes with a witty fugue.
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