Il trovatore and La traviata came two years later. His first magnum opus, Rigoletto, premiered in 1851. Verdi’s First Masterpieces and Final Works People even considered his “Va, pensiero” a resistance anthem. Nabucco was Verdi’s vindication in Milan, both as a composer and as an icon for the Italian unification efforts. People flocked to the theater and really connected with Verdi’s drama. The opera premiered in La Scala in 1842 and was an incredible success.
Italy had become a broken country, which led Verdi to compose Nabucco. Heartbroken, Verdi even considered quitting. The opera premiere on September 5th, 1840, and was an absolute flop. During this time, he wrote Un giorno di regno, a comedy. Verdi was crushed but had to keep on working. Margherita passed away on June 18, 1840, due to encephalitis. After this, Verdi signed a contract with the theater to premiere three more of his works. The opera was successful and had 14 runs. The couple made arrangements to play Oberto in the Scala. During this time, Verdi was working in his opera prima, Oberto. They had two children, who died at a very early age. Then, in 1836, at the age of 23, Verdi married Marguerita Barezzi, his guardian’s daughter. Funnily enough, that same conservatory is named after him now.
Also, Verdi’s piano playing technique was kind of strange for them. While Verdi’s main focus was the lyric theatre, he did occasionally write in other genres, including the ever-popular Requiem (1874) and the Four Sacred Pieces (1887–96) for soloists, chorus and orchestra.Just after turning 18, Verdi moved to Milan and tried to study in the city’s conservatory, but they believed he was too old to study there. Thereafter, Verdi never looked back and the premieres of his later Italian operas were all major cultural events, eagerly anticipated.Īlthough he effectively ‘semi-retired’ after Aida, he was persuaded back to the theatre for two final Shakespeare operas, his last – Falstaff – being premiered when he was 80. The 1850s brought three operas whose popularity has never waned: Rigoletto (1851), based on ‘Le Roi S’amuse’ by Victor Hugo Il trovatore (1853), based on a text by the Spaniard Gutiérrez and La traviata (1853), based on Dumas’s story of a courtesan’s love affair with a respectable young man. This chorus of longing for a homeland later became associated with the Italian nationalist movement. But it was the premiere of Nabucco at La Scala, with its celebrated chorus of the Hebrew slaves, ‘Va pensiero’, that catapulted him to national fame. Following studies in Milan, home to the famous La Scala opera house, Verdi made his earliest attempts at writing operas. He showed early promise as a church organist at the age of 7 before beginning his formal musical training aged 12. Perhaps this explains Verdi’s excellent business acumen in later life, when he not only managed a successful musical career but also administered a landed estate. Verdi’s parents, though described as ‘innkeeper’ and ‘spinner’ on Giuseppe’s birth certificate, came from families of small landowners and traders – not the uneducated peasant classes which Verdi later like to claim. His orchestral writing always supports the vocal line and underlines the dramatic argument. Verdi’s harmonic language is simple and direct, gaining in subtlety and adventurousness as his career progressed.
While in the middle period of his output ( La traviata, for example) the ‘number’ opera principle of the bel canto composers still generally pertains, by the end of his career the edges of the distinct forms are far more blurred and works such as Otello feel through-composed. the cavatina (a solo aria in distinct sections, moving from slow to fast), he did much to expand and refine the available forms and generate a more sophisticated style.
While Verdi remained loyal to many of the well-established musical structures he inherited from the previous generation of Italian composers, e.g. Whereas Wagner turned to myth and legend for inspiration and fashioned his own librettos, Verdi drew on dramas by figures such as Dumas, Hugo, Schiller and Shakespeare as the basis for his output, working closely with established librettists such as Piave and Boito. Along with Wagner, he was the most important opera composer of the period and received national and international recognition for his powerful stage works. Verdi was the major Italian musical dramatist of the nineteenth century, the successor to Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini. (born Roncole, near Busetto 9 October 1813 died Milan 27 January 1901)
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