Giuseppe Verdi was born in Le Roncole in 1813; he was the son of an inn-keeper in the small village near Parma. Like Donizetti and Bellini he displayed a talent for music at an early age and was sent by his family to study music in Busseto where the young Giuseppe stayed with a merchant and worked for his business. During this time Verdi began composing marches and short instrumental pieces for the town philharmonic society. He had hopes of studying at the conservatory in Milan but as he was four years older than the maximum age allowed for entrance he was denied a place at the conservatory. Instead he studied music privately with Vincenzo Lavigna who was a conductor at La Scala.
Verdi’s first two works for the stage were Oberto (1939) which was a mildly successful piece, and Un Giorno di Regno (1840) which saw only one performance. Like Bellini Verdi’s true success would come with his third opera; Nabucco (1842). Nabucco is a religious story of Bible-age conflicts involving the Jew’s longing for freedom and a homeland in Israel. The opera is notable for the chorus “Va, Pensiero” (although it was not much mentioned in early reviews) and the soprano-baritone duet in Act 3.
Verdi exists as a monolith in the history of opera composition and it is something of a task to narrow down his most important works. Certainly the piece Rigoletto (1851) deserves praise for its large array of very memorable songs contained within. His setting of Shakespeare’s Macbeth is also worthy of a permanent place in the opera repertoire as should all his Shakespearian settings such as Falstaff and Othello. Finally Il Trovatore (1853) is a work that is very frequently seen surfacing in opera houses around the world, popular for its “finely crafted melodies” and the originality of the characterization of an old “gypsy” woman.
If I had to narrow down Verdi’s most important opera (a task that I usually wouldn’t attempt to do) I would have to say that La Traviata (1853) is the work that stands out the most. La Traviata contains the famous baritone solo “Di Provenza il Mar” as well as “Alfredo’s Aria” which is a spectacular showing of frantic declamation and elegant melodicism. Essentially, the opera is about a fickle society and social morals. One shocking aspect of the work is that it shows lovers’ living together out of wedlock, the father is a character who is constantly intervening in the affairs of the two lovers making for something of a forbidden love affair, always successful with theater audiences. The main character is Violetta, a woman who is ill for the vast majority of the opera, eventually she dies in the final scene immediately after being reunited with her love interest Alfredo. The music in La Traviata is very engaging and there are very few moments of dullness in sound which goes some way to showing why this has been such an enduring piece.
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