Giuseppe Verdi was an Italian composer born on October 9 or 10, 1813, and died on January 27, 1901. He is best known for writing operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the modern province of Parma, to a family of middle-class means. He received a musical education with the help of a local patron named Antonio Barezzi.

After the time of composers like Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, Verdi became the leading figure in Italian opera. Their works greatly influenced him, as did the French Grand opera style, especially the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer and Gaspare Spontini.

In his early operas, Verdi supported the Risorgimento movement, which aimed to unite Italy. He also briefly served as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his opera Nabucco (1842) and similar choruses in later operas reflected the goals of the unification movement. Verdi was respected as a symbol of these ideals.

Verdi was a private person and did not actively join popular movements. As his career grew, he reduced his work in opera and focused on becoming a landowner in his hometown. He gained further fame with three major operas from his "middle period": Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore, and La traviata (both 1853). After the success of Aida (1871), he surprised the world with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893). Verdi’s operas remain among the most popular in the music world. In 2013, the 200th anniversary of his birth was celebrated globally through television, radio, and live performances.

Life

Verdi was born on October 9, 1813, in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, which was part of the Taro department in the First French Empire. A baptismal record from October 11, 1813, lists his parents, Carlo and Luigia, as an "innkeeper" and a "spinner." The record notes Verdi was "born yesterday," which might mean October 9 or 10, as people often counted days starting at sunset. Verdi always celebrated his birthday on October 9, the day he believed he was born.

Verdi had a younger sister named Giuseppa, who died at age 17 in 1833. She was his closest friend during childhood. From age 4, Verdi studied Latin and Italian privately with the village schoolmaster, Baistrocchi. At age 6, he attended the local school. After learning to play the organ, his interest in music grew, and his parents later bought him a spinet, a small keyboard instrument.

By 1820–21, Verdi’s musical talent was clear. He joined the local church choir, worked as an altar boy, and took organ lessons. After Baistrocchi’s death, Verdi became the official paid organist at age 8.

In 1823, when Verdi was 10, his parents sent him to Busseto to attend a Ginnasio, a secondary school for boys, run by Don Pietro Seletti. His parents continued to manage their inn in Le Roncole. Verdi returned to Busseto regularly to play the organ on Sundays, walking several kilometers each way.

At age 11, Verdi studied Italian, Latin, the humanities, and rhetoric. By age 12, he began lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, a music director and co-leader of the local Philharmonic Society. Verdi later wrote that between ages 13 and 18, he composed many pieces, including marches, church music, concertos, and cantatas. This information comes from an autobiography he wrote in 1879, which is the main source about his early life.

Antonio Barezzi, a grocer and co-leader of the Philharmonic Society, was described as a "manic dilettante" of music. Verdi did not immediately join the Philharmonic. By June 1827, he graduated from the Ginnasio and focused fully on music under Provesi. At age 13, Verdi replaced a musician at a public event in his hometown and was immediately praised for his original compositions.

By 1829–30, Verdi had become a leader in the Philharmonic. A secretary of the group said, "None of us could rival him." At 15, Verdi composed an eight-movement cantata, I deliri di Saul, which was performed in Bergamo and praised by members of the Philharmonic. By late 1829, Provesi said he had no more to teach Verdi. At the time, Verdi was teaching piano lessons to Barezzi’s daughter, Margherita, and they became engaged in 1831.

Verdi aimed to study in Milan, the cultural center of northern Italy, but was not accepted into the Conservatory. Barezzi arranged for Verdi to study privately with Vincenzo Lavigna, a former maestro at La Scala, who called Verdi’s work "very promising." Lavigna encouraged Verdi to join La Scala, where he heard performances by famous singers.

Verdi made connections in Milan’s music scene, including working with Pietro Massini, who led an amateur choir. Massini encouraged Verdi to write his first opera, Rocester, based on a libretto by Antonio Piazza.

In mid-1834, Verdi tried to take Provesi’s position in Busseto but failed. With Barezzi’s help, he became the secular music director in Busseto. He taught, gave lessons, and conducted the Philharmonic for several months before returning to Milan in 1835. By July 1835, Verdi received his certification from Lavigna.

In 1835, Verdi became the director of the Busseto school under a three-year contract. He married Margherita in May 1836, and their first child, Virginia Maria Luigia, was born in March 1837. A second child, Icilio Romano, was born in July 1838. Both children died young: Virginia in August 1838 and Icilio in October 1839.

In 1837, Verdi asked Massini to help stage his opera in Milan. The opera, Oberto, was performed at La Scala in November 1839 and received 13 additional performances. Afterward, the La Scala manager, Bartolomeo Merelli, offered Verdi a contract for three more operas. In 1838–1839, Verdi published his first music with the Milan publisher Giovanni Canti.

While working on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, Margherita died of encephalitis at age 26. Verdi was deeply saddened by her and their children’s deaths. Un giorno di regno, a comedy, was performed only once and was a failure. However, Merelli convinced Verdi to write a new opera.

Verdi began composing Nabucco, whose libretto had been rejected by Otto Nicolai. He worked on the opera gradually, recalling, "This verse today, tomorrow that, here a note, there a whole phrase, and little by little the opera was written." By autumn 1841, Nabucco was complete, originally titled Nabucodonosor. It was well received when first performed on March 9, 1842, and became the foundation of Verdi’s success. It was performed 57 times during the 1842–

Personality

Not all of Verdi's personal qualities were friendly. John Rosselli, after writing a biography about Verdi, said, "I do not like the man Verdi, especially the strict landowner who also composed music and often acted as a grumbler and critic in his later years." However, Rosselli also said that, like other writers, he must admire Verdi despite his flaws, because "a strong sense of honesty guided Verdi's life, even when he acted unfairly or made mistakes."

Budden wrote that "Verdi's personal life and his work as an artist grew together over time." In his early years, Verdi was awkward in social situations. However, as he became a wealthy landowner and was influenced by his wife, Giuseppina, he became more confident and respected. He also learned to keep his personal life private, avoiding discussions about his past. When needed, he created stories about his supposed "peasant" background, his focus on wealth, and his lack of concern for others' opinions. Gerald Mendelsohn described Verdi as "a very private person who strongly disliked people trying to learn about his personal life. He saw journalists, biographers, neighbors in Busseto, and the opera audience as people who meddled too much, and he often had to protect himself from their curiosity."

Verdi never clearly explained his religious beliefs. Although he opposed the influence of the church in his youth, he built a chapel at Sant'Agata. There is little record of him attending church regularly. Strepponi wrote in 1871, "I won't say Verdi is an atheist, but he does not strongly believe in religion." Rosselli noted that in Verdi's Requiem, "the fear of Hell seems to dominate…the Requiem remains troubled until the end," and it offers little comfort.

Music

Friedrich Schiller, a writer who lived in the late 1700s, wrote an essay in 1795 called On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry. In it, he described two types of artists. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin later said that Giuseppe Verdi, a famous opera composer, belonged to the "naïve" group. Berlin explained that naïve artists do not think too much about their own feelings or ideas when creating art. Instead, they focus on expressing their vision fully. In contrast, "sentimental" artists try to recreate natural feelings and ideas in their own way. Berlin gave the example of Richard Wagner, another composer, who was known for his dramatic and complex music.

Verdi did not write his operas based on a specific artistic theory or to change how audiences felt about music. In 1887, Verdi told a visitor from Germany that while he admired some of Wagner’s earlier operas, like Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, he thought Wagner’s newer works went beyond what music could express. Verdi found Wagner’s "philosophical" music hard to understand. However, Verdi’s operas, though part of a highly structured and artificial art form, are known for their emotional honesty and power.

The first study of Verdi’s music was published in 1859 by an Italian critic named Abramo Basevi. Basevi divided Verdi’s work into four periods. The first, called the "grandiose" period, ended with the opera La battaglia di Legnano (1849). A new, more personal style began with Luisa Miller. These two operas are now widely accepted as marking the end of Verdi’s "early" period and the start of his "middle" period. The "middle" period ended with La traviata (1853) and Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), and the "late" period began with Simon Boccanegra (1857) and continued through Aida (1871). The final operas, Otello and Falstaff, along with the Requiem and the Four Sacred Pieces, represent Verdi’s "final" period.

In his Sketch, Verdi wrote that during his early training with his teacher, Lavigna, he only practiced canons and fugues. He said no one taught him how to write orchestral music or handle dramatic music. Verdi composed many types of music for the Busseto Philharmonic Society, including vocal music, band music, and chamber works, but most of these pieces no longer exist.

Verdi used the standard elements of Italian opera from his time, known as the "Code Rossini," named after the composer Gioachino Rossini. These elements included arias, duets, ensembles, and finale sequences. An aria was a solo song with three parts: a slow introduction, a middle section, and a fast, showy part called a cabaletta. Duets followed a similar structure. Finale sequences combined soloists, ensembles, and choruses, often ending with a dramatic section called a stretto. Over time, Verdi refined these forms and made them more complex.

Verdi’s early operas show him learning and improving his skills. His first opera, Oberto, had a weak structure, and the orchestration in his early works was simple. Musicologist Richard Taruskin noted that one of the most striking features of Verdi’s early operas was the use of large choral numbers, such as the famous "Va, pensiero" from Nabucco. This song, which Rossini praised, was repeated in other operas like I lombardi and Ernani. In I due Foscari, Verdi began using recurring musical themes tied to main characters, moving away from the "oratorio" style of earlier operas toward more personal stories.

Verdi also developed his sense of "tinta," a term he used to describe the unique color or character of an opera’s music. For example, in Ernani, he used a rising sixth interval in many songs. His opera Macbeth (1847) showed original ideas, such as using specific musical keys to represent characters and creating highly original orchestration. In the "dagger scene" and the duet after the murder of Duncan, Verdi’s music moved beyond the "Code Rossini" and helped drive the story forward. In 1868, Verdi said that Rossini and his followers missed the "golden thread" that connects all parts of an opera, and he believed "tinta" was that unifying element.

David Kimbell, a writer, noted that in operas like Luisa Miller and Stiffelio, Verdi showed more freedom in how he structured his works and paid more attention to small details. Julian Budden described Rigoletto as a turning point in Verdi’s career, marking the end of the "ottocento" period in Italian opera. While Verdi would use some forms from this earlier period in future operas, he did so in a completely new way. For example, in Il trovatore, Verdi told his librettist, Cammarano, that he would prefer to avoid standard forms like duets and choruses if possible.

Two main factors influenced Verdi’s work during this time. First, as his fame and financial success grew, he had more freedom to choose his subjects and take time to develop them. Between 1849 and 1859, he wrote eight new operas, compared to fourteen in the previous ten years. Second, political changes after the failed revolutions of 1848 led to a decline in the Risorgimento movement and stricter theatre censorship. This change is reflected in Verdi’s operas, which focused more on personal stories than political themes. There were also fewer choruses in his "middle" period operas compared to his "early" ones. Instead of starting with a chorus, Verdi experimented with other openings, such as a stage band in Rigoletto or a solo aria in Stiffelio.

Parker noted that La traviata, the last opera of the "middle" period, marked a new direction for Verdi. It showed a move toward "realism," a style that aimed to portray life more honestly.

Legacy

Although Verdi's operas made him popular, not all critics of his time approved of his work. In 1846, the English critic Henry Chorley said, "He is the only modern man…having a style—for better or worse," but he did not like all of Verdi's work. Chorley wrote that Verdi's mistakes were serious and could harm musical taste more than those of any other Italian composer. However, he also said that Verdi had tried to improve, even if his training was not complete or his goals were wrong. By the time Verdi died 55 years later, his reputation was strong, and the 1910 edition of Grove's Dictionary called him "one of the greatest and most popular opera composers of the nineteenth century."

Verdi did not teach any students except Muzio, and no group of composers followed his style. By the time of his death, a style called verismo was the preferred style for young Italian composers. The New York Metropolitan Opera often performed Rigoletto, Trovatore, and Traviata during this time. It also included Aida in every season from 1898 to 1945. Interest in Verdi's operas grew again in Germany in the mid-1920s, which led to revivals in England and other places. From the 1930s onward, books about Verdi's life and his letters were published.

In 1959, the Instituto di Studi Verdiani (later called the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani) was created in Parma and became a major center for studying Verdi's work. In the 1970s, the American Institute for Verdi Studies was started at New York University.

Historians have discussed how political Verdi's operas were. A part of the opera Nabucco, called the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (Va, pensiero), became a symbol for Italian patriots who wanted to unite their country and free it from foreign control before 1861. The chorus's lines, such as "O my country, so lovely and so lost," were seen as meaningful to Italians. The slogan "Viva VERDI" was used in Naples in 1859 and spread across Italy. It stood for "Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia" (Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II. Marco Pizzo says that after 1815, music became a tool for expressing ideas about freedom and equality, and Verdi's operas reflected these ideals. George Martin called Verdi "the greatest artist" of the Risorgimento, saying his work often showed themes of love for the country and the struggle for independence. However, Mary Ann Smart says that critics at the time rarely mentioned political themes in Verdi's work. Roger Parker argues that the political aspects of Verdi's operas were exaggerated by historians in the late 1800s.

From the 1850s onward, Verdi's operas had few patriotic themes because of strict rules by the ruling government. Later, Verdi became less interested in politics, but he was involved in the political events of the Risorgimento and was elected to the first Italian parliament in 1861.

Four Italian conservatories—the Milan Conservatory (which had not accepted Verdi as a student), and those in Turin, Como, and Ravenna—are named after Verdi. Many Italian theaters are also named after him. Verdi's hometown of Busseto has a statue of him created in 1913, placed next to the Teatro Verdi, built in his honor in the 1850s. This is one of many statues of Verdi in Italy. A marble memorial called the Giuseppe Verdi Monument, made in 1906 by Pasquale Civiletti, is located in Verdi Square in New York City. The monument includes a statue of Verdi and life-sized statues of four characters from his operas.

Verdi has been the subject of films and plays. These include the 1938 film Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Fosco Giachetti; the 1982 miniseries The Life of Verdi, directed by Renato Castellani, where Verdi was played by Ronald Pickup, with narration by Burt Lancaster; and the 1985 play After Aida by Julian Mitchell. Verdi is also a character in the 2011 opera Risorgimento! by Lorenzo Ferrero.

Verdi's operas are often performed worldwide. All of his operas are available in recordings and on DVD—Naxos Records offers a complete set. Modern productions may differ from the original ideas of the composer. Jonathan Miller's 1982 version of Rigoletto, set in the world of modern American mafiosi, was praised by critics. However, a 2002 production of Un ballo in maschera by Calixto Bieito, which included scenes like "satanic sex rituals, homosexual rape, and a demonic dwarf," received poor reviews.

Parts of Verdi's Requiem were played at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. In 2011, during a performance of Nabucco at the Opera di Roma celebrating 150 years of Italian unification, conductor Riccardo Muti paused after "Va, pensiero" and told the audience, which included Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, about cuts to cultural funding. The audience then repeated the chorus.

In 2014, pop singer Katy Perry wore a dress designed by Valentino, embroidered with music from La traviata, at the Grammy Awards. The 150th anniversary of Verdi's birth in 2013 was celebrated globally through performances and broadcasts.

In 2011, Anthony Tommasini ranked Verdi eighth on his list of the ten greatest classical composers. He said that new productions of Verdi's operas, like Willy Decker’s version of La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera, show how powerful Verdi's works remain.