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The
year 2001 offers the opportunity to pay tribute to the great composer
born in Roncole di Busseto (Parma) on 9 October 1813 and died in Milan
(Hotel de Milan) on 27 January 1901.
It
seems only right then to learn a bit more about the composer, setting
him in an intense period of the nation’s history - Milan in the nineteenth
century. The Risorgimento was underway and Verdi unconsciously played
an important role in this chapter of Italian history. He was a key figure
in the history of music, culture, and politics during the Restoration
years.
We
cannot analyse this personality simply in the framework of his vast
musical repertory, but rather attempt to identify new viewpoints that
reach far beyond music. All this helps us to understand the problems,
the hopes and the human tragedies that were the order of the day under
the Hapsburg domination. By concentrating Verdi’s works in the Restoration
period, we can divide it into three phases, marking not only his constantly
changing style, but also the political and social changes in Italy during
the Risorgimento.
The
first period opens with one revolutionary movement after another, that
is, with the opera Nabucodonosor (given after Oberto conte di San Bonifacio,
his true debut performance, and after Un giorno di regno) up to the
Battaglia di Legnano. Returning briefly to his first work, Oberto, dating
back to autumn 1839, this attained modest success (fourteen performances),
since at the time, a minimum of thirty performances had to be given
for operas to be well received by the public. Verdi was only twenty-seven
and could consider himself lucky to have made it to La Scala. The second
opera, Un giorno di regno, was put on stage, again at La Scala, on 5
September 1840.
It
was a tragic time in Verdi’s life, a time coinciding with the death
of his beloved wife Margherita in June that year. And, adding to his
pain, the opera was a crushing failure. The years between 1839 and 1849
represented a decade of intense melodramatic activity in which the operas
of this period were distinguished by a deep love of country and an invocation
to revolt against the foreign oppressors. In this combination of events
we can find in Verdi’s operas a profound desire to create choral works
rather than individual ones.
The
population too saw the “father of the chorus” in the musician, in addition
to the famous V.E.R.D.I. (Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia) that the composer
appointed as the Italian banner. While he was not Milanese, he, just
like all the other free Italians, breathed the air of reformation and
absolute freedom, testifying to his desire through what was most dear
to him: music. Consequently, in the opera Nabucco, in the Lombardi alla
Prima Crociata, in Ernani, in Giovanna d’Arco, in Attila, in the Battaglia
di Legnano, we can hear his yearning for freedom and the “unforgettable
and holy songs”, just as Giosuè Carducci had written. Verdi never forgot
the words by Giusti, inserting connections with patriotism in his musical
works.
The
second period in the art and the life of Verdi, which ended in 1849,
coincided with a fundamental passage through Italian history. In the
Milan of the Cinque Giornate, Verdi opened a new chapter in his sentimental
and intellectual life with renewed perseverance. It was 1848 when Verdi
met Giuseppe Mazzini in London, and it would seem that this meeting
impelled him to seek membership with the Freemasonry.
The
third period, from 1859 to 1862, marked an interruption in Verdi’s musical
career, as he was invited - as per the wish of Cavour - to actively
participate in political life. He was nominated the deserving representative
of the Province of Parma and Piacenza in the first national parliament.
The battles waged by the musician through melodrama and music had given
tangible results in the cultural and political context. After La forza
del destino he completed the rearrangement of Macbeth, Don Carlos, the
Aida, Quartetto per archi, and the famous Messa da requiem.
Later
there came a string of successes and in 1869, Verdi returned to La Scala
giving the performance of La forza del destino on the sixth of the February,
then later he gave the Aida, Otello and finally Falstaff, which premiered
on stage at La Scala on 9 February 1893. Subsequently came the decline,
the wait for the end, and finally the death of his second wife.
Verdi
died on 27 January 1901, while a new century of hopes and contrasts
was just burgeoning.
(traduzione
Interpres sas-Giussano)
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