Giuseppe Verdi

He took himself very seriously and was, on the whole, short, slight, intense, pale and pock-marked.

He called himself "a craftsman" and thought himself "the least erudite among past and present composers." Yet, Giuseppe Verdi was the most popular composer of operas for much of the 19th century, a political lightning rod, and the musical giant of his native Italy.

Growing up in the small town of Le Roncole in the duchy of Parma, this son of an innkeeper studied with the village organist until the age of ten, when he was sent to live with a family friend in Busseto. A generous and well-to-do local merchant perceived the boy's talent and when local resources proved insufficient-sent Verdi to Milan to study at the local conservatory. Verdi was rejected, but remained in Milan taking private lessons for two years, in order to correct his deficiencies when he began work on an opera entitled, Oberto. Returning to Busseto in 1834, he began to court his patron's daughter, Margherita, and eventually won her hand.

The success of Oberto at La scala led to a contract for three more operas. The first, a comic piece, was a dismal failure-composed while Verdi was mourning the deaths of both his children and his wife. The overwhelming family tragedy coupled with the catcalls of his bored audience convinced Verdi to consider abandoning composition forever. However, his mentor at La Scala, the impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, had other ideas. He pressed Verdi to go to work on a libretto refused by Otto Nicolai. Although initially reluctant, once Verdi began to work, the music poured from his broken heart and in three short months, Nabucco was completed.

Nabucco was an instantaneous smash when it premiered in 1842, turning operatic conventions of Verdi's day on their ear with music that was bigger, bolder, and more powerful than anything previously heard in Italian opera. And there were broader political implications as well: the "Va, pensiero" chorus was immediately adopted by the freedom-hungry Italians as a symbol of resistance to their Austrian oppressors. Verdi himself became the symbol of a free and united Italy.

Numerous successes followed as word spread across the continent. As far away as London, the clamor for Verdi's operas was so strong that Punch complained:

"Three Traviatas in different quarters/Three Rigolettos murdering their daughters/Three Trovatori beheading their brothers/By the artful contrivance of three gypsy mothers."

The mythological and historical figures that had previously stood in the limelight had been pushed into the shadows by humpbacked jesters and consumptive courtesans.

Verdi remarried in 1859, after living openly (and scandalously) with soprano Giuseppina Strepponi for many years. There were no children but a veritable menagerie of animals constantly prowling the Verdi estate.

The composer was elected to the first Parliament of modern Italy where he served for several years. Verdi did not participate in the debates but, on at least one occasion, set the parliamentary proceedings to music. The manuscript, unfortunately, vanished long ago.

Verdi's operas grew longer, more powerfully scored, more cohesive, leading to charges of "Wagnerism," a charge which irritated the composer despite his generosity and praise for Richard Wagner's works (a generosity not reciprocated).

The end of his career was positively Shakespearean, in every sense, as Verdi joined forces with the brilliant librettist (a once-promising composer with a tragic case of writer's block), Arrigo Boito to create legendary versions of Otello and Falstaff. Verdi was toying with the idea of setting King Lear to music when his beloved wife died in 1897, killing his desire to compose.

Verdi himself died of the effects of a stroke while visiting friends in Milan in January, 1901, after lingering unconscious for a week. Verdi was so loved that the streets around the hotel, where he lay dying, were covered in a thick layer of straw to muffle the sound of traffic.

Surely his dear friend Arrigo Boito was thinking of Don Carlo when he wrote, several months later,

"He sleeps like the King of Spain...."