Music’s first megastar
Verdi’s smash-hit operas, packed with patriotic zeal, made him a legend in his own lifetime
We join Maestro Verdi, aged 23, recently married to Margherita ‘Ghita’ Barezzi, a former pupil and daughter of a wine merchant, while he is working as musical director of the town of Busseto in northern Italy.
26 MARCH 1837 A daughter! I have a daughter, a beautiful daughter – Virginia. My wife Ghita is well.
11 JULY 1838 Ghita gave birth to a boy today, whom we shall call Icilio Romano, named, like his sister, after a Roman Republican martyr. What a wonderful thing it is to have a family. But I must finish Oberto, my first opera, and see it staged in Milan. I have spent four years toiling away at this. I am determined to make a name for myself and I need success in a big city for that to happen. 12 AUGUST 1838 The blackest day. Virginia has not survived. She was just 16 months old. We must leave Busseto for Milan. I cannot stay in this town a day longer, if I have no daughter by my side. 22 OCTOBER 1839 God has snatched Icilio from us too. Cruel, cruel fate. 18 NOVEMBER 1839 The premiere of Oberto was staged in La Scala opera house, Milan, last night. It seems to have gone down well. And about time too: Ghita has had to pawn her jewellery to pay for the rent here.
Bartolomeo Merelli, who runs La Scala, is pleased enough to commission three further operas. I can feel success coming, if I keep plugging away.
18 JUNE 1840 On the feast of Corpus Christi, my wife has died of a disease that seems a mystery to the doctors. I am now completely alone. Life is a cruel tragedy and it is too painful to have to write jaunty tunes for my comic opera Un Giorno di Regno.
10 MARCH 1842 Last night was a wonderful premiere at La Scala of Nabucco, my third opera, based on the biblical story of the exile of the Jews from their homeland. Giuseppina Strepponi [Peppina], the prima donna, was in good voice.
30 OCTOBER 1842 We have now had 50 performances of Nabucco at La Scala and it is to be staged in Lisbon, Vienna and possibly London. I think I may have a hit on my hands.
5 JANUARY 1843 I have discovered that my portrait is for sale in shops in Milan. It is proof, I suppose, that the people like my music.
11 OCTOBER 1843 Francesco Piave, the stage manager at Venice’s La Fenice Theatre, has sent me a libretto [lyrics] about Oliver Cromwell, which he hopes may tickle my fancy. It does not. But Piave shares with me a belief that the historical can be modern. This is what inspires me – old stories that speak to our modern, turbulent age. 7 JANUARY 1844 Have made good progress on my opera Ernani, based on a play by Victor Hugo, though Piave is nervous about the blasted censors in Venice. In the first scene of Ernani, the king hides in a cupboard.
According to Piave, the censors will think it is unbecoming for a king to do this. What rot.
10 MARCH 1844 The opera went down quite well last night in La Fenice: 17 curtain calls. The only problem is Peppina, who, despite looking lovelier than ever, is struggling with her throat.
17 JULY 1844 I am like a slave in a galley ship, always working. But if I keep at it hard enough I might be able to retire in a few years. I dream of buying a palazzo back in Le Roncole where I grew up. What is the point of all this toil if I cannot enjoy the fruits of it?
5 MAY 1845 I am in Naples for rehearsals of Alzira, my opera set in the Americas, and it is impossible to have a coffee in a café without members of the public staring at me. It is most irksome. Worse, if I should choose to have a stroll through the streets with Peppina, the filthy looks we get are insufferable. She is no more than a supporter and unofficial secretary to me. But even if she were my lover – so what? It’s none of their business. 25 JUNE 1847 I am in London to help launch I Masnadieri, my opera which has been commissioned for Her Majesty’s Theatre. Queen Victoria has asked to see me, but I have ducked out of an audience with her to see Jenny Lind, the ‘Swedish Nightingale’, perform. I want to ensure the part she is due to sing in my opera is right for her.
26 JULY 1847 I was honoured to meet my fellow countryman, the politician Giuseppe Mazzini, who is in exile here in London. He dreams of Italian unification and wants to kick out the Austrian Empire, which ‘imprisons’ most of northern Italy. He wants me to write a patriotic hymn to stir the people. The people, whether I like it or not, believe my music is their battle cry. They think most of my operas have a revolutionary meaning, but I write mostly to take opera to another level. I share Mazzini’s dream of a free, united Italy. I’m just not sure it’s going to happen soon or that my music will usher it in.
18 SEPTEMBER 1847 Paris. Peppina is now much more than my secretary. It is liberating to be in this city where few know my face. Here we can behave as man and wife and no one asks us questions, unlike in stuffy old Milan.
20 MARCH 1848 News reaches me in Paris that the revolutionaries have thrown the Austrians out of Milan. Italy could yet become a free country! I am drunk with joy and making plans to rush back to Milan to witness this wonder. I was also finally able to buy a delightful villa in Sant’Agata, near Le Roncole.
5 MARCH 1849 Dreams of Italian unification are over. The Kingdom of Sardinia has been defeated by the Austrian Empire and though I may
be in Paris, my Italian heart bleeds a little. But if Italy cannot be free, at least I can provide her people with great operas. And Rigoletto may be my best yet.
FEBRUARY 1851 The idiotic, meddlesome censors have claimed the first draft of Rigoletto was ‘a repugnant example of immorality’ because I dared show a womanising king. Fine, we’ll make him a duke.
JULY 1852 I have just seen French writer Alexandre Dumas’ play The Lady Of The Camellias. The story of a Parisian courtesan who falls in love and then dies from consumption would make a powerful modern opera. I have demanded Piave drop everything and set to work. We’ll call it La Traviata. I want to stage it in modern
dress, but Piave says the censors will not allow such an immoral topic to be presented so starkly in front of an audience so we will have to set it in 1700. Maybe, but it will have love, life, drinking – I must include a joyful drinking song. It will have death and passion. Life in music: that is my aim.
6 MARCH 1853 The premiere of La Traviata last night – a failure. Was the fault mine or the singers’? The audience laughed at Fanny SalviniDonatelli in the title role. Was it because she was too fat, too old to play a courtesan? Or because she was off key in the first act? I had hoped Venetians would be broadminded enough to embrace an opera about a courtesan. Not so. One day it will succeed.
I have written 16 operas in 11 years. I am exhausted. It is time to retire to the country and slow down.
26 NOVEMBER 1869 My blissful existence at the villa in Sant’Agata, interrupted by only a few operas, has been shattered by the latest commission, something called Aida. I had been enjoying the hunting season, planting beans and cabbages and managing the estate. But 150,000 francs [€675,000 in today’s money] is such an outrageously large sum it would be foolish to turn my back on it. Peppina, my love [he married his long-term lover in 1859], says it would be good to get back to writing. I am not inspired by the setting. Ancient Egypt is not a civilisation I have ever been able to admire, but the new Suez Canal has prompted a lavish opera house in Cairo to be built and they want me to write something Egyptian. It is a wonderful story about a father and his daughter. Aida is a captive Ethiopian princess, who is in love with the Egyptian general Radames. She is a slave to the pharaoh’s daughter, who is also in love with Radames. When the Ethiopian army headed by Aida’s father invades Egypt, should she support her father or her beloved Radames?
It is a lifetime since I lost my beloved Virginia, but I still feel the pain. 1 OCTOBER 1870 What a disaster! The Prussians, in an attempt to end this Franco-Prussian War, have attacked Paris and the city is now under siege. That means so too are all the sets and costumes for Aida, which are being built there. Indeed, the entire production is on hold. And I fear for liberty-loving France as much as I fear for my Egyptian opera. If France falls, all our liberties will fall with her. 15 SEPTEMBER 1871 Teresa Stolz, who is to sing the role of Aida, has come to stay at Sant’Agata. She is a beauty, which upsets Peppina, who says the servants are gossiping. 24 DECEMBER 1871 Christmas Eve in Cairo and Aida has finally made it to the stage. Glorious. 5 MARCH 1873 Teresa has come to
visit and Peppina is jealous. It’s ridiculous. Every time Teresa visits me, she brings vitality and big smiles. 22 MAY 1873 The writer Alessandro Manzoni has died. I admired him and I’d like to write a requiem for him. The work I did on a requiem for Rossini in 1869 went to waste, it was never performed. I’d like to rework it for Manzoni, and Teresa can sing it. 22 MAY 1874 We have performed the requiem on the anniversary of Manzoni’s death. I no longer attend church, but such words can still stir me. Maybe now it is time to retire for good and tend my cabbages at Sant’Agata. 17 AUGUST 1875 Peppina has found out about my Saturday assignations in Cremona, where I meet the singer Teresa at a hotel. She read about it in some filthy rag. She says if we must live à trois, can I at least be more discreet. I just want to be left in peace. 30 JUNE 1879 I am in Milan, where my requiem is being performed. After the performance, my publisher, Giulio Ricordi, took me out to supper. He has cheekily suggested I should come out of retirement and write another opera.
I told him flatly no, and no again. But he has craftily enlisted Arrigo Boito to start working on a libretto based on Shakespeare’s Othello. He knows I adore Shakespeare. And Othello? Well, it has jealousy, lust, murder and suicide. But can I really find the energy to set to work on a new opera? 24 DECEMBER 1883 Ricordi has sent me a Christmas cake with a figure made out of chocolate on top: Othello. He is really not very subtle. This is the third Christmas in a row he’s done this. But I still can’t find the notes.
1 NOVEMBER 1886 It has been a long slog. I am getting too old for this, but my opera, which I’ve called Otello, is finally finished. The Moor will live again at La Scala.
5 FEBRUARY 1887 Otello tonight at La Scala was the most remarkable event. Before I had even left my hotel for the theatre, a crowd had gathered outside, cheering my name. And then at the end of the performance, after 20 curtain calls, they dragged me up and would not let me leave, try as I might. Eventually I was taken back to my hotel, accompanied by the most enormous swarm of admirers. It took nearly an hour to drive the few hundred yards back to the Grand Hotel. I would like to feel elated. But I think I am just exhausted.