The greatest Italian composer of opera was Guiseppe Verdi. Puccini is slightly more popular today in America, but to Italians the national musical style is opera and the ultimate composer was Verdi.
His melodic tunes are used today regularly in commercials. The songs are emotional, powerful and memorible.
His life
Unlike many composres, Verdi did not come from a musical family. He was the son of innkeeper. That is his parents owned a small country hotel in central Italy. He was not accepted into the Music Conservatory of Milan so he paid for private music lessons from the church organist. His goal was not to work as a church musician but to write operas. Big and elaborate productions of soap opera like plots. His first opera luckily was a success and gave him enough money to continue writing. His third opera was not so lucky, it was a complete failure. His wife had died that year and Verdi's music suffered with his grief. Nabucco in 1842 was a great hit. Go to this web site and press the arrow to listen to a chorus from it. chorus He wrote many other great operas including Othello, based on Shakespeare's story, Il Trovatore that has the famous anvil chorus, they actually play anvils in the orchestra, and Rigoletto.
His most popular opera is La Traviata. The story is about love and loss. The woman suffers and dies in the end (just like in most Italian operas.) Unlike most composers Verdi became rich from his music. He was so popular among the Italian citizens that they made him an honorary senator. He died in 1901.
Verdi wrote traditional operas. He was not trying to invent anything new as Wagner was. He just wanted to write beautiful music that people would love to sing and to listen to.
The famous aria from Rigoletto tells how women are easily seduced and what a great lover the tenor is. Here is a translation of the lyrics:
LA DONNA È MOBILE or A WOMAN IS FICKLE
The Duke of Mantua does not have a very high opinion of women's characters...
A woman is fickle
like a feather in the breeze,
changes her mind at the drop of a hat.
Always shows a charming,
pretty face,
but whether weeping or laughing.
she is deceitful.
A woman is fickle
like a feather in the breeze,
changes her mind at the drop of a hat.
You will be miserable
if you trust her,
if you confide in her
without guarding your heart!
And yet you'll never
feel happy
if you don't sip love
from her breast!
A woman is fickle
like a feather in the breeze,
changes her mind at the drop of a hat.
LA TRAVIATA background
After the highly successful premiere of Rigoletto at La Fenice in March 1851, Verdi was commissioned to deliver an opera for that house, to be performed in March 1853. He and Giuseppina spent some time in Paris during the winter of 1851/52 and there they saw a daring new play by Alexandre Dumas: 'La Dame aux Camélias'. However, Verdi did not decide on this subject right away. He was busy composing Il Trovatore for Rome and did not make up his mind about the new Venetian opera until the end of October 1852.
The triumphant 'Trovatore' premiere on 19th January 1853 out of the way, Verdi was able to concentrate on 'Traviata' and he started on the composition at the beginning of February. Two weeks before the premiere he travelled from Sant'Agata to Venice to do the orchestration while supervising the rehearsals.
The theatre had forced Verdi and Piave (in his capacity as stage director of the premiere) to abandon the contemporary setting and relocate the action back to the year 1700. This rankled Verdi enormously, but he accepted, relieved that the libretto had passed the censor quite quickly and with less trouble than he was used to encounter in Venice.
It would almost seem that the hallmark of some of the most successful and well-loved operas is a less than favourable - even disastrous - reception of the premiere. This was the case also for 'La Traviata' when it was first performed at La Fenice. It was an unmitigated fiasco.
The reasons for this were various, but a large part of the blame was attributed to the singers - the rather ample Salvini-Donatelli did not cut a believable figure as the consumptive courtesan, Graziani was going through a very difficult vocal period at the time, and Varesi was at the end of his career.
In the following months only the opera houses in Genoa and Naples expressed any interest to show the opera, but Verdi declined. He made a number of changes in the score, notably in some sections of the Violetta-Germont duet in Act II/1, Germont's cabaletta at the end of that scene, the duet following the card scene in Act II/2, the concertato of that scene, the duet in Act III, and the finale ultimo. Moreover, if a new production was to be risked, the cast would have to be suitable both in appearance and vocal ability.
This opportunity presented itself exactly 14 months later on 6th May 1854, again in Venice, again with Piave as stage director, but this time at the Teatro San Benedetto, with Maria Spezia, Francesco Landi and Filippo Coletti. It was an overwhelming success.
Opera houses were now clamouring to produce 'La Traviata' and within a few months it was performed in Rome, Naples, Bologna and other Italian cities. The following two years saw productions in Madrid, Vienna, Malta, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rio de Janeiro, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Moscow, Dublin, New York, and more Italian cities.
http://www.r-ds.com/opera/verdiana/traviata.htm
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