Land of opera and glory

From the small village of Le Roncole to the bustling metropolis of Milan, Claire Jackson explores Verdi’s Italy

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THE composer picks out a melody on the piano. It’s stirring—and sweetly sultry. ‘What do you think?’ he calls over his shoulder to the music journalist. ‘Awful,’ says the critic. Giuseppe Verdi smiles, scribbling the excerpt onto the manuscript. ‘Excellent—if you hate it, that means the people will love it!’ This much-quoted exchange—whether real or imagined—casts Verdi as the people’s composer, a role ascribed to him due to the widespread popularity of his music, which was created against a backdrop of political repression in pre- and post-Unification Italy. It isn’t only Italians who love his music— Verdi’s operas have become some of the most staged works in the repertory; barely a season goes past without the likes of Rigoletto, Aida or La Traviata appearing at the Royal Opera House (ROH) in the UK or the Metropolitan Opera House in the US.

Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Busseto (top), built in honour of the composer (above)

Born into relative poverty in Le Roncole— a fact that Verdi (1813–1901) may have deliberately exaggerated—the composer learned music from the local organist and went on to study in Milan. By the late 1840s, following a period of personal turmoil, including the deaths of his first wife, daughter and son, commissions were rolling in thick and fast, and, in 1853, he was asked to write a work for carnival season at Teatro La Fenice. Verdi was busy with