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The Worlds of Gilbert and Sullivan

Giuseppe (Fortunino Francesco) Verdi, [Joe Green - as we affectionately describe him - A crazy group ours!], was born in Le Roncole, near Busseto, Parma, Northern Italy, in 1813. 

Born to a poor innkeeper, Giuseppe first discovered music through a local organist. A local grocer spotted his extraordinary musical talent and offered to pay for him to study in Milan. However, the authorities turned him down on the grounds of his 'poor piano playing'! With sheer guts and determination he studied privately in Milan, then back home to Busseto where he married the grocer's daughter.

Here he was supremely happy and composed some successful (and some unsuccessful) operas. Suddenly Giuseppe's young wife and two baby children died. He was prostrate with grief and abandoned his composing. However, two years later he was persuaded to compose Nabucco. It was immediately triumphantly successful, and made him the most prominent of all young Italian composers.

Following this success he wrote a series of operas, each eagerly awaited by the public. Some tremendously successful, others less so. He was a well known champion for Italy's independence from Austria. After the war of independence he was elected a deputy in the first Italian National Parliament, a position he held for five years.

Then back to his composing: operas, other religious and secular music, and of course, his great Requiem. In 1859 he married  the soprano Giuseppina Stepponi, his ten year constant companion. When she died in 1897 he composed no more.

Giuseppe Verdi died at Sant' Agata, Milan in 1901, and left most of his money to a home for elderly musicians which he founded in Milan.

Verdi's stature as one of the greatest opera composers is unchallengeable. His three Shakespeare operas: Otello, Falstaff and Macbeth, are well-loved masterpieces. And many of his other magnificent operas (e.g. Rigoletto, La traviata, Il trovatore and Aida) are as popular today as when they were premiered. Giuseppe was a composer whose fire and genius greatly influenced our Arthur Sullivan. 

Here is a piece from his opera Nabucco (click button above) which we hope will send you racing to your local library, music shop, or opera house for more, in tapes, discs, sheet music or live performances . . .

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