Rick is a 2003 movie whose plot and title character, Rick O'Lette, are borrowed from the opera Rigoletto although, save for a snippet of La donna è mobile as restaurant background music, Verdi's music is not heard. Rick stars Bill Pullman and Aaron Stanford. It is directed by Curtiss Clayton and written by Daniel Handler.

Plot summary[link]

The film chronicles the tragic fall of a cursed Wall Street second banana, Rick O'Lette.

Cast[link]

• Bill Pullman as Rick O'Lette
• Aaron Stanford as Duke (Rick's young boss)
• Agnes Bruckner as Eve O'Lette (Rick's daughter)
• Sandra Oh as Michelle
• Dylan Baker as Buck (Rick's sinister "friend")

Writer Daniel Handler also makes a cameo appearance as the Perky Waiter.

Music[link]

The main score is by Ted Reichman.

External links[link]

• Rick at the Internet Movie Database

This 2000s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Angela Gheorghiu (Romanian pronunciation: [anˈd͡ʒela ɡe̯orˈɡi.u] ( listen); born Angela Burlacu September 7, 1965) ^[1] is a Romanian soprano. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has performed in the leading roles of several operas at New York's Metropolitan Opera, London's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States. She has a substantial discography primarily with EMI Classics and Decca.

Angela Gheorghiu, March 2012

Biography[link]

Gheorghiu was born in 1965 in Adjud, Romania. Along with her sister Elena Dan, she sang opera music from an early age.^[2] At age 14, Gheorghiu began to study singing at the National University of Music Bucharest, primarily under Mia Barbu. Her graduation in 1990 coincided with the overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu the previous year, enabling her to seek an international career immediately. Her professional opera debut took place at the Cluj-Napoca Romanian National Opera as Mimì in La bohème in 1990, the same year she won the Belvedere International Competition.^[3]

Gheorghiu made her international debut in 1992 at the Royal Opera House as Zerlina in Don Giovanni.^[4] She debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Adina in L'elisir d'amore and at the Metropolitan Opera as Mimì in La bohème.^[5] In 1994, she was auditioned by the conductor Sir Georg Solti for a new production of La traviata at the Royal Opera House. Her debut as Violetta led her to international stardom.

Gheorghiu has concentrated her repertoire on several different roles: Violetta, Mimì, Magda, Adina, and Juliette. In 2003, she debuted as Nedda in Pagliacci and as Marguerite in Faust. A soprano with a large range and a dark coloured voice,^[6] Gheorghiu is also able to sing spinto roles. She has recorded Tosca (also made into a film in 2001, directed by the French director Benoît Jacquot) and Leonora in Il trovatore for EMI and sang in her first Tosca at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2006. Her performance was an overall success, although because the famous Zeffirelli production of 1964 was replaced by a new production (which premiered with her), there was comparison between the Toscas of Gheorghiu and Maria Callas, for whom the Zeffirelli production was designed.

Gheorghiu took part in many concerts, singing alone or together with her colleagues. Among the most important ones, the reopening of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (1999) and Teatro Malibran in Venice (2001) and at the opening the new Opera House in Valencia, in the presence of the Queen Sofia of Spain (2005). She sang at the "Prom at the Palace" (2002), the event that marked the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a concert that is available on DVD. She also sung at the Queen Beatrix's Jubilee Gala in Amsterdam (2005), at the New Year's Eve Concert at Palais Garnier in Paris (2006), at the "Met Summer Concert" in Prospect Park, New York (2008) or at the Memorial Concert for Luciano Pavarotti in Petra (2008). In 2009, Gheorghiu was invited to honor Grace Bumbry during the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors, in Washington, DC. She performed "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca in the presence of Barack Obama, the president of the United States.^[7]

In December 2000, Gheorghiu performed the title role in the film Tosca, directed by Benoit Jacquot, together with Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi.^[8] One year later, in 2002, Gheorghiu interpreted Juliette in the movie Roméo et Juliette, alongside Roberto Alagna and Tito Beltrán, also released on DVD.^[9]

In November 2010 Gheorghiu made her debut in Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, a new production of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The Observer wrote: "It's hard to imagine anyone bettering Angela Gheorghiu in this part. Her voice, feather-light and creamy yet with a core of steel, matches the liquid way she moves on stage. She's a natural actress and made the improbable death scene heartbreakingly believable and her signature aria "Poveri fiori" simply unforgettable."^[10] The Telegraph wrote: "Adriana is known as a nice, easy sing for ageing or challenged prima donnas (no difficult top notes, and a tame orchestra), so Gheorghiu, in her vocal prime, should have found it a doddle. But her first aria was bumpy and nervous, and she fudged the end of the second. Elsewhere, in duet and declamation, she often sang exquisitely."^[11]

In July 2011 Gheorghiu sang the title role in Tosca at the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano, and the following September returned there for the revival of Faust, which was broadcast live in cinemas all over the world. In April 2012, she appeared for the first time at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, in a concert of duets with Roberto Alagna.^[12]

Awards and honors[link]

She has recorded many recital albums and complete opera recordings and often appears on television and in concerts. The EMI recording of Massenet's Manon with Gheorghiu in the title role won the 2001 Gramophone Award for "Best Opera Recording", was nominated for "Best Opera Recording" in the 2002 Grammy Awards.^[13][14] The EMI recording of Puccini's Tosca with Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna and Ruggero Raimondi in the title roles brought her the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis award in 2002.^[15] She also won Diapason d'Or Awards, Choc du Monde de la Musique in France, Cecilia Prize in Belgium, the Echo Award, the Italian Musica e dischi, Foreign Lyric Production Award, the USA Critics' Award. Gheorghiu won the title of Female Artist of the Year at the Classic Brit Awards in 2001 and 2010.^[16] She was honoured with "La Medaille Vermeille de la Ville de Paris" and she was appointed an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and by her native country Romania.^{[citation needed]} In December 2010, Gheorghiu was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of Arts in Iasi (Romania)^[17] and the Star of Romania, the highest decoration given by the President of Romania.^[18]

Gheorghiu at the Met and elsewhere[link]

On occasion, Gheorghiu has had difficult relationships with opera house managements and directors. Some, but not all, of them have stemmed from her opposition to directors who, as she put it in an interview with ABC "want to express their own fantasies, forgetting about the characters. At times, she says, what they put on stage goes against both the story and the music."^[19] She has attributed her outspokenness to her upbringing in Romania under the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu:

"Because I grew up in a country where there was no possibility of having an opinion, it makes me stronger now. Lots of singers are frightened about not getting invited back to an opera house if they speak out. But I have the courage to be, in a way, revolutionary. I want to fight for opera, for it to be taken seriously. Pop music is for the body, but opera is for the soul.".^[20]

Gheorghiu had a problematic relationship with former Metropolitan Opera General Manager Joseph Volpe after her debut there as Mimì in 1993. In 1996, Gheorghiu was cast as Micaela in a new production of Carmen, opposite Waltraud Meier and Plácido Domingo. The production by Franco Zeffirelli called for Micaela to wear a blonde wig, which Gheorghiu disliked. When the Met toured the production in Japan in 1997, she refused to wear it on the first night to which Volpe famously declared, "The wig is going on, with you or without you" and replaced her with an understudy.^[21][22] She appeared at the Met again in 1998 for six performances of Roméo et Juliette with her husband, tenor Roberto Alagna as Roméo. Volpe had planned to engage Gheorghiu in Violetta Valery for a new production of La traviata, to premiere in November 1998 and directed by Zeffirelli. Alagna was to sing the role of Violetta's lover, Alfredo Germont. According to Volpe, Gheorghiu and Alagna argued with the staff and the director over production details and continually delayed signing the contract. They eventually signed their contracts, and faxed them to the Met one day past their deadline. Volpe refused to accept them. The production opened with Patricia Racette and Marcelo Álvarez as the lovers.^[21]

In September 2007, Gheorghiu was dismissed from Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of La bohème by General Manager William Mason, for missing rehearsals and costume fittings, and generally "unprofessional" behavior. Gheorghiu said in a statement that she had missed some rehearsals to spend time with her husband, who was singing at the Met in Roméo et Juliette and rehearsing for Puccini's Madama Butterfly and added "I have sung 'Boheme' hundreds of times, and thought missing a few rehearsals wouldn't be a tragedy. It was impossible to do the costume fitting at the same time I was in New York.^[23]

Six weeks later, Gheorghiu made her debut at San Francisco Opera receiving favorable reviews for her Magda in that company's new production of La rondine.^[24][25] The San Francisco Opera production originated with London's Royal Opera House, where it premiered on May 7, 2002 with Gheorghiu and Alagna as Magda and her lover Ruggero. It is one which she particularly admires:

"When the curtain opened on La rondine at Covent Garden, the audience gasped and applauded. People want to dream. If directors want to do something new with operas, why not do something beautiful?"^[26]

Despite these issues, Gheorghiu and Alagna returned to the Metropolitan Opera for five performances of L'elisir d'amore in 1999 and for four performances of Faust in 2003. Gheorghiu also performed at the Met as Liù in Turandot in 2000; as Violetta in La traviata opposite Jonas Kaufmann in 2006 and 2007; as Amelia in Simon Boccanegra in 2007; as Mimì in La bohème in 2008; as Magda in the 2008/09 season in the ROH/SFO production of La rondine, the Met's first performance of the opera since 1936; and for the 2009/10 season she appeared as Violetta, replacing her previous engagement as Marie Antoinette in a rare revival of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles which was replaced due to the recession.

On December 31, 2008, Gheorghiu premiered the new production of La rondine at the Met, together with Roberto Alagna, Marius Brenciu, Lisette Oropesa and Samuel Ramey. The opera was last performed at the house over 70 years ago. She received some favorable reviews for her Magda: "Gheorghiu embodies the part, as actress and singer, with her natural charisma."^[27] The New York Times opinion was more mixed: "Vocally, both leads are somewhat disappointing. Ms. Gheorghiu, as Magda, sings with gleaming sound and wonderfully dusky colorings in the strong top register of her voice. But the earthy richness of her mid-range singing sometimes turns breathy, and her low voice is curiously weak."^[28]

In August 2009, Gheorghiu canceled all her scheduled 2010 Met performances of Carmen, for "personal reasons".^[29] It was to be her first public performance of the title role (normally sung by mezzo-sopranos). She also cancelled other Met performances scheduled near the end of 2010. In March 2011 she cancelled all her scheduled performances of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette at the Met, citing illness. Only days later she cancelled all her performances in the scheduled new production of Faust during the Met's 2011/2012 season. According to her manager the singer felt that "She felt uncomfortable in the concept". Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, said that her frequent cancellations have become "an increasingly difficult problem for (the Met)." Gelb went on to say that, as of now, plans are still in place for Gheorghiu's return to the Met stage. He also went on the record to say "this has nothing to do with wigs."^[30]

Personal life[link]

Divorced from her first husband, from whom she retained her surname, Gheorghiu married tenor Roberto Alagna in 1996. The couple have sung together often on stage and on studio recordings. She was once chosen the 74th "most beautiful" woman in the world by the magazine FHM.^[31] In October 2009, Alagna said in an interview in Le Figaro that he and Gheorghiu had separated. This had been confirmed on Gheorghiu's website where she has made it clear that she and Alagna have not been in a relationship for over two years.^[32] Following the separation, she declined to appear opposite Alagna in Carmen at the Metropolitan Opera in December 2009.^[33] The divorce, however, was then called off, only a few months after announcing it, in December 2009.^[34] In a March 2011 interview with the Daily Express she stated that she and Alagna were back together, and they were seen together in March 2011 backstage at London's Royal Opera House where Alagna was performing in Aida. She also stated in the interview that although she still wanted to sing separately from her husband for a while, she was looking forward to the day when they could retire together and have their own pets.^[35][36][37] Later that year, they jointly opened a Greek amphitheatre in the Emirate of Qatar.^[38]

Recordings[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Angela Gheorghiu: Official website
• Official Angela Gheorghiu page on EMI Classics (Biography, discography, schedule)

Giuseppe Verdi

Signature G. Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture – such as "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto, "Va, pensiero" (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" (The Drinking Song) from La traviata and the "Grand March" from Aida.

Verdi’s masterworks dominate the standard opera repertoire a century and a half after their composition.

Early life[link]

Giuseppe Verdi in Vanity Fair (1879)

Verdi was born the son of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi and Luigia Uttini in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro which was a part of the First French Empire after the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. The baptismal register, on 11 October lists him as being "born yesterday", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. The next day, he was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church in Latin as Joseph Fortuninus Franciscus. The day after that (Tuesday), Verdi's father took his newborn the three miles to Busseto, where the baby was recorded as Joseph Fortunin François; the clerk wrote in French. "So it happened that for the civil and temporal world Verdi was born a Frenchman."^[1]

When he was still a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. Also in Busseto, Verdi was given his first lessons in composition.

Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies. He took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances, as well as concerts of, specifically, German music. Milan's beaumonde association convinced him that he should pursue a career as a theatre composer. During the mid 1830s, he attended the Salotto Maffei salons in Milan, hosted by Clara Maffei.

Returning to Busseto, he became the town music master and, with the support of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and music lover who had long supported Verdi's musical ambitions in Milan, Verdi gave his first public performance at Barezzi’s home in 1830.

Because he loved Verdi’s music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher, and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married on 4 May 1836 and Margherita gave birth to two children, Virginia Maria Luigia (26 March 1837 – 12 August 1838) and Icilio Romano (11 July 1838 – 22 October 1839). Both died in infancy while Verdi was working on his first opera and, shortly afterwards, Margherita died of encephalitis^[2][3]on 18 June 1840, aged only 26.^[4] Verdi adored his wife and children, and he was devastated by their untimely deaths.

Initial recognition[link]

	"O sommo Carlo" Ernani (1844), Act 3, sung by Mattia Battistini, Emilia Corsi, Luigi Colazza, Aristodemo Sillich, and the La Scala chorus in 1906.
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The production by Milan's La Scala of his first opera, Oberto in November 1839 achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, La Scala's impresario, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.

It was while he was working on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife died. The opera, given in September 1840, was a flop and he fell into despair and vowed to give up musical composition forever. However, Merelli persuaded him to write Nabucco and its opening performance in March 1842 made Verdi famous. Legend (and Verdi's own "An Autobiographical Sketch" of 1879^[5]) has it that it was the words of the famous Va pensiero chorus of the Hebrew slaves that inspired him to write music again. A large number of operas – 14 in all – followed in the decade after 1843, a period which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included his I Lombardi in 1843, and Ernani in 1844. For some, the most original and important opera that Verdi wrote is Macbeth in 1847. For the first time, Verdi attempted an opera without a love story, breaking a basic convention in 19th century Italian opera.

In 1847, I Lombardi, which was revised and renamed Jérusalem, was produced by the Paris Opera. Due to a number of Parisian conventions that had to be honored (including extensive ballets), it became Verdi's first work in the French Grand opera style.

Middle years[link]

	"Bella figlia dell'amore" Rigoletto (1851), Act 3. A 1907 Victor Records recording with Enrico Caruso, Bessie Abott, Louise Homer and Antonio Scotti. "Stride la vampa" Il trovatore (1853), Act 2. Sung by Gabriella Besanzoni in 1920. "Ah, fors'è lui" ... "Sempre libera" La traviata (1853), Act 1. Sung by Lucrezia Bori.
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Sometime in the mid-1840s, after the death of Margherita Barezzi, Verdi began an affair with Giuseppina Strepponi, a soprano in the twilight of her career.^[6] Their cohabitation before marriage was regarded as scandalous in some of the places they lived, but Verdi and Giuseppina married on 29 August 1859 at Collonges-sous-Salève, near Geneva.^[7] While living in Busseto with Strepponi, Verdi bought an estate two miles from the town in 1848. Initially, his parents lived there, but, after his mother's death in 1851, he made the Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata in Villanova sull'Arda his home until his death.

As the "galley years" were drawing to a close, Verdi created one of his greatest masterpieces, Rigoletto, which premiered in Venice in 1851. Based on a play by Victor Hugo (Le roi s'amuse), the libretto had to undergo substantial revisions in order to satisfy the epoch's censorship, and the composer was on the verge of giving it all up a number of times. The opera quickly became a great success.

With Rigoletto, Verdi sets up his original idea of musical drama as a cocktail of heterogeneous elements, embodying social and cultural complexity, and beginning from a distinctive mixture of comedy and tragedy. Rigoletto's musical range includes band-music such as the first scene or the song La donna è mobile, Italian melody such as the famous quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore", chamber music such as the duet between Rigoletto and Sparafucile and powerful and concise declamatos often based on key-notes like the C and C# notes in Rigoletto and Monterone's upper register.

There followed the second and third of the three major operas of Verdi's "middle period": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and La traviata in Venice. The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils' play The Lady of the Camellias, and became the most popular of all Verdi's operas, placing second in the Operabase list of most performed operas worldwide.^[8]

Later compositions[link]

	"È scherzo od è follia" Un ballo in maschera (1859), Act 1, Scene 2. Performed by Enrico Caruso, Frieda Hempel, Maria Duchêne, Andrés de Segurola and Léon Rothier. "Nè gustare m'è dato un'ora..." La forza del destino (1862), Act 3, Scene 3. Sung by Enrico Caruso and Giuseppe de Luca.
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Between 1855 and 1867, an outpouring of great Verdi operas followed, among them such repertory staples as Un ballo in maschera (1859), La forza del destino (commissioned by the Imperial Theatre of Saint Petersburg for 1861 but not performed until 1862), and a revised version of Macbeth (1865). Other somewhat less often performed include Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) and Don Carlos (1867), both commissioned by the Paris Opera and initially given in French. Today, these latter two operas are most often performed in their revised Italian versions. Simon Boccanegra followed in 1857.

Giuseppe Verdi in 1876 by Etienne Carjat

In 1869, Verdi was asked to compose a section for a requiem mass in memory of Gioachino Rossini and proposed that this requiem should be a collection of sections composed by other Italian contemporaries of Rossini. The requiem was compiled and completed, but it was cancelled at the last minute (and was not performed in Verdi's lifetime). Verdi blamed this on the lack of enthusiasm for the project by the intended conductor, Angelo Mariani, who had been a longtime friend of his. The episode led to a permanent break in their personal relations. The soprano Teresa Stolz (who later had a strong professional – and, perhaps, romantic – relationship with Verdi) was at that time engaged to be married to Mariani, but she left him not long after. Five years later, Verdi reworked his "Libera Me" section of the Rossini Requiem and made it a part of his Requiem Mass, honoring the famous novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni, who had died in 1873. The complete Requiem was first performed at the cathedral in Milan on 22 May 1874.

Verdi's grand opera, Aida, is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but, according to one major critic,^[9] Verdi turned down the Khedive's invitation to write an "ode" for the new opera house he was planning to inaugurate as part of the canal opening festivities. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. Later in 1869/70, the organizers again approached Verdi (this time with the idea of writing an opera), but he again turned them down. When they warned him that they would ask Charles Gounod instead and then threatened to engage Richard Wagner's services, Verdi began to show considerable interest, and agreements were signed in June 1870.

Teresa Stolz was associated with both Aida and the Requiem (as well as a number of other Verdi roles). The role of Aida was written for her, and although she did not appear in the world premiere in Cairo in 1871, she created Aida in the European premiere in Milan in February 1872. She was also the soprano soloist in the first and many later performances of the Requiem. It was widely believed that she and Verdi had an affair after she left Angelo Mariani, and a Florence newspaper criticised them for this in five strongly worded articles. Whether there is any truth to the accusation may never be known with any certainty. However, after Giuseppina Strepponi's death, Teresa Stolz became a close companion of Verdi until his own death.

Verdi and Wagner, who were the leaders of their respective schools of music, seemed to resent each other greatly. They never met. Verdi's comments on Wagner and his music are few and hardly benevolent ("He invariably chooses, unnecessarily, the untrodden path, attempting to fly where a rational person would walk with better results"), but at least one of them is kind: upon learning of Wagner's death, Verdi lamented, "Sad, sad, sad! ... a name that will leave a most powerful impression on the history of art."^[10] Of Wagner's comments on Verdi, only one is well-known. After listening to Verdi's Requiem, the German, prolific and eloquent in his comments on some other composers, stated, "It would be best not to say anything."

Final years and death[link]

	"Sì, pel ciel marmoreo giuro!" Otello (1887), Act 2. Performed by Titta Ruffo and Enrico Caruso.
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During the following years, Verdi worked on revising some of his earlier scores, most notably new versions of Don Carlos, La forza del destino, and Simon Boccanegra.

Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Some^[who?] feel that although masterfully orchestrated, it lacks the melodic lustre so characteristic of Verdi's earlier, great, operas,  while many critics consider it Verdi's greatest tragic opera, containing some of his most beautiful, expressive music and some of his richest characterizations. In addition, it lacks a prelude, something Verdi listeners are not accustomed to. Arturo Toscanini performed as cellist in the orchestra at the world premiere and began his friendship with Verdi (a composer he revered as highly as Beethoven).

Verdi's statue in the Piazza G. Verdi, Busseto

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation. It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.

In 1894, Verdi composed a short ballet for a French production of Otello, his last purely orchestral composition. Years later, Arturo Toscanini recorded the music for RCA Victor with the NBC Symphony Orchestra which complements the 1947 Toscanini performance of the complete opera.

In 1897, Verdi completed his last composition, a setting of the traditional Latin text Stabat Mater. This was the last of four sacred works that Verdi composed, Quattro Pezzi Sacri, which are often performed together or separately. The first performance of the four works was on 7 April 1898, at the Grande Opéra, Paris. The four works are: Ave Maria for mixed chorus; Stabat Mater for mixed chorus and orchestra; Laudi alla Vergine Maria for female chorus; and Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra.

On 29 July 1900, King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated, a deed that horrified the aged composer^[11].

While staying at the Grand Hotel et de Milan^[12] in Milan, Verdi had a stroke on 21 January 1901. He grew gradually more feeble and died six days later, on 27 January. Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs composed of musicians from throughout Italy at the state funeral for Verdi in Milan. To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.^[13]

Verdi was initially buried in Milan’s Cimitero Monumentale. A month later, his body was moved to the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, a rest home for retired musicians that Verdi had established.

He was an agnostic.^[14]

Role in the Risorgimento[link]

Giuseppe Verdi, the bust outside of the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy by Antonio Ugo.

Music historians have long perpetuated a myth about the famous Va, pensiero chorus sung in the third act of Nabucco. The myth reports that, when the Va, pensiero chorus was sung in Milan, then belonging to the large part of Italy under Austrian domination, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervor to the exiled slaves' lament for their lost homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not for Va, pensiero but rather for the hymn Immenso Jehova, sung by the Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving His people. In light of these new revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed.^[15]Claudio, Verdi, Milan: Rusconi, 1982

On the other hand, during rehearsals, workmen in the theater stopped what they were doing during Va, pensiero and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting melody^[16] while the growth of the "identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics" is judged to have begun in the summer 1846 in relation to a chorus from Ernani in which the name of one of its characters, "Carlo", was changed to "Pio", a reference to Pope Pius IX's grant of an amnesty to political prisoners.^[17]

After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi's early operas were re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that probably had not been intended by either the composer or librettist. Beginning in Naples in 1859 and spreading throughout Italy, the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Viva Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II, then king of Sardinia.^[18][19]

The Chorus of the Hebrews (the English title for Va, pensiero) has another appearance in Verdi folklore. Prior to Verdi's body's being driven from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final resting place at the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, Arturo Toscanini conducted a chorus of 820 singers in "Va, pensiero". At the Casa, the Miserere from Il trovatore was sung.^[20]

Verdi was elected as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1861 following a request of Prime Minister Cavour but in 1865 he resigned from the office.^[21] In 1874 he was named Senator of the Kingdom by King Victor Emanuel II.

Style[link]

Verdi caricatured by Delfico (1860)

Verdi's predecessors who influenced his music were Rossini, Bellini, Giacomo Meyerbeer and, most notably, Gaetano Donizetti and Saverio Mercadante. With the exception of Otello and Aida, he was free of Wagner's influence. Although respectful of Gounod, Verdi was careful not to learn anything from the Frenchman whom many of Verdi's contemporaries regarded as the greatest living composer. Some strains in Aida suggest at least a superficial familiarity with the works of the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka, whom Franz Liszt, after his tour of the Russian Empire as a pianist, popularized in Western Europe.

Throughout his career, Verdi rarely utilized the high C in his tenor arias, citing the fact that the opportunity to sing that particular note in front of an audience distracts the performer before and after the note appears. However, he did provide high Cs to Duprez in Jérusalem and to Tamberlick in the original version of La forza del destino. The high C, often-heard in the aria "Di quella pira" from Il trovatore , does not appear in Verdi's score.

Some critics maintain he paid insufficient attention to the technical aspect of composition, lacking as he did schooling and refinement.^{[citation needed]} Verdi himself once said, "Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned." He hastened to add, however, "I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music."

Giuseppe Verdi. Portrait by Giovanni Boldini, 1886. This famous portrait was the main inspiration of Luchino Visconti in creating the character played by Burt Lancaster in his film Il Gattopardo.

However, it would be incorrect to assume that Verdi underestimated the expressive power of the orchestra or failed to use it to its full capacity where necessary. Moreover, orchestral and contrapuntal innovation is characteristic of his style: for instance, the strings producing a rapid ascending scale in Monterone's scene in Rigoletto accentuate the drama, and, in the same opera, the chorus humming six closely grouped notes backstage portrays, very effectively, the brief ominous wails of the approaching tempest. Verdi's innovations are so distinctive that other composers do not use them; they remain, to this day, some of Verdi's signatures.

Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking out plots to suit his particular talents. Working closely with his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte, he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous" participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich in drama remained.

Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards, are a staple of the standard repertoire. With the possible exception of Giacomo Puccini, no composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity.

Works[link]

Verdi's operas, and their date of première are:

• Oberto, 17 November 1839
• Un giorno di regno, 5 September 1840
• Nabucco, 9 March 1842
• I Lombardi alla prima crociata, 11 February 1843
• Ernani, 9 March 1844
• I due Foscari, 3 November 1844
• Giovanna d'Arco, 15 February 1845
• Alzira, 12 August 1845
• Attila, 17 March 1846
• Macbeth, 14 March 1847
• I masnadieri, 22 July 1847
• Jérusalem (a revision and translation of I Lombardi alla prima crociata) 26 November 1847
• Il corsaro, 25 October 1848
• La battaglia di Legnano, 27 January 1849
• Luisa Miller, 8 December 1849
• Stiffelio, 16 November 1850
• Rigoletto, 11 March 1851
• Il trovatore, 19 January 1853
• La traviata, 6 March 1853
• Les vêpres siciliennes, 13 June 1855
• Simon Boccanegra, (Original Version), 12 March 1857
• Aroldo (A major revision of Stiffelio), 16 August 1857
• Un ballo in maschera, 17 February 1859
• La forza del destino, 10 November 1862
• Don Carlos, 11 March 1867
• Aida, 24 December 1871
• Simon Boccanegra, (Revised Version), 24 March 1881
• Otello, 5 February 1887
• Falstaff, 9 February 1893

Political significance[link]

Unlike most of the visual arts, opera was commercially profitable, accessible to most classes of society, and thus an effective means of reaching the 19th-century public. Verdi used musical theater to contrast noble ideals with the corrosive effects of power, love of country with the inevitable call for sacrifice and death, and the lure of passion with the need for social order.^[22]

Media[link]

Cultural depictions and references[link]

• The 1985 play After Aida is a play-with-music similar to Amadeus. It is an accurate and learned, yet dramatic and humorous, depiction of Verdi's relationship with his librettist Arrigo Boito, and the attempts of Giulio Ricordi and Franco Faccio to get the two to collaborate on a project, Otello.
• He is a character in the opera, Risorgimento! (2010) by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, written to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Italian unification.

Eponyms[link]

• There are many theatres named after Verdi in Italy.
• The Verdi Inlet on the Beethoven Peninsula of Alexander Island just off Antarctica
• Verdi Square at Broadway and West 72nd Street in Manhattan features the Giuseppe Verdi Monument.
• Asteroid 3975 Verdi
• Verdi Football Club, an association football club founded in Parma in July 1913, is after a series of name changes known today as the Parma F.C..

Verdi's name literally translates as "Joseph Green" in English (although verdi is the plural form of "green"). Musical comedian Victor Borge often referred to the famous composer as "Joe Green" in his act, saying that "Giuseppe Verdi" was merely his "stage name". The same joke-translation is mentioned in Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun by Patrick Redfern to Hercule Poirot – a prank which inadvertently gives Poirot the answer to the murder.

References[link]

Notes

Cited sources

• Budden, Julian (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume I (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816261-8. 
• Budden, Julian (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume II (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816262-6. 
• Budden, J. (1973). The Operas of Verdi, Volume III (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-816263-4. 
• Casini, Claudio, Verdi, Milan: Rusconi, 1982
• De Van, Gilles (trans. Gilda Roberts), Verdi’s Theater: Creating Drama Through Music. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1998 ISBN 0-226-14369-4 (hardback), ISBN 0-226-14370-8
• Hunt, Lynn (2009 (3rd edition)). The Making of the West. Bedford/St. Martin's. ISBN 0-312-46510-6. 
• Martin, G. (1963). Verdi: His Music, Life and Times (1st ed.). Dodd, Mead & Company. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/2-00-145672-0|2-00-145672-0]]. 
• Newman, Earnest, Stories of the Great Operas. Philadelphia: The Blakinson Company, 1930
• Parker, Roger (2001). "Giuseppe Verdi". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. 
• Parker, Roger (1992). "The New Grove Dictionary of Opera". In ed. Stanley Sadie. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. ISBN 0-333-73432-7. 
• Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane (1993). Verdi: A Biography (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-313204-4. 
• Schonberg, Harold C. (1997). The Lives of the Great Composers. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-03857-2. http://books.google.com/?id=VawrK1CRFJgC&pg=PA260&lpg=PA260&dq=wagner's+death+verdi. Retrieved 9 January 2008 
• Tintori, Giampiero, Guida all'ascolto di Giuseppe Verdi, Milano: Mursia, 1983.
• Werfel, Franz and Stefan, Paul, Verdi: The Man and His Letters, New York: Vienna House 1973 ISBN 0-8443-0088-8

Other sources

• Kamien, R. (1997). Music: an appreciation – student brief (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-036521-0. 
• Gal, H. (1975). Brahms, Wagner, Verdi: Drei Meister, drei Welten. Fischer. ISBN 3-10-024302-1. 
• Michels, Ulrich (1992). dtv-Atlas zur Musik: Band Zwei (7th ed.). Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. ISBN 3-423-03023-2. 
• (IT) Polo, Claudia, Immaginari verdiani. Opera, media e industria culturale nell'Italia del XX secolo, Milano: BMG/Ricordi, 2004

• Verdi's life in and around Busseto

• Associazione Amici di Verdi (ed.), Con Verdi nella sua terra, Busseto, 1997, (in English)
• Maestrelli, Maurizio, Guida alla Villa e al Parco (in Italian), publication of Villa Verdi, 2001
• Mordacci, Alessandra, An Itinerary of the History and Art in the Places of Verdi, Busseto: Busseto Tourist Office, 2001 (in English)
• Villa Verdi: the Visit and Villa Verdi: The Park; the Villa; the Room (pamphlets in English), publications of the Villa Verdi

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Giuseppe Verdi

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Giuseppe Verdi

• Giuseppe Verdi Official Site
• National Museum Giuseppe Verdi - Busseto
• Stanford University list of Verdi operas, premiere locations and dates, etc.
• Works by Giuseppe Verdi at Project Gutenberg
• "Album Verdi" from the Digital Library of the National Library of Naples (Italy)
• Free scores by Verdi at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Giuseppe Verdi in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Giuseppe Verdi in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• The Mutopia Project has compositions by Giuseppe Verdi
• Works by or about Giuseppe Verdi in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Detailed listing of "complete" recordings of Verdi's operas and of extended excerpts
• "Verdi and Milan", lecture by Roger Parker on Verdi, given at Gresham College, London 14 May 2007
• Verdi cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library
• Sheet music for "Ah! I have sigh'd to rest me.", Macon, GA: John C. Schreiner & Son. From Confederate Imprints Sheet Music Collection.

vep:Verdi Džuzeppe

Jonathan Stewart Vickers
Born	(1926-10-29) October 29, 1926 (age 85) Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
Known for	Opera singer
Awards	Order of Canada

Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC (born October 29, 1926), known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.

Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In 1957 Vickers joined London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden company. In 1960 he joined the Metropolitan Opera. He became world famous for a wide range of German, French and Italian roles. Vickers' huge, powerful voice and solid technique met the demands of many French, German and Italian roles. He was also highly regarded for his powerful stage presence and thoughtful characterizations.

In 1968 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Career[link]

Vickers studied with George Lambert at The Royal Conservatory of Music and sang professionally in Canada from the early- to mid-1950s. His international career began with his 1957 Covent Garden Riccardo in Verdi's Ballo in maschera. He continued to appear there into the 1980s, putting his personal stamp on the roles of Aeneas in Les Troyens, Radames in Aida, Don Carlos, Handel's Samson, Florestan in Fidelio, Tristan in Tristan und Isolde, Canio in Pagliacci, and the title role in Britten's Peter Grimes. Some critics praised Vickers' Tristan as the best since Lauritz Melchior's.^{[citation needed]}

He debuted at Bayreuth in 1958 as Siegmund in Die Walküre and sang Parsifal there in 1964. His debut role at the Metropolitan Opera in 1960 was Canio in Pagliacci. He appeared at the Met for 20 subsequent seasons in more than 225 performances of 16 roles, including Don Jose, Erik in The Flying Dutchman, Herman in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, the Samsons of both Handel and Saint-Saëns, Don Alvaro in La forza del destino, and Tristan. At the ROH Covent Garden in London he sang Tristan, Britten's Peter Grimes (and changed the concept of this part forever),^{[citation needed]} Handel's Samson - and, above all, Énée in Berlioz' epic opera Les Troyens. He later recorded Énée with Sir Colin Davis. In 1959 he was the tenor in a legendary and controversial recording of Handel's Messiah with Thomas Beecham.

Although scheduled to sing Tannhäuser at Covent Garden in the late 1970s, Vickers dropped out, claiming he could not empathize with the character. He did, however, sing Nerone in L'incoronazione di Poppea at the Paris Opéra, plus Alvaro in La forza del destino at the Met (1975). His roles also included Don Carlo, Andrea Chenier and Samson. Many critics praised his interpretation of Verdi's Otello, [1] which he also recorded in 1960 (with Tullio Serafin) and 1973 (with Herbert von Karajan). Vickers filmed Otello with Karajan and later sang the role in a "Live from the Met" telecast in 1978.

Vickers starred in made-for-television films of his Pagliacci and Otello, both conducted by Herbert von Karajan, and premiered the 1978 season of Live from the Met with Otello.

Vickers also sang at the 'home' of Italian opera, Milan's La Scala, as well as in the major opera houses of Chicago, San Francisco and Salzburg. He retired in 1988.

In 1998, following his retirement from singing, he made his first recording as a reciter, in Richard Strauss's melodrama Enoch Arden, accompanied on piano by Marc-André Hamelin.

In 1953 he married Henrietta Outerbridge. They had five children.

Sources[link]

• Kuhn, Laura (ed.). "Vickers, Jon(athan) Stewart" in Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music: R-Z, p. 1952. Schirmer Books, 1999. ISBN 0-02-865315-7
• Macdonnell, W.M. and Norman, Barbara. "Vickers, Jonathan Stewart". The Canadian Encyclopedia

Further reading

• Jon Vickers: A Hero's Life by Jeannie Williams, Northeastern University Press, 1999. ISBN 1-55553-408-2

External links[link]

• The Essential Jon Vickers [2].
• Interview with Jon Vickers by Bruce Duffie (originally published 1981 in Wagner News, the newsletter of the Wagner Society of America)

Violeta Urmana

Violeta Urmana, born Violeta Urmanavičiūtė is a Lithuanian operatic soprano who began her career as a mezzo-soprano but has transitioned successfully into soprano roles.

Born in Kazlų Rūda municipality, Marijampolė County, Lithuania, she enjoys an international career singing in opera houses around the world. Her roles and performances include: Sieglinde in Die Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival, Iphigénie en Aulide at La Scala, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier at the Vienna State Opera, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino, Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and the title roles of La Gioconda, Tosca, Ariadne auf Naxos, La Wally, and Aida.

Urmana also performs in concerts and recitals with a varied repertoire from Bach to Berlioz to Alban Berg. She's married with the italian opera singer Alfredo Nigro.

References[link]

• 'My voice decides what's good for me'. The Guardian.

External links[link]

• Official website and discography

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