Ismail Pasha
Khedive of Egypt and Sudan
File:Regno d'Egitto.gif
Reign	January 19, 1863 - June 26, 1879
Born	(1830-12-31)December 31, 1830
Birthplace	Cairo
Died	March 2, 1895(1895-03-02) (aged 64)
Place of death	Constantinople
Buried	Cairo
Predecessor	Said I
Successor	Tewfik Pasha
Dynasty	Muhammad Ali Dynasty
Father	Ibrahim Pasha
Mother	Hoshiar

Isma'il Pasha (Arabic: إسماعيل باشا‎ Ismā‘īl Bāshā, Turkish: İsmail Paşa), known as Ismail the Magnificent (December 31, 1830 – March 2, 1895), was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom. Sharing the ambitious outlook of his grandfather, Muhammad Ali Pasha, he greatly modernized Egypt and Sudan during his reign, investing heavily in industrial and economic development, urbanisation, and the expansion of the country's boundaries in Africa.

His philosophy can be glimpsed at in a statement that he made in 1879: "My country is no longer in Africa; we are now part of Europe. It is therefore natural for us to abandon our former ways and to adopt a new system adapted to our social conditions".

He also secured Ottoman, and international recognition as Khedive in preference to Wāli. However, Isma'il's policies placed Egypt and Sudan in severe debt, leading to the sale of the country's shares in the Suez Canal Company to the United Kingdom, and his ultimate toppling from power at British hands.

Family[link]

Ismail, of Albanian descent, was born in Cairo at Al Musafir Khana Palace^[1] being the second of the three sons of Ibrahim Pasha, and the grandson of Muhammad Ali. His mother was Hoshiar (Khushiyar), third wife of his father. She was reportedly a sister of Pertevniyal Valide Sultan (1812–1883). Pertevniyal was a wife of Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire and mother of Abdülaziz I.^[2][3][4][5]

Youth and education[link]

Isma'il Pasha with attendants, 1855

After receiving a European education in Paris, where he attended the École d'état-major, he returned home, and on the death of his elder brother became heir to his uncle, Said I, the Wāli and Khedive of Egypt and Sudan. Said, who apparently conceived his own safety to lie in ridding himself as much as possible of the presence of his nephew, employed him in the next few years on missions abroad, notably to the Pope, the Emperor Napoleon III, and the Sultan of Ottoman Empire. In 1861 he was dispatched at the head of an army of 18,000 to quell an insurrection in Sudan, and this he successfully accomplished.

Khedive of Egypt[link]

After the death of Said, Ismail was proclaimed Khedive on January 19, 1863, though the Ottoman Empire, and the other Great Powers recognised him only was Wāli. Like all Egyptian and Sudanese rulers since his grandfather Muhammad Ali Pasha, he claimed the higher title of Khedive, which the Ottoman Porte had consistently refused to sanction. However, in 1867, Isma'il succeeded in persuading the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz to grant a firman finally recognising him as Khedive in exchange for an increase in the tribute. Another firman changed the law of succession to direct descent from father to son rather than brother to brother, and a further decree in 1873 confirmed the virtual independence of the Khedivate of Egypt from the Porte.

Reforms[link]

Ismail launched vast schemes of internal reform on the scale of his grandfather, remodeling the customs system and the post office, stimulating commercial progress, creating a sugar industry, building palaces, entertaining lavishly and maintaining an opera and a theatre. He greatly expanded Cairo, building an entire new quarter of the city on its western edge modeled on Paris. Alexandria was also improved. He launched a vast railroad building project that saw Egypt and Sudan rise from having virtually none to the most railways per habitable kilometre of any nation in the world.

Isma'il Pasha Statue in Alexandria, Egypt

One of his most significant achievements was to establish an assembly of delegates in November 1866. Though this was supposed to be a purely advisory body, its members eventually came to have an important influence on governmental affairs. Village headmen dominated the assembly and came to exert increasing political and economic influence over the countryside and the central government. This was shown in 1876, when the assembly persuaded Ismail to reinstate the law (enacted by him in 1871 to raise money and later repealed) that allowed landownership and tax privileges to persons paying six years' land tax in advance.

Ismail tried to reduce slave trading and extended Egypt's rule in Africa. In 1874 he annexed Darfur, but was prevented from expanding into Ethiopia after his army was repeatedly defeated by Emperor Yohannes IV, first at Gundat 16 November 1875, and again at Gura in March of the following year.

War with Ethiopia[link]

Ismail dreamt of expanding his realm over the whole Nile including its diverse sources and over the whole African coast of the Red Sea. This, together with rumours about rich raw material and fertile soil, led Ismail to expansive policies directed against Ethiopia under the Emperor Yohannes IV. In 1865 the Ottoman Sublime Porte ceded the Ottoman Province of Habesh (with Massawa and Suakin at the Red Sea as the main cities of that province) to Ismail. This province, neighbor of Ethiopia, first consisted of a coastal strip only, but expanded subsequently inland into territory controlled by the Ethiopian ruler. Here Ismail occupied regions originally claimed by the Ottomans when they had established the province (eyaleti) of Habesh in the 16th century. New economically promising projects, like huge cotton plantations in the Barka delta, were started. In 1872 Bogos (with the city of Keren) was annexed by the governor of the new "Province of Eastern Sudan and the Red Sea Coast", Werner Munzinger Pasha. In October 1875 Ismail's army occupied the adjacent highlands of Hamasien, which were then tributary to the Ethiopian Emperor. In November this army was virtually annihilated during the battle of Dogali near the Mareb River. In March 1876 Ismail's army again suffered a dramatic defeat after an attack by Yohannes's army at Gura'. Ismail's son Hassan was captured by the Ethiopians and only released after a large ransom. This was followed by a long cold war, only finishing in 1884 with the Anglo-Egyptian-Ethiopian Hewett Treaty, when Bogos was given back to Ethiopia. The Red Sea Province created by Ismail and his governor Munzinger Pasha was taken over by the Italians shortly thereafter and became the territorial basis for the Colonia Eritrea (proclaimed in 1890).

Suez Canal[link]

Punch cartoon featuring Isma'il Pasha during his visit to Britain in 1867

Ismail's khedivate is closely connected to the building of the Suez Canal. He agreed to, and oversaw, the Egyptian portion of its construction. On his accession, he refused to ratify the concessions to the Canal company made by Said, and the question was referred in 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III, who awarded £ 3,800,000 to the company as compensation for the losses they would incur by the changes which Ismail insisted upon in the original grant. Ismail then used every available means, by his own undoubted powers of fascination and by judicious expenditure, to bring his personality before the foreign sovereigns and public, and he had much success. In 1867 he visited Paris and London, where he was received by Queen Victoria and welcomed by the Lord Mayor. Whilst in Britain he also saw a British Royal Navy Fleet Review with the Ottoman Sultan. In 1869 he again paid a visit to British. When the Canal finally opened, Ismail held a festival of unprecedented scope, inviting dignitaries from around the world.

Debts[link]

These developments - especially the costly war with Ethiopia - left Egypt in deep debt to the European powers, and they used this position to wring concessions out of Ismail. One of the most unpopular among Egyptians and Sudanese was the new system of mixed courts, by which Europeans were tried by judges from their own states, rather than by Egyptian and Sudanese courts. But at length the inevitable financial crisis came. A national debt of over £100 million sterling (as opposed to three millions when he acceded to the throne) had been incurred by the Khedive, whose fundamental idea of liquidating his borrowings was to borrow at increased interest. The bond-holders became restive. Judgments were given against the Khedive in the international tribunals. When he could raise no more loans, he sold the Egyptian and Sudanese shares in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 to the British government for £ 3,976,582; this was immediately followed by the beginning of direct intervention by the Great Powers in Egypt and Sudan.

In December 1875, Stephen Cave and John Stokes were sent out by the British government to inquire into the finances of Egypt,^[6] and in April 1876 their report was published, advising that in view of the waste and extravagance it was necessary for foreign Powers to interfere in order to restore credit. The result was the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette. In October, George Goschen and Joubert made a further investigation, which resulted in the establishment of Anglo-French control over finances and the government. A further commission of inquiry by Major Baring (afterwards 1st Earl of Cromer) and others in 1878 culminated in Ismail making over his estates to the nation and accepting the position of a constitutional sovereign, with Nubar as premier, Charles Rivers Wilson as finance minister, and de Blignières as minister of public works.

Honours[link]

• Order of Glory (Nichan Iftikhar)
• Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) - 1862
• Order of Nobility, Special Class (Ottoman Empire_ - 1863
• Nishan-i-Osmanieh, special class (Ottoman Empire) - 1863
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Sword (Union between Sweden and Norway) - 1866
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (United Kingdom) - 1866
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion - 1866
• Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur of France - 1867
• Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India (United Kingdom) - 1868
• Knight of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Italy) - 1868
• Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle (Prussia) - 1868
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Red Eagle (Prussia) - 1868
• Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy) - 1869
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown of Italy - 1869
• Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer (Greece) - 1869
• Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold (Austria) - 1869
• Honorary member: Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities-1874
• Order of the Brilliant Star of Zanzibar, 1st Class-1875

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Isma'il Pasha

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Official Presidential web site of Egypt

v t e Muhammad Ali Dynasty (1805–1953) Family tree Monarchs Muhammad Ali Ibrahim Abbas I Sa'id Isma'il Tewfik Abbas II Hussein Kamel Fuad I Farouk Fuad II Consorts Djavidan Hanem Melek Tourhan Nazli Sabri Farida Narriman Sadek Heirs Ibrahim Abbas Sa'id Ahmad Rifaat Isma'il Mustafa Fazl Tewfik Abbas Hilmi Muhammad Ali Tewfik Muhammad Abdel Moneim Farouk Muhammad Ali Tewfik Ahmad Fuad Category Commons

v t e Prime Ministers of Egypt (List) Khedivate (1878–1914) Nubar Isma'il1 Tewfik Sharif Tewfik1 Riyad Sharif el-Baroudi Raghib2 Sharif Nubar Riyad Fahmi Fahri Riyad Nubar Fahmi Ghali Said Rushdi Sultanate (1914–1922) Rushdi Said Wahba Nasim Yakan Kingdom (1922–1953) Sarwat Nasim Y. Ibrahim Zaghlul Ziwar Yakan Sarwat Nahhas Mahmoud Yakan Nahhas I. Sedki A. Ibrahim Nasim Mahir Nahhas Mahmoud Ali Mahir H. Sabry Sirri Nahhas Ahmad Mahir Nukrashi I. Sedki Nukrashi Hadi Sirri Nahhas Ali Mahir Hilali Sirri Hilali Ali Mahir Naguib3 Republic (1953–present) Naguib3 Nasser3 Naguib3 Nasser3,4 A. Sabri4 Z. Mohieddin4 Sulayman4 Nasser4 Fawzi4 A. Sedki Sadat Hegazi Salem Khalil Sadat Mubarak A. F. Mohieddin Ali Lutfi A. M. N. Sedki Ganzouri Ebeid Nazif Shafik Sharaf Ganzouri Notes ^1 interim ^2 Orabi ^3 headed a government in rebellion, July–September 1882, beginning during Raghib's term ^4 UAR period

v t e Suez Canal History Heroopolite Gulf Ferdinand de Lesseps Isma'il Pasha Suez Canal Company Convention of Istanbul First Suez Offensive Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 Suez Crisis Current authorities Suez Canal Authority Suez Governorate Ismailia Governorate Port Said Governorate Infrastructure Waterworks Port Said Port Fuad Great Bitter Lake Suezmax Fresh Water Canal Cities Port Said Port Fuad Ismaïlia Constructions Port Said Container Terminal Suez Canal Bridge El Ferdan Railway Bridge Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel Power line crossing Marine life Lessepsian migration (List)

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