Giuseppe Verdi
Operas Oberto (1839) Un giorno di regno (1840) Nabucco (1842) I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843) Ernani (1844) I due Foscari (1844) Giovanna d'Arco (1845) Alzira (1845) Attila (1846) Macbeth (1847) I masnadieri (1847) Jérusalem (1847) Il corsaro (1848) La battaglia di Legnano (1849) Luisa Miller (1849) Stiffelio (1850) Rigoletto (1851) Il trovatore (1853) La traviata (1853) Les vêpres siciliennes (1855) Simon Boccanegra (1857) Aroldo (1857) Un ballo in maschera (1859) La forza del destino (1862) Don Carlos (1867) Aida (1871) Otello (1887) Falstaff (1893)
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La forza del destino (The Force of Destiny) is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino (1835), by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed in the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia, on 22 November [O.S. 10 November] 1862.

La forza del destino is still frequently performed, and there have been a number of complete recordings. In addition, the overture (to the revised version of the opera) is part of the standard repertoire for symphony orchestras, often played as the opening piece at concerts.

Performance history[link]

Cover of first bilingual edition of the libretto of La forza del destino, St. Petersburg 1862

After some further revisions, performances in Rome in 1863 (as Don Alvaro) and Madrid (with the Duke of Rivas, the play's author, in attendance) followed shortly afterwards, and the opera subsequently travelled to New York and Vienna (1865), Buenos Aires (1866) and London (1867).

Verdi made other revisions, with additions by Antonio Ghislanzoni. This version, which premiered at La Scala, Milan, on 27 February 1869, has become the "standard" performance version. The most important changes were a new overture (replacing a brief prelude); the addition of a final scene to Act 3, following the duel between Carlo and Alvaro; and a new ending, in which Alvaro remains alive, instead of throwing himself off a cliff to his death.

Recent critical editions of the opera[link]

A critical edition^[1] of all versions of the opera (including material from the original 1861 score which was never performed as written) has been prepared by musicologist Philip Gossett of the University of Chicago.^[2] The critical edition of the 1869 version was performed by the San Francisco Opera in November 2005 while the Caramoor International Music Festival gave a concert performance of the 1862 version plus never-performed vocal pieces from the 1861 version at the July 2008 festival.^[3] Gossett's essay on differences between the versions is included on Caramoor's website.^[4]

Roles[link]

Instrumentation[link]

2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet), 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, cimbasso; timpani, percussion (side drum, bass drum); 2 harps; strings. Onstage: organ, 6 trumpets, 4 side drums.^[8]

Synopsis[link]

Place: Spain and Italy

Time: around 1750^[9]

Act 1[link]

The mansion of Leonora's family, in Seville

Don Alvaro is a young nobleman from South America (presumably Peru) who is part Indian and who has settled in Seville, where, however, he is not very well thought of. He falls in love with Donna Leonora, the daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava, who, notwithstanding his love for his daughter, is determined that she shall marry only a man of the highest origin. Leonora, knowing her father’s aversion to and deeply in love with Alvaro, determines to give up her home and country in order to elope with him, aided by her confidante, Curra.(Me pellegrina ed orfana – "Exiled and orphaned far from my childhood home").

Her father unexpectedly enters and discovers Alvaro; he threatens him with death, and, in order to remove any suspicion as to Leonora’s purity, Alvaro offers to surrender himself to the Marquis. He flings down his pistol which goes off and mortally wounds the Marquis who dies cursing his daughter.

Act 2[link]

Scene 1: An inn in the village of Hornachuelos

The Alcalde, several peasant muleteers, and Don Carlo of Vargas, the brother of Donna Leonora, are gathered in the kitchen of an inn. Don Carlo, disguised as a student of Salamanca, under the fictitious name of Pereda, is seeking revenge against Alvaro and Leonora (Son Pereda son ricco d'onore – "I am Pereda, of honorable descent"). During the supper, Preziosilla, a young gypsy, tells the young men’s fortunes and exhorts them to enlist in the war (Al suon del tamburo – "When side drums rattle") for Italy’s freedom, which all agree to do. Having become separated from Alvaro, Leonora arrives in male attire, but slips away without being discovered by Carlo.

Scene 2: A monastery nearby

Leonora takes refuge in the monastery (Sono giunta! ... Madre, pietosa Vergine – "I've got here! Oh, thank God!") where she tells the abbot, Padre Guardiano, her true name and that she intends to spend the remainder of her life in a hermitage. The abbot recounts the trials she will have to undergo. Leonora, Padre Guardiano, Fra Melitone, and the other monks join in prayer.

Act 3[link]

Scene 1: A forest near Velletri, in Italy

Meanwhile Don Alvaro has joined the Spanish army under the name of Don Federico Herreros (La vita è inferno ... O tu che in seno agli angeli – "Life is a hell to those who are unhappy....Oh, my beloved, risen among the angels"). One night he saves the life of Don Carlo who is serving in the same army under the name of Don Felix Bornos. They become close friends and go into battle side by side.

Scene 2: The officers' quarters

In one of these engagements Don Alvaro is, as he supposes, mortally wounded, and confides to Don Carlo’s care a valise containing a bundle of letters which he is to destroy as soon as Don Alvaro dies. (Solenne in quest'ora – "Swear to me, in this solemn hour"). Don Carlo has sworn not to look at the contents of the letters; but he becomes suspicious of his friend. (Morir! Tremenda cosa! ... Urna fatale del mio destino – "To die! What an awesome thought...Get away, fatal lot sent to my Destiny!"). He opens the valise, finds his sister’s picture, and realizes Alvaro's true identity. At that moment a surgeon brings word that Don Alvaro may recover. Don Carlo is overjoyed at the idea of avenging his father’s death.

	"Nè gustare m'è dato un'ora..." Opening of Act III, Scene 3. Sung by Enrico Caruso and Giuseppe de Luca.
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Scene 3: A camp near the battleground

Alvaro, having recovered, is confronted by Carlo. They begin to duel but are pulled away from each other by the soldiers. As they restrain Carlo, the anguished Don Alvaro vows to enter a monastery.

The soldiers gather. Trabucco, the peddler, tries to sell them his wares; Fra Melitone chastises them for their godless ways; and Preziosilla leads them in a chorus in praise of the military life (Rataplan, rataplan, della gloria – "Rum-tum-tum on the drum is the music that makes a soldier's martial spirit rise").

Act 4[link]

Scene 1: The monastery

Don Alvaro has entered the monastery at Hornachuelos, near which is Leonora’s cave, under the name of Father Raphael. Don Carlo arrives and forces him to fight (Le minacci, i fieri accenti – "May the winds carry off with them").

Scene 2: A desolate spot near Leonora's hermitage

Leonora prays that she may find peace in death (Pace, pace mio Dio! – "Peace, O mighty Father, give me peace!"). Alvaro runs in, calling for help, having mortally wounded Carlo in their duel. The two lovers recognize each other. Leonora runs offstage to see her brother, who, when she bends over him, stabs her to the heart. Leonora returns with Padre Guardiano; he and Alvaro pray to heaven as she dies.

Recordings[link]

1862 original version[link]

1869 revised version[link]

The so-called "curse"[link]

Forza is an opera that many old school Italian singers felt was "cursed" and brought bad luck.^[11] The very superstitious Luciano Pavarotti avoided the part of Alvaro for this reason.

On 4 March 1960 at the Metropolitan Opera, in a performance of La Forza del Destino with Renata Tebaldi and tenor Richard Tucker, the American baritone Leonard Warren was about to launch into the vigorous cabaletta to Don Carlo's Act 3 aria, which begins "Morir, tremenda cosa" ("to die, a momentous thing"). While Rudolf Bing reports that Warren simply went silent and fell face-forward to the floor^[12], others state that he started coughing and gasping, and that he cried out "Help me, help me!" before falling to the floor, remaining motionless. A few minutes later he was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and the rest of the performance was canceled. Warren was only 48.

The "Curse" prompted singers and others to do strange things to fend off possible bad luck. The great Italian tenor Franco Corelli was rumored to have held on to his crotch during some of his performances of the opera as "protection."^[13] Anthony Stivanello, a well-known Italian director from the 1950s–1980s who also provided sets and costumes to opera companies nationwide insisted that while he had the scenery and costumes for the opera, he would not touch them himself. "Oh, tu che in seno," the tenor's main aria from the opera, was being sung during a concert in Bergen County, NJ, a number of years ago. As the tenor finished the aria, the lights went out in the theater. The power failure was reportedly blamed on a problem in the cemetery across the street.

In other media[link]

The musical score for the French films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources uses the main theme for both. It was adapted by Jean-Claude Petit from the aria "Invano, Alvaro" in La forza del destino. The Korean film The Scarlet Letter (2004 film) opens with Pace, Pace Mio Dio, introducing a film about intensely powerful obsession which brings its lovers to the brink of madness.

References[link]

Notes

Cited sources

• Bing, Rudolf, 5000 Nights at the Opera. New York: Doubleday, 1972
• Budden, Julian, The Operas of Verdi, Volume 2: From ‘’Il Trovatore’’ to ‘’La Forza del destino’’. London: Cassell, 1984. ISBN 978-0-19-520068-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-19-520450-6 (paperback).
• Gossett, Philip, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian opera, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2006 ISBN 0-226-30484-5
• Holden, Amanda (Ed.), The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York: Penguin Putnam, 2001. ISBN 0-14-029312-4
• Melitz, Leo, The Opera Goer's Complete Guide, 1921 version.
• Osborne, Charles, The Complete Operas of Verdi, New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. ISBN 0-306-80072-1

Other sources

• Phillips-Matz, Mary Jane, ‘’Verdi: A Biography’’, London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 ISBN 0-19-313204-4

External links[link]

• Link to Italian libretto
• Link to English libretto

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

James Lawrence Levine ( /lɨˈvaɪn/; born June 23, 1943) is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently on hiatus from his work as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, a situation necessitated by health problems and not due to end before the fall of 2013; the hiatus began in May 2011.

Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and, as of June 2011, he had conducted 2,442 Met performances, a record.^[1] The conductor has held music director positions with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic. In 1997, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.^[2]

Early years[link]

Levine was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a musical family: his maternal grandfather was a cantor in a synagogue, his father was a violinist who led a dance band, and his mother was an actress. He began to play the piano as a small child. At the age of 10, he made his concert debut as soloist in Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2 at a youth concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

Levine subsequently studied music with Walter Levin, first violinist in the LaSalle Quartet. In 1956 he took piano lessons with Rudolf Serkin at the Marlboro Music School, Vermont. In the following year he began studies with Rosina Lhévinne at the Aspen Music School. After graduating from Walnut Hills High School, the acclaimed magnet school in Cincinnati, he entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1961, and took courses in conducting with Jean Morel. He graduated from the Juilliard School in 1964 and joined the American Conductors project connected with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

From 1964 to 1965, Levine served as an apprentice to George Szell with the Cleveland Orchestra and then served as assistant conductor until 1970. That year, he also made his debut as guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra at its summer home at Robin Hood Dell. He made his debut in that same year with the Welsh National Opera and the San Francisco Opera. In June, 1971, he was called in at the last moment to substitute for an ailing István Kertész^[3] in the season opener of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer festival, the Ravinia Festival; the program was the Symphony no. 2, "Resurrection," of Gustav Mahler. This concert began a long association with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: two years later, in 1973, he was appointed music director of the Ravinia Festival (his predecessor in this position was Kertész, who had died in April). Levine held the position until 1993, and made numerous recordings with the orchestra, including the symphonies and German Requiem of Johannes Brahms, and major works of Gershwin, Holst, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. In 1990, at the request of Roy E. Disney, he arranged the music and conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack of Fantasia 2000, released by Walt Disney Pictures. He also served as music director of the Cincinnati May Festival (1974–1978).

Metropolitan Opera[link]

Levine made his Metropolitan Opera debut on June 5, 1971,[1] in a festival performance of Tosca. His success led to further appearances and to his appointment as its principal conductor in 1973. He became music director in 1976. In 1983, he served as conductor and musical director for the Franco Zeffirelli screen adaptation of La Traviata, which featured the Met orchestra and chorus members. He became the company's first artistic director in 1986,^[4] and relinquished the title in 2004.

Under his leadership, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and chorus has become one of the finest operatic ensembles in the world, punctuated by the regular concert series for the orchestra and chamber ensembles he began at Carnegie Hall.^[5] On his recent appointment as General Manager of the Met, Peter Gelb emphasized that James Levine would be welcome to remain as long as he wanted to direct music there.

At the Met, Levine has led numerous new productions of works of Mozart, Verdi, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, Gioachino Rossini, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill, Claude Debussy, Alban Berg, and George Gershwin. For the 25th anniversary of his Met debut, Levine conducted the world premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby, commissioned especially to mark the occasion.

Levine has led the Metropolitan Opera on many domestic and international tours. The company broadcasts regular Live-In-HD television around the world to cinemas, and live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts every Saturday afternoons around the world each season from December to April.

Boston Symphony Orchestra[link]

Levine first conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in April 1972.^[6] In October 2001, Levine was named music director of the BSO, effective with the 2004–2005 season, with an initial contract of five years,^[7] becoming the first American-born conductor to head the BSO.

One unique condition that Levine negotiated was increased flexibility of the time allotted for rehearsal, allowing the orchestra additional time to prepare more challenging works.^[8] Since the start of his tenure, the orchestra has also established an "Artistic Initiative Fund" of about US$40 million to fund the more expensive of Levine's projects.^[9]

One criticism of Levine during his BSO tenure is that he did not attend many orchestra auditions. A 2005 article reported that Levine had attended two out of 16 auditions during his tenure up to that time. Levine himself has responded that he has the ability to provide input on musician tenure decisions after the initial probationary period, and that it is difficult to know how well a given player will fit the given position until that person has had a chance to work with the orchestra: "My message is the audition isn't everything."^[10]

Another 2005 report stated that during Levine's first season as music director, the greater workload from the demands of playing more unfamiliar and contemporary music has increased physical stress with some of the BSO musicians. Levine and the players met to discuss this, and he agreed to program changes to lessen these demands.^[11] Levine has received general critical praise for revitalizing the quality and repertoire since the beginning of his tenure.^[12]

In April 2010, in the wake of Levine's continuing health problems, it emerged that Levine had not officially signed a contract extension, so that Levine was the BSO's music director without a signed contract.^[13]

On March 2, 2011, the BSO announced that Levine would step down from his post as Music Director in September 2011, after the Orchestra's Tanglewood season. He had been experiencing ongoing health problems, starting with an onstage fall in 2006 that resulted in a torn rotator cuff and started discussion of how much longer Levine's tenure with the BSO would be.^[14] The announcement brought to a sad end Levine's belated bid for recognition as a transformational orchestral conductor.^[15]

Conducting in Europe[link]

Levine's Boston Symphony contract limited his guest appearances with American orchestras but Levine has conducted regularly in Europe, with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, and at the Bayreuth Festival. Levine has been a regular guest with the Philharmonia of London and the Dresden Staatskapelle. Since 1975 he has conducted regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the annual July Verbier Festival. From 1999 to 2004 he was chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic, and was credited with improving the quality of instrumental ensemble during his tenure.^[16]

Chamber Music and Work as Accompanist[link]

Levine has performed in chamber music ensembles and as accompanist in Lieder recitals.

Work with students[link]

Levine has initiated the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, a professional training program for graduated singers with, today, many famous alumni.

Levine was conductor of the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, the student resident orchestra at the annual summer music festival in Verbier, Switzerland, from 2000 through 2006. It was Levine's first long-term commitment to a student orchestra since becoming music director at the Met. After becoming Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Levine also served as Music Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, the BSO's acclaimed summer academy at Tanglewood for student instrumentalists, singers, composers, and conductors. There he conducted the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, directed fully staged opera performances with student singers, and gave master classes for singers and conductors.

Levine himself has said in interviews:

"At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching. You want to teach what you have learned to the next generation so that they don't have to spend time reinventing the wheel. I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment. I love working with young musicians and singers, and those at the Tanglewood Music Center are unequivocally some of the finest and most talented in the world."

Conductors he has helped and influenced through his musical mentoring include Marco Armiliato, James Conlon, and John Keenan.

Health problems[link]

Levine has experienced recurrent health issues in recent years, including sciatica and what he has called "intermittent tremors".^[17] On March 1, 2006, Levine tripped and fell onstage during a standing ovation after a performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and tore the rotator cuff in his right shoulder, leaving the remaining subscription concerts in Boston to his assistant conductor at the time, Jens Georg Bachmann. Later that month, Levine underwent surgery to repair the injury. He returned to the podium on July 7, 2006, leading the BSO at Tanglewood.^[18]

Levine withdrew from the majority of the Tanglewood 2008 summer season, because of surgery required to remove a kidney with a malignant cyst.^[7] He returned to the podium in Boston on September 24, 2008, leading the BSO's season opening concert at Symphony Hall.^[19] On September 29, 2009, it was announced that Levine would undergo emergency back surgery for a herniated disk. He missed some three weeks of engagements, including a season opening performance at Carnegie Hall with the BSO, performances of Tosca at the Met, and regular BSO subscription concerts.^[20]

In March 2010, the BSO announced that Levine would miss the remainder of the Boston Symphony season because of back pain.^[21][22] The Metropolitan Opera also announced, on April 4, 2010, that Levine was withdrawing from the remainder of his scheduled performances for the season. According to the Met, Levine was required to have "corrective surgery for an ongoing lower back problem."^[23] Levine returned to conducting duties at the Met and the BSO at the beginning of the 2010-11 season, but in February 2011 he cancelled his Boston engagements for the rest of the season, including the Tanglewood summer festival.^[24] These cancellations were followed by the announcement that Levine would officially resign from his post as Music Director on September 1, 2011.^[25] In the summer of 2011 Levine underwent further surgery on his back. In September, after falling and injuring his back while on vacation in Vermont, it was announced that he would not conduct at the Met at least for the rest of 2011, and that Fabio Luisi would step up to the role of principal conductor.^[26] In December, he ruled himself out of performing again before the fall of 2013.^[27]

Recordings[link]

Levine can be seen and heard in many audio and video recordings. Levine has recorded extensively with many orchestras and especially often with the Metropolitan Opera. His performance of Aïda with Leontyne Price, her last in opera, was preserved on video and may be seen at the Met's own online archive of performances. Of particular note are his performances of Wagner's complete Der Ring des Nibelungen. A studio recording made for Deutsche Grammophon in 1987–1989 can be found on compact disc and a 1989 live performance of the Ring is available on DVD.

Film[link]

Levine was featured in the animated Disney film Fantasia 2000. He conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the soundtrack recordings of all the music in the film (with the exception of one segment from the original 1940 Fantasia). Levine is also seen in the film talking to Mickey Mouse before introducing the Pomp and Circumstance March #4 segment.

References[link]

External links[link]

• James Levine at Allmusic

Renata Tebaldi (Pesaro, Italy, 1 February 1922 – San Marino, 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved opera singers of all time,^[1] she primarily focused on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.

Renata Tebaldi with a friend

Early years[link]

Tebaldi was born Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi in Pesaro, the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and Giuseppina Barbieri, a gifted singer who had wanted a singing career but eventually became a nurse instead. Very soon, the parents split up and Renata, together with her mother, moved to the latter's home town, Langhirano in the Province of Parma.

Stricken with polio at the age of three, Tebaldi was unable to take part in strenuous activities and instead became interested in music. She was a member of the church choir in Langhirano and her mother sent her to piano lessons with Signorina Passani in Parma at the age of thirteen; she worked with boundless diligence, practising four or five hours a day and dreaming of a career as a concert pianist. She also sang everything she heard. Her main source of inspiration was listening to the radio. It was not until her piano teacher took the initiative that Renata was sent to Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She began studying a short time later at the conservatory, taking lessons with Ettore Campogalliani for three years. Renata had to concentrate on scales and voice training for two years before she was allowed to learn the first songs towards the end of her second year of training.

Carmen Melis[link]

She went off to spend a Christmas holiday with her father's brother, her uncle Valentino, at Pesaro. There, as operatic destiny would have it, Valentino owned a small café where the famous former diva Carmen Melis came to buy pastries. Melis was a teacher at the Pesaro Conservatory. Valentino talked to Melis about his niece, and the diva finally consented to audition the young girl. Melis had been a soprano prima donna at La Scala in Milan and had sung with Caruso and Titta Ruffo.

Melis was to become Tebaldi's most important teacher: the next day, and for the remainder of her holiday, Tebaldi worked with Melis; when she returned to Parma, the improvement was so drastic that no one believed it was the same voice. It was then that she determined to move to Pesaro permanently, where she lived with her father's family and took classes with Melis both at the conservatory and privately. Melis organised a scholarship for her and Tebaldi made her first public appearance singing "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana" from Catalani's La Wally at the theatre in Urbino. At the age of 22, Tebaldi made her debut as Elena in Boito's Mefistofele in Rovigo. She performed several more times in Parma – in La Bohème, L'amico Fritz and Andrea Chénier and started working, again through Melis, with the conductor and singing teacher Giuseppe Pais in Milan 1944. An audition for Carlo Gatti, the Scala's director, came to nothing as there were hardly any performances anymore during the war years. She made her debut as Desdemona in Trieste alongside Francesco Merli and caused a stir.

Arturo Toscanini[link]

Her major breakthrough came in 1946, when she auditioned for Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini was favorably impressed, calling her "voce d'angelo" (angel voice). Tebaldi made her La Scala debut that year at the concert which marked the reopening of the theatre after World War II. She sang the "Prayer" ("Dal tuo stellato soglio") from Rossini's biblical opera, Mosè in Egitto, as well as the soprano part in Verdi's Te Deum. She was given the operatic roles of Margherita and Elena in Mefistofele and Elsa in Lohengrin in 1946. The following year, she appeared in La Bohème and as Eva in Die Meistersinger. Toscanini encouraged her to sing the role of Aida and invited her to rehearse the role in his studio. She was of the opinion that the role of Aida was reserved for a dramatic soprano, but Toscanini convinced her and she made her role debut at La Scala in 1950 alongside Mario del Monaco and Fedora Barbieri in a performance conducted by Antonino Votto. This was the greatest success in her still young career and was to launch her international career.

Her voice was used for Sophia Loren's singing in the film version of Aida (1953).

International career[link]

She went on a concert tour with the La Scala ensemble in 1950, first to the Edinburgh Festival and then on to London, where she made her debut as Desdemona in two performances of Otello at Covent Garden and in the Verdi Requiem, both conducted by Victor de Sabata.

Tebaldi and Callas[link]

By the early 1950s, Tebaldi was firmly entrenched at La Scala. But a new star had appeared on the scene – Maria Callas. In 1950 Callas was taken on at La Scala as substitute Aida for an indisposed Tebaldi. Matters came to a head in 1951 when both were with an Italian company touring South America. Perhaps unwisely, the two of them were engaged to appear in the same concert. Afterwards Callas accused Tebaldi of breaking a no-encore agreement, when she delivered not one but two extra arias. The squabble continued when Callas criticised Tebaldi's interpretation of Violetta in Traviata, which Tebaldi has to transpose down, and suggested that she give up the role.^{[citation needed]} The in-fighting continued during the rest of an acrimonious tour.^{[citation needed]} The culmination of this rivalry came in an article in Time magazine where Callas was quoted as saying that comparing herself to Tebaldi was like comparing champagne with Coca-Cola.^[2] However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac" after which a bystander quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter attributed the comment to Callas.^[3]

Although she had a very powerful voice, Tebaldi always considered herself a lyric soprano. Even though the young Tebaldi successfully performed roles in operas and works by (among others) Rossini, Spontini, Mozart, Handel and Wagner she eventually centered her career on verismo and late Verdi roles, roles not as well suited to Callas' voice. Callas, in contrast, considered herself a dramatic coloratura soprano and started her career in the heaviest roles, but soon after, concentrated on the bel canto repertoire, which were not a good fit for Tebaldi's vocal range and technique. How much of the rivalry was real, and how much whipped up by fans and the press, is open to question. Some also believe that the entire rivalry was instigated by their respective recording companies in order to boost sales, and that they were instructed to play along. According to Time magazine, when Callas quit La Scala, "Tebaldi made a surprising maneuver: she announced that she would not sing at La Scala without Callas. 'I sing only for artistic reasons; it is not my custom to sing against anybody', she said."^[4] Nevertheless, Tebaldi apparently felt that the public perception of a rivalry was ultimately good for both their careers, since it aroused so much interest in the two of them.

In the end, however, there was a reconciliation. After Tebaldi had inaugurated the 1968 Met season with Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Callas, who by that time had given her last opera performance, went backstage to congratulate Tebaldi. It was the last time the two sopranos were to meet.

The Met[link]

Tebaldi made her American debut in 1950 as Aïda at the San Francisco Opera; her Metropolitan Opera debut took place on January 31, 1955, as Desdemona opposite Mario del Monaco's Otello. For some twenty years, she made the Met the focus of her activities. For the 1962/1963 season, Tebaldi convinced the director of the Met, Rudolf Bing, to stage a revival of Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur. The opera had not been staged since the turn of the century, but Bing was convinced that it would be a great success for Tebaldi, and for Franco Corelli, who sang the role of Maurizio. Unfortunately, Tebaldi was not in top vocal form. Alarmed, she took a thirteen-month hiatus from the stage. She later returned as Mimi to great acclaim.

She sang more at the Met and far less elsewhere. She had developed a special rapport with the Met audiences and became known as "Miss Sold Out". She sang there some 270 times in La bohème, Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, La Fanciulla del West, Otello, La forza del destino, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff, Andrea Chénier, La Gioconda and Violetta in a production of La traviata created specially for her. She made her last appearance there as Desdemona on 8 January 1973 in the same role in which she had made her debut eighteen years earlier.

Later years[link]

By the end of her career, Tebaldi had sung in 1,262 performances, 1,048 complete operas, and 214 concerts.

Tebaldi never married and had no children. In a 1995 interview with The Times, she said she had no regrets about her single life. "I was in love many times," she said, flashing her dimpled smile. "This is very good for a woman." But she added, "How could I have been a wife, a mother and a singer? Who takes care of the piccolini when you go around the world? Your children would not call you Mama, but Renata."^[1]

Tebaldi retired from the stage in 1973 and from the concert hall in 1976. She spent the majority of her last days in Milan. She died at age 82 at her home, in San Marino. She is buried in the family chapel at Mattaleto cemetery (Langhirano).

Museum[link]

Since February 2010, the 15th century Castle of Torrechiara – Langhirano – has hosted within its rooms a permanent exhibition dedicated to Renata Tebaldi. This “Castle for a Queen” unveils the many sides of this great “diva”, whose artistic and personal life remain on display. The items showcased followed her over the arc of time as she spread the world-class tradition of Italian lyrical art…all the way from the beginning of her career and throughout her artistic achievements. The exhibition is presented by the Renata Tebaldi Committee in collaboration with Superintendence of Environmental Heritage and Landscape of the province of Parma and Piacenza, the Regio Theatre Foundation of Parma and the Municipality of Langhirano and with the patronage of the province of Parma.

Selected Recordings[link]

• Madama Butterfly (Giacomo Puccini): Tullio Serafin conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with Carlo Bergonzi, Fiorenza Cossotto, Enzo Sordello. Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. (1958) (Decca Records).
• La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini): Tullio Serafin conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with Carlo Bergonzi, Gianna D'Angelo, Ettore Bastianini. Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. (1959) (Decca Records).
• Manon Lescaut (Giacomo Puccini): Francesco Molinari-Pradelli conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with Mario Del Monaco, Mario Boriello, Fernando Corena. Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. (1954) (Decca Records).
• La Wally (Alfredo Catalani): Fausto Cleva conducting L'Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo, with Mario Del Monaco, Piero Cappuccilli, Justino Diaz. Coro Lirico di Torino. (1968) (Decca Records).
• Cavalleria Rusticana (Pietro Mascagni): Alberto Erede. With Jussi Björling and Ettore Bastianini. Recorded live at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1957. (London Records)
• Tosca (Giacomo Puccini): Francesco Molinari-Pradelli) conducting the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, with Mario Del Monaco and George London. Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. (1959) (Decca Records).
• Tosca (Giacomo Puccini): Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducting the La Scala Theatre Orchestra, with Giuseppe di Stefano and Tito Gobbi. La Scala Theatre Chorus. Recorded live at La Scala in 1959. Opera d'Oro.

References[link]

Notes[link]

Websites[link]

• Tebaldi, Renata -- Encyclopædia Britannica

External links[link]

• Official Site
• Renata Tebaldi a New Tribute
• International Jose Guillermo Carrillo Foundation
• A Tribute to Renata Tebaldi (including discography)
• YouTube - Renata Tebaldi is Madama Butterfly Tebaldi sings "Un Bel Di Vedremo" from Puccini's Madama Butterfly in this 1959 video.
• Discography (Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

Enrico Caruso, c. 1907

Enrico Caruso (Italian pronunciation: [enˈriːko kaˈruːzo]) (February 25, 1873 – August 2, 1921) was an Italian tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and North and South America, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Caruso also made approximately 290 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. All of these recordings, which span most of his stage career, are available today on CDs and as digital downloads.

Caruso's 1904 recording of "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci was the first sound recording to sell a million copies.^[1]

Historical and musical significance[link]