Truth Tellers: Opera Composer Giuseppe Verdi

One of our great artists and visionaries

Poster for a 1908 production of "Aida" by Giuseppi Verdi in Cleveland, showing the triumphal scene in Act 2, Scene 2. Public Domain

Buddha observed that “on a heap of rubbish ... the lily will grow.” Indeed, the rubbish that men have heaped on the world—violence, injustice, and poverty—have been the soil in which other men in turn have produced sublime works of art, representing an ideal, a reality above our own, that guides, and cheers, and gives our life meaning and purpose.

On Oct. 9 or 10, 1813, in the tiny Italian hamlet of Le Roncole, Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born, and in the bitter soil of poverty and political oppression, the seeds of his genius were to take root and flourish.

Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi, 1886, by Giovanni Boldini. Public Domain

Music claims its own, and so it took possession of little Giuseppe, a 7-year-old altar boy, when he heard the cathedral organ for the first time. He was so deeply affected that he froze on the spot, causing a frustrated priest to give him a violent shove that sent him tumbling down the altar stairs. This episode helped persuade Carlo Verdi to give his son music lessons—with the very organist whose playing caused that tumble.

Verdi and Opera

Just 19 years later, his first opera was produced at La Scala, Italy’s major theater. It was a considerable success but was accompanied by tragedy. While writing this first work, young Verdi suffered the death of his two small daughters, and, soon after its completion, his wife, who was his best friend and inspiration from childhood, died.

He was under contract at the time to produce a comedy; it proved to be his only utter failure. Never would he forgive the public who knew of his sorrow but booed and hissed at the premiere. Grief brought on an early winter. The composer’s creative powers lay dormant and he resolved never to write another note, but what are plans and resolutions when God, or life, or fate has other plans?

After two years, the dormant elements of Verdi’s genius revived. A dazzling spring, a fruitful summer, and a golden harvest of great works followed.

A scene from Act 3 of Verdi's "Nabucco," the chorus of the Hebrew slaves. Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

‘Nabucco’

His third opera and first stunning success came to be through the kindness of La Scala’s impresario Bartolomeo Merelli, who recognized the composer’s enormous potential. During those bleak days of silence, Merelli suggested now and then possible subjects for a new opera. A perfect subject—opportune, visceral, and politically explosive—presented itself.

Italy, at that time, was engaged in a bitter struggle for independence from France and Austria, and although “Nabucco” told the biblical story of Jerusalem’s conquest by the Babylonians, the likeness to the present struggle was only too obvious to the Italian public.

Legend has it that when, in the third act of the opera, the Israelites sang in their exile “Go, my thoughts, on golden wings. … Greet the river Jordan, and Zion’s ruined towers,” the effect was stupendous. Cheers lifted the roof of La Scala. The performance could not go on. Verdi was carried on the shoulders of the audience around the nearby streets and brought back to the theater. The chorus was sung again, and the ovation was repeated, followed by a second trip around theater square. The “Va, pensiero” chorus, known to every Italian, became the anthem of the “Risorgimento,” the independence and unification of Italy.

Whether a Verdi opera was a success or a relative failure, and there were many, his works were never mere entertainment. “I want art in whatever form it is manifest, not entertainment,” he wrote to French impresario Camille du Locle.

In his “Critique of Judgment,” German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote: “If the fine arts are not imbued with moral ideals then they can serve merely as frivolous entertainments.” The moral elements of compassion, forgiveness, speaking the truth, and rising above despair are indeed the driving forces behind each of Verdi’s works.

‘Rigoletto’

Music, by its alchemy, can transform an idea into a feeling. When hearing “Rigoletto,” one comes to feel deeply the idea that every person, rich or poor, beautiful or homely, is precious in God’s eyes. The compassion for two helpless souls, suffering at the hands of privilege, awakens in us, at least for a moment, the emotion that would surely bring peace to this troubled world if it could be sustained.

Verdi conducting the 1880 Paris Opera premiere of "Aida." Public Domain

“Rigoletto,” the zenith of Verdi’s middle period, is a near-perfect work. It gives the impression that despite all our intellectual effort, there is something about it that remains beyond our full comprehension, that remains a mystery. The characteristic beauty of Verdi’s art, its sublime melodic material, its warmth, its generosity of spirit, and unwavering sincerity has an expressive power matched perhaps, but never surpassed in our musical tradition, by even the great Bach or Beethoven.

‘Aida’

“Aida,” completed in the composer’s 58th year, is perhaps not only the masterpiece of his late period but also the height of operatic form. The characters, unlike most heroes and heroines of the past, become very much alive due to the simplicity of their words and the transcendent beauty of the music. The story has a compelling sweep forward as one event follows another to an irrevocable end, and it seems that not one note could be removed nor one note added to heighten its dramatic power.

Drama and display are, of course, part of the genre, and these elements are present in abundance. There are parades, dances, trumpets, and choruses. Also, the premiere was attended by the glittering “beau monde,” dignitaries and notables from around the world, but the guest of honor, unnoticed by most, was the truth.

The tale, a true one thousands of years old, relates the fatal love between a young man and woman when their two countries were at war. That they were prominent figures, the daughter of a king and the commander of an army, is of little importance. What matters is their love for each other, stronger than the governments and judges who took their lives but could not kill their love.

‘Te Deum’

Verdi’s last two works were religious. He was always a man of religion and all his productions, even “Falstaff,” are, at their core, religious. “Te Deum” (“God, We Praise Thee”) is a song of thanksgiving and a prayer for deliverance. The work reflects the composer’s view of the world: that life is a blessing and a marvel, that it is beautiful though often unjust and cruel, and that “the Judge shall come” (“Judex Venturus”) and justice will be done.

Giuseppe Verdi was one of our great artists and visionaries, but ultimately, he too was a mortal, given his measure of joy and sorrow. Joy is easy for us but grief is hard, a bitter cup from which all of us must drink. Our recourse, Verdi’s recourse, the only expedient any of us has whether great or humble, is to say our prayers, and each in his own way transform those sorrows into something else—something good, something beautiful.

Recommended Listening

We will never know the performance practices of Bach or Beethoven, but we have absolute knowledge of how Verdi wanted his music to be played and sung. The great conductor Arturo Toscanini, who played cello in orchestras that Verdi conducted, had coached him for the Italian premiere of “Te Deum.”

A 19th-century depiction of the Teatro alla Scala. Public Domain

Look for live recordings, easily available, of Toscanini conducting both the “Te Deum” and Act 4 of “Rigoletto” with the great soprano Zinka Milanov. Milanov can also be heard on what a critic called the aristocrat of “Aida” recordings, with tenor Jussi Bjoerling. There is also a stirring performance of the “Va, pensiero” conducted by Lamberto Gardelli.

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