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00:30When I was eighteen, I considered myself great, and I, I pronounced proudly.
00:37When I was twenty-five, I began to say, I and Mozart.
00:42At the age of forty, Mozart and I. Now I say, Mozart.
00:49These words belong to Giuseppe Verdi, the composer who became Italy's national pride
00:54thanks to his operas.
01:01Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in the village of Le Roncole, in the province
01:06of Parma, on the 10th of October, 1813.
01:11At the age of ten, the clever child began playing the organ at the local church.
01:15Soon Ferdinando Provesi, a talented organist and the conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra
01:21from the neighboring town of Boseto, noticed the boy.
01:25Provesi gave Verdi the foundations of musical composition and conducting techniques, and
01:30helped him improve his playing the organ.
01:33The local merchant, Antonio Baresi, took Giuseppe to his house and agreed to pay for his further
01:39studies.
01:40But nineteen-year-old Verdi was not admitted to the conservatory in Milan.
01:45He returned to Boseto, and in 1836 Verdi married Margherita Baresi, his patron's daughter.
01:52Soon she gave birth to a daughter and a son.
02:05Verdi took lessons on composition from the famous musician Vincenzo La Vigna, who helped
02:10Giuseppe free entry to performances at La Scala and concerts and rehearsals of the Philharmonic
02:16Society.
02:20Once a conductor was absent for a rehearsal of Haydn's oratorio, The Creation.
02:25They asked Verdi, sitting in the hall, for help.
02:28Later, the composer recalled, I remember very well the ironical jibes the musicians met
02:34me with.
02:35My young face, my slim figure, and my poor clothes.
02:39All this didn't command the respect.
02:41But after the rehearsal, I heard compliments from everywhere.
02:44I was given for conducting the oratorio.
02:48In addition to it, Verdi was commissioned his first opera.
02:51Oberto was successfully performed at La Scala for the first time in 1838.
02:59However, misfortunes soon befell the composer.
03:05Verdi lost his daughter, son, and beloved wife one after another.
03:11And among these terrible torments, Giuseppe recalled, I had to finish a comic opera.
03:17It is not surprising that his King for a Day was catcalled by the audience.
03:23The stunned Verdi did not want to create music anymore.
03:26But the director of La Scala gave the depressed composer the libretto of the opera Nabucco.
03:32It was the story of the King Nebuchadnezzar.
03:35Verdi was inspired by the text for the chorus of captive Hebrews and overcame himself.
03:41The successful premiere of the opera restored the good name of the composer.
03:46When the whole Italy fought against the Austrian oppression, this chorus from Nabucco became
03:51the second national anthem.
03:57In his own words, the composer worked like a convict for the following eight years.
04:02He wrote 12 operas.
04:04One of them, The Lombards, consolidated Verdi's reputation as an Italian patriot.
04:09Another, Ernani, made him famous outside Italy.
04:13Besides, the composer was in the thick of revolutionary things in Milan and Rome in
04:191848 when the Italian Republic was proclaimed.
04:23In 1851, he settled down at the Sant'Agata estate with the singer Giuseppina Streponi.
04:30He courted her for ten years before she agreed to marry him.
04:33Her idea to live in the country and to create remaining close to nature was absolutely acceptable
04:39for the composer.
04:41Between 1851 and 1853, Verdi created three masterpieces, Rigoletto, based on the King
04:48Amosus himself, a drama by Victor Hugo, The Troubadour, based on a romantic Spanish melodrama,
04:54and La Traviata, the plot of which was taken from The Lady of the Camellias, a play by
04:59Dumas Fields.
05:03While the composer wrote the opera Aida, one of his masterpieces, getting a commission
05:07from the government of Egypt, he collaborated with the author of the libretto, Antonio Ghislanzoni.
05:14The premiere of the opera took place during the opening of the Suez Canal in 1874.
05:20Verdi's work with the librettist Arrigo Boito was very fruitful as well.
05:24In 1887, the opera Othello was staged.
05:29One 80-year-old Verdi overcame his old prejudice against creating a musical comedy and wrote
05:34the opera Falstaff, based on Shakespeare's play, Merry Wives of Windsor.
05:45In 1889, Verdi became a senator and bought a plot to build a house for aged musicians.
05:51Later, he called it his best work.
05:55While celebrating his 85th birthday, Verdi admitted sadly,
05:59My name smells the epoch of mummies.
06:02I myself waste away when I mutter this name.
06:05Giuseppe Verdi died in 1901.
06:09National mourning was announced in Italy.
06:12During the funeral of the composer, the chorus from his opera, Nabucco, was performed.
06:18This composition was the first to sound when the concerts at La Scala in Milan were resumed
06:23after the Second World War.
06:25And since 1961, the vocal contest Verdi's Voices has been held in Busetto.
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