The Wonderful Renaissance of Giuseppe Verdi

The revival of La Forza del Destino at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York reminds musicians of the astonishing accomplishments of Giuseppe Verdi between his fiftieth and his eighty-seventh year - that period when so many men accept advancing years as a natural stage of decline.

Perhaps the biggest thing that can be said about Verdi was that he was unspoiled by success. How may composers, after producing such sensationally successful works as Rigoletto, Trovatore and La Travita, and finding themselves in middle age, would deliberately set out to produce works on a much more finished and loftier scale?

La Forza Del Destino  was first given in 1862 at St. Petersburg - in 1862, when Verdi was on the threshold of fifty. The opera was only moderately successful. Verdi's friends, however, saw that he had elevated his ideals and that he was working toward new aims. When the opera in an improved form was revived at Paris in 1867, it was enthusiastically received. This was enough for the Italian master. He saw that he was upon the path to a new and perhaps more significant fame. He had already written twenty-three operas, of which, at least, eight had been popular successes, three, monumental popular triumphs. From 1865 until the time of his death in 1901 he wrote only four operas, and his great Requiem. These were produced thus: Don Carlos (Paris 1867), Aida (Cairo 1871), Requiem (Milan 1874), Otello (Milan 1887), and Falstaff (Milan 1893).

That the triumphs of Wagner incited Verdi to greater efforts is well known. Instead of being envious of his German rival or belittling him, Verdi took himself to task and is said to have spent years in though and self-contemplation. This nobility of spirit has marked him as one of the great masters of all time, as it led to the completion of Aida, Otello and Falstaff - all indicating vision, technic and musicanship far above his previous works. Verdi was reborn, not through his popular success, but in spite of it.

Note in the accompanying pictures the virility of Verdi at 86. See the smiling, confident, capable and, at the same time, modest expression. What a glorious thing to approach old age in such a state!

The top picture is of Verdi at age 50. The picture to the right is of Verdi at 86.

 

The Etude Magazine February 1919