VERDI, Giuseppe
b Le Roncole, 10 October 1813
d Milan, 21 January 1901, aged eighty-seven

He was the son of an innkeeper. He studied music from an early age, but was refused admittance to the Milan Conservatory at the age of eighteen because he was considered too old. He moved to Milan when La Scala accepted his first opera, Oberto. The deaths of his two children and his wife brought him to the edge of a nervous collapse; but the success of his third opera, Nabucco, restored him. In 1860 he was elected, rather reluctantly, to the new Italian parliament, and he stayed in politics for five years. His writing continued, and he was fortunate in having Boito as his main librettist. He died of a stroke.

1839 (26)

fp Oberto, opera

1842 (29)

fp Nabucco, opera

1843 (30)

fp I Lombardi, opera

1844 (31)

fp Ernani, opera

fp I due Foscari, opera

1845 (32)

fp Ahira, opera

fp Giovanna d'Arco, opera

1846 (33)

fp Attila, opera

1847 (34)

fp Macbeth, opera

fp I masnadieri, opera

1849 (36)

fp Luisa Miller, opera

1851 (38)

fp Rigoletto, opera

1853 (40)

fp La Traviata, opera

fp Il Trovatore, opera

1855 (42)

fp I Vespri Siciliani, opera

1857 (44)

fp Araldo, opera

fp Simon Boccanegra, opera

1859 (46)

fp Un ballo in Maschera, opera

1862 (49)

fp La Forza del destino, opera

fp Inno delle nazioni, for chorus

1867 (54)

fp Don Carlos, opera

1871 (58)

fp Aida, opera

1873 (60)

String Quartet in E minor

1874 (61)

Requiem Mass

1887 (74)

fp Otello, opera

1889-98 (76-85)

Four Sacred Pieces

1893 (80)

fp Falstaff, opera