Giuseppe Verdi - An Italian Legend
Giuseppe Verdi - An Italian Legend (Original title: Verdi ) is a film biography from 1982 about the composer Giuseppe Verdi .
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Part 1: Adolescent Years
In October 1813, innkeeper Carlo Verdi is happy about the birth of his son Giuseppe Francesco Fortunato. Giuseppe Verdi's birthplace, Le Roncole in the Duchy of Parma , was ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte at the time and a little later by the Duchess Marie-Louise of Austria .
When Giuseppe showed an interest in music in elementary school, his father bought a spinet for him . Giuseppe receives lessons from the local organist, whom he will soon be able to replace on the church organ. In addition, the merchant Antonio Barezzi , who runs an orchestra in Busseto , the municipality of Le Roncole, becomes aware of Giuseppe and places the boy in the Busseto grammar school, where he receives lessons from Ferdinando Provesi, the director of the music school.
In his youth, Verdi conducted the Duchess's birthday and later house concerts at Barezzi and composed the lamentations of Jeremiah , the musical forerunner of the prison choir from his later opera Nabucco . Soon he was accepted into the household of the Barezzis. After initial hesitation, Barezzi sent him to the Milan Conservatory when he found out that Giuseppe and his daughter Margherita had fallen in love.
After failing the entrance examination, Barezzi arranged private lessons for him with Vincenzo Lavigna , musician at La Scala in Milan . Verdi studied contemporary opera and soon developed the desire to become an opera composer. When Verdi's former teacher Provesi dies in Busseto, Verdi is seen as his successor. Although disputes about Verdi as his successor develop in the village, Verdi continues his studies in Milan with financial support from Barezzi.
After his studies he sets his first libretto Rocester to music and returns to Bosseto. He initially plans to take a position as organist in Monza , but for Barezzi's sake remains in the village due to the disputes and becomes Kapellmeister. He marries Margherita; a little later daughter Virginia is born. The joys of the birth of their son Icilio are followed by the sadness of the death of Virginia.
In 1839 Verdi went to Milan with his family. There he only achieved success with his opera Rocester when he reworked it into Oberto and the singer Giuseppina Strepponi advocated the work; the opera is to be performed at La Scala under Impresario Bartolomeo Merelli. Icilio dies during the last changes to the Oberto .
After the success of the premiere in 1839, Oberto appeared in print; Merelli commissions the comic opera Un giorno di regno from Verdi . While working on the composition, Verdi suffered from angina as well as from financial hardship and, a year later, from Margherita's death, who died of meningitis. Worn down by the personal blows of fate and the failure of Un giorno di regno , Verdi made the decision to give up composing.
Part 2: First successes
Merelli was able to convince Verdi, who was reluctant at first, to set the libretto for Nabucco to music after Otto Nicolai had refused the commission. Verdi can win Giuseppina Strepponi for the role of Abigaille.
During the rehearsals, everyone present enthusiastically joins the prisoner's choir. Strepponi is afraid of failing at the premiere because her voice had already failed due to overuse in the past. The first tender bonds develop between Verdi and the singer; Both initially shy away from entering into a stable relationship.
But the premiere on March 9, 1842 was a great success, the opera a symbol of the Risorgimento . Verdi receives a generous contract from Merelli; Strepponi becomes his advisor in matters relating to the opera business.
Verdi is invited to the company of Countess Clara Maffei , where the situation of divided Italy is deplored. Due to its political content, Verdi's next opera, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, has problems with censorship, but will be another success with the audience.
Verdi's next project is the opera Ernani , which is to be performed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice , and visits Busseto, where Nabucco is to be staged with the help of Strepponi, whose voice has since regenerated. When Verdi visits his parents, Carlo Verdi tries to convince his son to buy a country estate.
Part 3: New beginnings and rebellion
The opera Ernani was also a success at its premiere. In Milan, Verdi, with the help of his new pupil Emanuele Muzio, who was mediated by Barezzi, devoted himself intensively to opera composition due to the hard work of Verdi as the “galley years”.
His relationship with Giuseppina Strepponi is growing ever closer. While the residents of Busseto fear that Verdi could become alienated from his hometown as a result, while working on I due Foscari , Verdi took up the idea of acquiring an estate in Roncole with his newly acquired financial means.
Verdi's next operas Giovanna d'Arco and Attila arouse patriotic feelings in the Italians. With Macbeth , Verdi first sets a model of his literary idol Shakespeare to music and dedicates the opera to his patron Barezzi.
In Paris, Verdi moves in with Giuseppina, who gives singing lessons there; to his relief, the relationship is also accepted by his father-in-law, Barezzi. Verdi I Lombardi arranged for Jérusalem for a performance at the Paris Opera ; his next opera will be Il corsaro .
However, Verdi's early return to his homeland to purchase new estates failed when the revolution of 1848 broke out , which soon spread to Italy. Verdi supports Italian patriotism with operas such as La battaglia di Legnano and Les vêpres siciliennes and works with the freedom fighter Giuseppe Mazzini .
Part 4: Homecoming
Years later, Verdi returns to Busseto with Giuseppina and moves into his Palazzo Caballi estate with her; Verdi's parents now live on the Sant'Agata estate. Since Giuseppina had a hard time in the town, she came without her eleven-year-old son Camillino. Barezzi stands by her against the hostility.
Verdi's next opera will be Luisa Miller , which is slated to premiere in Naples. In addition to numerous other opera commissions, Verdi is also planning an opera based on Shakespeare's King Lear , which, however, should remain unfinished, as well as Rigoletto based on Victor Hugo .
However, the opera is rejected by the censorship authority, something which the librettist Piave's proposed changes cannot change. Verdi does not accept the censorship's changes to the libretto. The censorship only shows its approval when the main character of Triboulet in Rigoletto, the action is moved from the Louvre in Paris to Mantua and the king is converted into a duke. At its premiere, the opera stands out due to its new development in the direction of musical drama and the lack of the patriotism that Verdi is used to.
In the meantime, differences of opinion between Verdi and his father about the management of the Sankt'Agata estate are growing; Verdi demands that his parents leave the estate to manage it themselves, and even threatens to sell the estate and leave his home. In the end, however, an agreement is reached, under which Verdi's parents can move into a nearby house and receive a handsome pension.
A little later, Verdi's mother dies, and Verdi writes Il trovatore, an opera with a mother figure. Despite adverse circumstances such as the flooding of the Tiber on the premiere evening in Rome, this opera was also a success.
Part 5: Signora Verdi
Verdi is awarded the Legion of Honor cross and ribbon . His next opera project will be La traviata based on The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas the Elder. J. However, the premiere is a failure, partly because of its unusual realism. The first success came a year later in Venice, when the opera was staged in the style of the 17th century.
In 1855 Verdi and Giuseppina travel to France, where Verdi is supposed to compose the opera Les vêpres siciliennes for the opening of the Paris World's Fair . The Count of Cavour intended Verdi's opera to support the Italian cause; so the establishment of a monarchy by the French Emperor Napoleon III. instead of a republic, keep out Austrian influence. Verdi and Giuseppina are taken over by Emperor Napoleon III. invited to his Compiegne estate.
While working on the operas Simon Boccanegra and Aroldo , Verdi met the conductor Angelo Mariani . The libretto of the opera Un ballo in maschera calls for censorship because of a regicide depicted on the stage. The changes to the operatic material required by the censors lead Verdi to withdraw the opera, which is now being performed in Rome instead.
The Sardinian War caused Verdi to make plans to marry so that Giuseppina would be provided for if something should happen to him. Despite the turmoil of war for Italy's independence , Verdi and Giuseppina married in Collonges-sous-Salève .
Part 6: melancholy
After the partial unification of Italy, Verdi becomes a member of the Busseto MP at the request of Count von Cavour , but soon loses interest in the political trade. At the request of the singer Enrico Tamberlick, Verdi wrote the opera La forza del destino , which received a mixed reception. In the meantime, the group of Scapigliatura has formed around the writer Arrigo Boito , calling for a renewal of Italian art; Boito's criticism makes Verdi thoughtful.
While Verdi is fulfilling an order to rewrite his opera Macbeth , his father Carlo Verdi dies; Verdi and Giuseppina adopt Carlos' great-niece Filomena Maria. A little later, Barezzi also dies.
Verdi wrote Don Carlos for the 1867 World's Fair , which later became a success thanks to Mariani. Mariani's fiancée, the opera singer Teresa Stolz , soon arouses Giuseppina's jealousy. During the rehearsals for La forza del destino , she reconciles with Verdi.
When Gioachino Rossini died in 1868 , Verdi suggested that Italy's best composers should compose a funeral mass in his memory . Instead, Mariani performs his stabat mater in Pesaro, the city of Rossini's birth , which leads to resentment between the two musicians.
Part 7: rivalries
After the opening of the Suez Canal and an opera house (with a performance of Verdi's Rigoletto ), the Egyptian viceroy commissioned Verdi to compose an opera with ancient Egyptian material. Shortly before the completion of the opera Aida , the Franco-Prussian War breaks out, which delays the delivery of the decorations from Paris. Also, due to the war, some of the conductors eligible for the premiere are canceled; to Verdi's disappointment, Mariani also canceled. The rehearsals with Teresa Stolz arouse Giuseppina's jealousy again.
When the Italian poet Alessandro Manzoni died in 1873 , Verdi took up his contribution , which he had written a year earlier for Rossini's music for the dead, and composed a complete requiem from it . When Verdi goes on tour with the Requiem , a French newspaper invents a love story between him and Teresa Stolz. After an argument, Giuseppina travels alone from Paris to Sankt'Agata.
A little later, Verdi was appointed senator, and Boito dedicated his opera Mefistofele to him , whom Filomena had meanwhile married. Verdi decides not to compose anymore because he is accused of imitating Richard Wagner , but after a flood of the Po Valley he organizes charity concerts with his requiem .
When Verdi is surprised with a performance of the prelude from La traviata , he lets himself be persuaded to compose another opera. Boito writes a libretto for Otello and revises Simon Boccanegra's libretto to revise the opera in order to encourage Verdi to set Otello to music .
Part 8: Farewell
After a neighbor had an accident in the field, Verdi had a hospital built in Villanova sull'Arda near Busseto.
In the shock of Richard Wagner's death in Venice in 1883, Verdi threw himself into work and initially revised earlier operas. The Otello was finally completed in 1886 . The premiere at La Scala was a complete success, Verdi became an honorary citizen of Milan.
A little later, Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, was written . The premiere of this opera in 1893 was also a complete success for Verdi. Verdi composes the Quattro pezzi sacri and spends spa stays with Giuseppina; He also founds the “Casa di Riposa” in Milan, a retirement home for musicians.
In 1897 Giuseppina fell ill with pneumonia and died a little later. Verdi behaves too weakly to attend her funeral in Milan. He thinks sadly that so many people around him have died. Despite everything, he still personally takes care of the management of Sant'Agata and the construction of the "Casa di Riposa".
On January 27, 1901, Giuseppe Verdi died of a stroke in the Hotel Milano in Milan. According to his last wish, Verdi is quietly buried. A few weeks later he and Giuseppina are transferred to the crypt of the "Casa di Riposa".
Awards
The series won the 1983 CableACE Awards in the Program Series - Documentary category
Web links
- Giuseppe Verdi - An Italian legend in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Giuseppe Verdi - An Italian Legend . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF).