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Composer · Romantic

Giuseppe Verdi

1813–1901 · Italian

Giuseppe Verdi, born near Busseto in 1813, is the towering figure of Italian opera and, in his lifetime, a symbol of the Italian nation itself. The son of an innkeeper, he was famously rejected by the Milan Conservatory, yet he rose through grinding early labour, and a private tragedy (the deaths of his first wife and both children), to international fame with Nabucco (1842), whose chorus of Hebrew slaves became an unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento. The ‘galley years’ that followed produced a torrent of operas; the trio of Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata (1851–53) secured his immortality. In maturity he deepened and refined his art in Aida, Don Carlos, and the Requiem. Then, after a long near-retirement, he crowned his career in old age with two Shakespearean masterpieces on librettos by Arrigo Boito: the tragedy Otello (1887) and, at nearly eighty, the comedy Falstaff (1893). He died in Milan in 1901, mourned as a national hero.

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Wiener PhilharmonikerBerliner PhilharmonikerLondon Symphony OrchestraRoyal Concertgebouw Orchestra

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Sources 1

  1. Giuseppe Verdi, Wikipedia Cited in A Summer Night at Schönbrunn 2026. Accessed 30 September 2026.