27 January 1901

Verdi died in Milano on 27 January 1901, at 87 years of age.

From a letter by Arrigo Boito to Camille Bellaigue:

Verdi is dead; he has carried away with him an enormous measure of light and warmth. We had all basked in the sunshine of that Olympian old age.

He died magnificently, like a fighter, formidable and mute. The silence of death had fallen over him a week before he died.

Do you know the admirable bust by Gemito? That bust, made forty years ago, is the exact image of the Maestro as he was on the fourth day before the end. With head bowed on his breast and knitted brows he looked downwards and seemed to weigh with his glance an unknown and formidable adversary…

His resistance was heroic. The breathing of his great chest sustained him for four days and three nights. On the fourth night the sound of his breathing still filled the room, but the fatigue… Poor Maestro, how brave and handsome he was, up to the last moment! No matter; the old reaper went off with his scythe well battered.

My dear friend, in the course of my life I have lost those I have idolized, and grief has outlasted resignation. But never have I experienced such a feeling of hatred against death, of contempt for that mysterious, blind, stupid, triumphant and craven power. It needed the death of this octogenarian to arouse those feelings in me.

He, too, hated it, for he was the most powerful expression of life that it is possible to imagine.

***

From the time I first heard La traviata, Verdi's music has been at the center of my life. That ineffably beautiful prelude filled with a dying woman's breath and the bleak, timid dawn that glimmers outside her window. *Secret* music that we overhear only with pain and discomfort. I was thunderstruck, and my gratitude and awe continue to grow.

I don't remember the precise trajectory I followed. Probably Rigoletto came next, "burnt into music," as George Bernard Shaw wrote. Forza and Ballo were also early favorites. Though there was darkness in Verdi's character, I learned to love his best qualities: his reserve, sobriety, and generosity.

[Having been cleansed of the loopy dualism of my upbringing, I am now less troubled by Verdi's "darkness." Moses was a murderer; David, an adulterer; and Joseph… ah, Joseph! "Yosefa" is one of my Hebrew names, taken in honor of Yosef ha-tzadik, my grandfather Giuseppe, and also Verdi and Peppina. It reminds me that no one, for us, is "unredeemable."]

***

I had planned to assemble a handful of music excerpts to honor Verdi. In the end, though, everything else sounded scruffy compared with this: "La vergine degli angeli" from La forza del destino, recorded in 1928 by Ezio Pinza and Rosa Ponselle. The Act II finale of Forza was part of the February 1901 memorial concert for Verdi conducted by Toscanini at La Scala.

Bow your head, be silent, and lose yourself in the "dark splendor" of these voices and Verdi's music.

From a Christmas letter by Boito:

This is the day, of all the days of the year, that he loved the best. Christmas Eve recalled to him the holy marvels of childhood, the enchantments of faith, which is only truly celestial when it mounts as far as belief in miracles. That belief, alas, he early lost, like all of us, but he retained, more than the rest of us, perhaps, a poignant regret for it all his life.

He gave the example of Christian faith by the moving beauty of his religious works, by the observance of rites (you must recall his handsome head bowed in the chapel of Sant'Agata), by his homage to Manzoni, by the ordering of his funeral, found in his will: one priest, one candle, one cross.

He knew that faith is the sustenance of the heart. To the workers in the field, to the unhappy, to the afflicted around him, he offered himself as example, without ostentation, humbly, severely, to be useful to their consciences…

In the ideal, moral and social sense he was a great Christian, but one must be very careful not to present him as a Catholic in the political and strictly theological sense of the word: nothing could be further from the truth.

Ten favorite links

1. Casa Verdi, the home for aged musicians to which Verdi bequeathed the royalties from his operas, and that he deemed his "most beautiful work." Daniel Schmid's documentary Il bacio di Tosca offers an affectionate look at the home and its residents. (Another luogo verdiano: Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata.)
2. The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, from the University of Chicago's Center for Italian Opera Studies.
3. Verdi 2001: Online highlights of Parma's centenary tributes to its illustrious neighbor. (Note that I am using what puny sway I have to try to get these exhibits brought to New York.) La tempesta del mio cor, a study of the rhetoric of operatic gesture, is the real prize, but the sections on the Verdi myth and Visconti's Verdi productions are also wonderful.
4. A memorial article from The Musical Times, March 1901.
5. Verdi stamps from Paul den Ouden.
6. Postcards commemorating Verdi's death, from Historic Opera.
7. Verdi a tavola, a charming article about Verdi the gourmand. This page (in English) includes one of Verdi's menus from Milano's Grand Hotel and his prize recipe for (*gasp*) pork shoulder.
8. The American Institute for Verdi Studies. Membership is a bargain and includes NYU library privileges!
9. A lovely tribute to Peppina.
10. From the fabulous East Village Opera Company, versions of "La donna è mobile" and "Questa o quella" for the twenty-first century… and beyond! (Thanks, Steve!)

Ten favorite books

*The* book, I suspect, will be Philip Gossett's forthcoming Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (2006). Nel frattempo:

1. Verdi: A Biography by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz.
2. The Story of Giuseppe Verdi by Gabriele Baldini.
3. The Operas of Verdi, Volumes I, II, and III, by Julien Budden.
4. The Man Verdi by Frank Walker.
5. Life of Verdi by John Rosselli.
6. The Verdi-Boito Correspondence, trans. William Weaver.
7. The Verdi Companion, eds. William Weaver and Martin Chusid.
8. Encounters with Verdi, ed. Marcello Conati.
9. Leonora's Last Act by Roger Parker.
10. Verdi in Performance, eds. Alison Latham and Roger Parker.

Ten favorite recordings

Why no Rigoletto or Trovatore? Because there are no versions that I find completely satisfying. Yes, of course, I know and worship the Callas/Serafin and Callas/Karajan sets, but the mutilations (a.k.a. "the traditional cuts") are hard for me to stomach. If you feel otherwise, mazel tov. I quote Montaigne: Je donne mon avis non comme bon, mais comme mien.

[But… No Milanov! But… No Corelli! But… Bite me.]

1. Simon Boccanegra led by Claudio Abbado (DG).
   The single greatest recording of an opera that I know.
2. Aida led by Carlo Sabajno (various labels; 1928).
   Aida has had a happy history on disc, with superb recordings led by Karajan (Decca and EMI), Solti, Muti, and Levine. Still, listen to this excerpt (courtesy of Cantabile-Subito) from the judgment scene with Irene Minghini-Cattaneo as Amneris and Aureliano Pertile as Radamès. Simionato/Bergonzi, Gorr/Vickers, Baltsa/Carreras: I love 'em all. But this version throbs with sex and rage. It has the stink of the theatre about it, a tartness and vigor that I don't find elsewhere.
3. Macbeth led by Claudio Abbado (DG).
   The versions led by Leinsdorf, Muti, and Sinopoli are also quite fine, but this set, like the Boccanegra, documents the Abbado-Strehler collaboration at La Scala: surely the pinnacle of Verdi performance in the twentieth century.
4. Un ballo in maschera led by Gianandrea Gavazzeni (EMI), supplemented with the versions led by Karajan (DG) and Muti (EMI).
   Gavazzeni for the white-hot fire generated by Callas and di Stefano in the love duet; Karajan for that autumnal glow and the ideal Oscar of Sumi Jo; Muti for silken grace. Oscar, as Baldini reminds us, is no mincing fop but the "laughter, warm embrace, and mercy" that live on after the murdered king.
5. Falstaff led by Riccardo Muti (Sony).
   There is also a DVD of a Muti-led performance at Busseto, with Juan Diego Flórez as Fenton. Falstaff, too, has a proud history on disc, but no one for me better captures the quicksilver, fairy-music aspect of this score than Muti. I commend to you, as well, the Music & Arts set pairing performances led by Serafin and de Sabata.
6. Ernani led by Riccardo Muti (Kultur).
   The CD incarnation is hard to come by, so get the DVD. This is slashing, incandescent, not-to-be-missed Verdi.
7. Don Carlo led by Carlo Maria Giulini (EMI).
   I don't care for the French-language sets led by Pappano (EMI) and Abbado (DG), though I eagerly await the coming of a good one. Still, Giulini's reading—world-weary, grave, and filled with a melting tenderness—will always have a proud place chez moi.
8. Messa da Requiem led by John Eliot Gardiner (Philips).
   The Requiem, too, is amply well-represented on disc. There are admirable sets conducted by Toscanini, Giulini, de Sabata, Serafin, Fricsay, Reiner… Gardiner's sizzling reading, though, uses David Rosen's critical edition and period instruments. And for all that they are not classic "Verdians," Anne Sofie von Otter and Luca Canonici slay me with their rapt, poignant singing.
9. La traviata led by Riccardo Muti (EMI).
   This "come scritto" performance does not offer the variations that would have been expected in second verses, but its febrile swiftness, the patrician grace of Kraus and Bruson, and Scotto's intensity make it my top choice. (You didn't really expect me to pick a performance that leaves out, oh, a third of the music, did you?)
10. Otello led by James Levine (RCA).
    Here, too, there are several strong sets from which to choose, but I love the coruscating fleetness of this score under Levine. (Caveat: The CD issue I own has miserably bright sound. Did the LPs really sound this bad?) Another great reading: Muti's DVD version.

For the best in Verdi singing, look no further: This, children, is how it's done.

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz's magnificent biography of Verdi concludes thus:

Few heads of state have been tendered higher honours than Verdi, universally hailed as an artist, a model citizen, and a philanthropist. To the world, as to the nation he helped to found, he left an enduring legacy of music, charity, patriotism, honour, grace, and reason. He was and remains a mighty force for continuing good.

Comments

[Lisa Hirsch]

I think Taddei on Cetra is likely to be fresher, at least for Taddei. Must say that the Salzburg video w/HvK and Taddei is terrific.

I think ES is fine on the earlier HvK recording, myself. (The recording *I* can't bear her on is his Hansel & Gretel.)

My ideal Trovatore is something like Arangi-Lombardi or L. Price/Minghini-Cattaneo or Cossotto, Bjoerling, Pertile, or Martinelli, and, hmmm, maybe Granforte, conducted by, hmmm. De Sabata? Guarneri? Toscanini?

[vilaine fille]

Both of Karajan's Falstaffs, I think, are part of the opera's "proud history on disc," but I cannot abide Betty's clucking and pecking in the EMI set, and I simply have not heard the Taddei set (DG) recently enough to offer a reliable plug.

I like but do not love Mehta's Trovatore. The ideal Trovatore, I think, would consist of elements of two Karajan sets (Callas/EMI and Price/Salzburg), the recordings conducted by Giulini (DG), Pappano (EMI), and Muti (Sony), plus performances yet unheard

[Lisa Hirsch]

What, not Karajan's "Falstaff"???

For Trovatore, I nominate, uh, Mehta (Price, Cossotto, Domingo, Milnes). Note-complete, well-conducted (affectionally and understate), very well sung.