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| Detail of Giuseppe Verdi portrait, Giovanni Boldini, 1886. National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome. [Source] |
Today is an important day for all Italians,
as opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, one of Italy’s best-loved national heroes,
was born 200 years ago today, on 10 October 1813.
For Italians, Verdi is much more than just
an opera composer. He is the man who wrote the soundtrack of the Risorgimento,
the decades-long struggle for Italian unification and independence.
As someone who prefers the music of Puccini
to Verdi hands down (I’ve received a lot of flack for this from Italians over
the years), I didn’t always get the connection between Verdi and Italy. When I
first arrived in Rome, still plenty wet behind the ears, someone explained to
me that every true Italian prefers Verdi’s operas to Puccini’s. While I adore
Verdi as well, Puccini, with his passionate, flowering, uber-Romantic melodies,
was to my mind much more the embodiment of the Italian soul. Verdi was Grand
Opera with a capital G. His operas tell the stories of kings and queens, grand
passions and grand ideals, with massive choruses and formidable heroines. It’s
all a trifle distant from the real world of Italian experience. Clearly, I
didn’t get it.
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| Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi. [Source] |
As heavenly as Verdi’s music is (La Traviata’s “Addio al Passato” is, in
my opinion, his most beautiful and heart-wrenching piece), Italians’ love for
Verdi isn’t really about his music at all. It’s about his role as a patriot,
someone who, through his music and through his political actions, fought to
bring Italy together. Even the letters of his name became an acronym for the
dream of the unification of Italy, as revolutionaries scrawled “Viva VERDI!” on walls, secretly
expressing their support for the man who would go on to become united Italy’s
first king, Victor Emanuel Re D’Italia (V-E-R-D-I).
Verdi’s slave chorus “Va’Pensiero” from Nabucco is the unofficial Italian national anthem, a hymn almost any Italian alive could sing on the drop of a hat if asked, a song that represented to Italians in the mid-1800s their own loss of freedom to the Austrians who ruled northern Italy at that time. I'll never forget the night, back in March of 2011, when I attended Nabucco in Rome on the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, when Maestro Muti asked the audience to sing along with "Va' Pensiero." I wrote about it here.
Verdi’s slave chorus “Va’Pensiero” from Nabucco is the unofficial Italian national anthem, a hymn almost any Italian alive could sing on the drop of a hat if asked, a song that represented to Italians in the mid-1800s their own loss of freedom to the Austrians who ruled northern Italy at that time. I'll never forget the night, back in March of 2011, when I attended Nabucco in Rome on the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy, when Maestro Muti asked the audience to sing along with "Va' Pensiero." I wrote about it here.
Earlier this year, I had the honor of
interviewing the greatest Verdi conductor alive today, Maestro Riccardo Muti. For
those of you who know my operatic past, this was a very, very big deal for me. I
chatted with the Maestro about the importance of Verdi to Italians, the future
of opera in Italy, a country that has been de-funding its cultural institutions,
and the Maestro’s plans for the Rome Opera, of which he has recently become the
Honorary Conductor for Life.
The interview appeared in the March 2013
issue of WHERE Rome magazine, but I’ve posted an excerpt of it here in honor of Verdi’s 200th birthday. (You can see the PDF version of the full interview here.)
T.P.: Who is
Verdi to you? Do you consider him a musician or a national hero?
R.M.: Verdi is
one of the greatest pillars of operatic music. He represents the soul, not just
of Italy, but of all humanity. People in every corner of the world, from
Australia to America, Canada, or Africa, can find elements in Verdi’s music
that speak to their very heart and soul. In this sense, he is one of the most
universal composers in the history of music. As a national hero, Verdi was a
man who, through his music and his ideals of democracy, freedom, and equality,
helped to ignite the hearts of Italian revolutionaries during the Risorgimento,
undoubtedly contributing to the unification of Italy.
T.P.: Historically,
opera in Rome has developed less rapidly than in other Italian cites, such as
Milan and Venice. Since you have come to the helm of the Rome Opera, however,
it has begun receiving wider acclaim, for example, the extraordinary triumph of
this season’s opener, Simon Boccanegra. What is your plan for bringing Rome to the highest
possible level of operatic greatness?
R.M.: It’s important to note that Rome has had great
opera houses, such as the Apollo, the Valle and the existing Teatro Argentina,
which predate the current Teatro Costanzi, and also that Verdi had a strong and
active relationship with Rome. Rome’s present opera house may have a shorter
history than Italy’s historic theaters, like La Fenice or La Scala, but the
Teatro Costanzi has a history of many important conductors as well as premieres,
including Tosca and Cavalleria Rusticana. Then followed a
period of decline, during which it attracted less public attention. It is now
experiencing a strong revival because the orchestra, chorus, and technicians
have enthusiastically reattained past levels of brilliance, although it has
been an uphill battle. Of course, the credit does not go to only one person; it
is all about teamwork. Everyone is contributing; for example the orchestra has
been performing symphonic concerts with major conductors, doing some excellent
work. All this raises the level of the company and gives the public new faith
in the quality of the opera house, and the most important thing is that the
public see the theatre as a house of culture, art, and music. Once that
happens, progress becomes easier.
T.P.: No
tourist would come to Rome without visiting the Sistine Chapel or the
Colosseum. Would you suggest a tourist also attend an Italian opera, perhaps by
Verdi, to get a complete picture of Italian culture and history?
R.M.: In recent
years, opera has enjoyed an increasingly positive reputation at the
international level. When tourists come to Rome, a city thousands of years old,
it’s natural that the ancient sites and museums will immediately grasp their
attention, but if people come to learn of the history of Rome’s opera
house––for example, that it hosted the premiere of Puccini’s Tosca, one of the most performed operas of all time and known to all music lovers around the world––more tourists will visit our
theater. However, I am confident that, little by little, this will occur.
T.P.: In
light of heavy cuts to cultural funding in Italy, as well as the economic
crisis in general, is there a risk that opera––an integral part of Italian
culture––is increasingly becoming a privilege reserved for the elite?
R.M.: People were
asking that even when I was a child. Of course, the arts have always been of
greater interest to those who have the financial resources to attend
universities or academies, and so in that sense there is a cultural elite. The
solution then would be a cultural education that begins in primary school, in
which all children, regardless of their financial situation, would have the
privilege to learn about one of the most important and foundational pillars of
our history and our country, namely, music. Italy's
contribution to music is centuries old, and an
understanding of it is essential
to create a society in which classical music is available
to everyone.
Otherwise, it’s inevitable that this privilege will become reserved for a few
devoted fans and those who have the financial means to attend the opera. It’s a
matter of education, which is the duty of the state.
T.P.: What
kind of non-classical music does Maestro Muti listen to?
R.M.: I have three
children, so when they were young I listened to many different genres of music
at home, although I didn’t have the time to really study them. Of course, when
I was a kid I remember adoring the Platters, and now, when my five-year-old
grandson is in the car, he always asks to hear their hit Only You. They
were amazing. Over the years, I've been struck by other singers, for example
the Beatles were a brilliant group. I've always been fascinated by a voices
like Céline Dion and the late Whitney Houston, although less for the content of
their music than for the beauty of their voices.
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| With Maestro Riccardo Muti after a performance of Verdi's I Due Foscari at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma |
**This interview has been translated from Italian.**
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