Giuseppe Verdi’s Les vêpres siciliennes premiered at the Paris Opéra on 13 June 1855. It was well received, and even the notoriously difficult Hector Berlioz found much to admire, praising “the penetrating intensity of the melodic expressiveness, the sumptuous, wise

Soon after the successful première of Giuseppe Verdi’s first opera Oberto, Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario at La Scala commissioned three further operas. The comic opera Un giorno di regno was a disastrous failure, and contemporary critics considered the question of

During the final years of his life, Giuseppe Verdi devoted himself to a number of philanthropic ventures. Chiefly among them was the establishment of a hospital at Villanova sull’Arda, close to Busseto. Yet, overseeing such a noble cause was not

While Giuseppe Verdi was basking in the tremendous success he enjoyed with Rigoletto in March 1851, he was also looking for a subject for his next opera. His lover Giuseppina Strepponi had recently translated a play by García Gutiérrez titled

Marie Duplessis (1824-1847) was one of the most famous and sought-after French courtesans of her time. Born on 15 January 1824, her father wasn’t a particularly pleasant man, and early on sold his daughter to a variety of men. It

After the enormous success of Aida in 1871, Giuseppe Verdi decided on an early retirement. He still had things to say, but as a composer who had been at the forefront of Italian musical taste for two decades, he now

We do know that Giuseppe Verdi was born in the small village of Roncole, near Busseto in the Duchy of Parma. What is not clear, however, is the exact date of his birth. The baptismal register of 11 October records

A tragic story of jealousy, vengeance and sacrifice, Rigoletto is one of Verdi’s most popular operas. In fact, when it premiered in Venice at La Fenice on 11 March 1851 to a full house, the aria “La donna è mobile”