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Giuseppe Verdi Facts & Worksheets

Giuseppe Verdi was a 19th-century Italian opera composer. He was famous for his talent in creating melody and his intense usage of theatrical effects.

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Giuseppe Verdi was a 19th-century Italian opera composer. He was famous for his talent in creating melody and his intense usage of theatrical effects.

See the fact file below for more information on the Giuseppe Verdi or alternatively, you can download our 25-page Giuseppe Verdi worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

  • Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born on October 9 or 10, 1813 at Le Roncole, near Busseto, Parma, Italy.
  • His father, Carlo Giuseppe Verdi, worked as a local innkeeper while his mother, Luigia Uttini, was a spinner.
  • Giuseppe had a younger sister named Giuseppa, who was his closest friend during his childhood.
  • At age four, he started getting private lessons in Italian and Latin from Baistrocchi, the village schoolmaster. He then studied at the local school when he was six.
  • Verdi learned to play the organ and showed great interest in music, which made his parents gift him a spinet.
  • His talent in music was already evident when he started serving in the choir and acting for a while as an altar boy in the local church.
  • Verdi became the church’s paid organist when he was eight years old after Baistrocchi died.
  • He wrote music for the largely amateur orchestra of the town church.
  • In 1823, he was sent to attend secondary school in Busseto. At 11, Giuseppe started receiving lessons in Latin, Italian, rhetoric, and the humanities.
  • When he was about 12 years old, he started lessons with Ferdinando Provesi, the co-director of the local Philharmonic Society, director of the municipal music school, and maestro di cappella at San Bartolomeo.
  • Antonio Barezzi, the other director of the Philharmonic Society, took Verdi into his home and became a second father to him. Barezzi gave his daughter, Margherita, to Verdi to be his wife in 1836.
  • Barezzi also funded Verdi to study music in Milan.
  • Giuseppe, however, was refused by the Milan Conservatory because he played the piano poorly and he was past the admission age.
  • Verdi was then taught privately by Vincenzo Lavigna, an associate of Teatro Alla Scala and an older composer.

CAREER

  • In 1833, Giuseppe was hired as the Philharmonic Society’s conductor, marking the start of his career in the Italian music industry.
  • From March 1836 to October 1838, Verdi taught and composed songs in Busseto.
  • At age 25, he went back to Milan where he was able to complete Oberto, his first opera, which premiered at La Scala in March 1839.
  • The opera reached Turin and Genoa and gained him a commission for another three operas at the leading theater in Italy.
  • In September 1840, Un giorno di regno, a comic opera, premiered at Teatro alla Scala.
  • This second opera was not well received by critics or audiences.
  • Verdi composed two four-part operas in 1842 and 1843, entitled Nabucodonosor and I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, respectively.
  • The operas were a great success and gave him a prominent reputation in the operatic theater scene of Italy.
  • Giuseppe was known to reject the traditional Italian opera for unified acts and integrated scenes, which added to his fame.
  • Nabucco’s musical style, compared to Verdi’s later works, is primitive but its raw energy kept it alive even a century and a half later.
  • After the success of Nabucco, Verdi joined literary salons in Milan and created lasting friendships with a few cultivated aristocrats.
  • During the years 1843-1849, Giuseppe aimed to produce two operas a year, driving himself like a “slave” to his work and consequently making his health deteriorate.
  • He wanted to have enough money for early retirement as a farmer at Sant’Agata where his ancestors had settled. In 1844, Verdi purchased land in Sant’Agata.
  • Ernani, produced in 1844, was the only work during the “slave” period that gained a solid place in the worldwide opera repertory.
  • In 1847, Giuseppe finished Macbeth, his only opera that was completely independent of tradition. He dedicated this piece to his father-in-law, Barezzi.
  • By 1847, Verdi started getting lucrative commissions from abroad. He wrote I masnadieri for a client in London and made a thorough revision of I Lombardi for a Parisian.
  • In 1849, he presented La battaglia di Legnano, a story of jealousy and love inspired by the victory of the Lombard League against Frederick Barbarossa, Giuseppe’s emphatic response to the Italian unification movement.
  • After the unification in 1861, Verdi was persuaded by the Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, to support the Chamber of Deputies. He then became widely celebrated as a national hero.
  • The song of the Hebrew slaves in Nabucco, “Va, pensiero,” became an unofficial national anthem. Up until the 1990s, Va, pensiero was still used at Italian communist rallies.
  • Giuseppe’s most famous and best loved compositions were Rigoletto finished in 1851, and Il trovatore and La traviata in 1853.
  • These operas had tighter and more exciting drama, more original characterizations, and better tunes than any of his other operas.
  • In the middle of the 1880s, through Giulio Ricordi, Verdi worked with novelist and composer Arrigo Boito to finish Otello.
  • The four-act opera was completed in 1886 and premiered on February 5, 1887, at Teatro alla Scala.
  • The opera was based on Othello by William Shakespeare and is still regarded to be one of the greatest operas of all time.
  • He was able to follow Otello with Falstaff which was completed in 1890 when Giuseppe was already in his late 70s.
  • Falstaff was a three-act comedic adaptation of two other plays by Shakespeare.
  • Otello and Falstaff both received tremendously positive early reactions and still earn great fame today.

PERSONAL LIFE AND DEATH

  • While working on Oberto, Giuseppe suffered from the death of Virginia Maria Luigia, his first daughter, who died on August 12, 1838. In October 1839, their second child, Verdi Icilio Romano, also died in infancy.
  • On June 18, 1840, the debut of his second opera was painfully overshadowed by the death of Margherita, who was just 26 years old.
  • Verdi made over 25 operas during his career. He continues to be regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
  • His works have also been reported to be the most performed pieces by any other performers worldwide.
  • On January 21, 1901, Giuseppe suffered a stroke which gradually made him feebler. He later on died on January 27, 1901, in Milan, Italy.
  • There was an initial private ceremony for his burial at Cimitero Monumentale in Milan. One month after, Verdi was moved to the Casa di Riposo.
  • During the moving of his body, Arturo Toscanini conducted 820 singers in singing Va pensiero with a crowd of about 300,000 people.

Giuseppe Verdi Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Giuseppe Verdi across 25 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Giuseppe Verdi worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Giuseppe Verdi who was a 19th-century Italian opera composer. He was famous for his talent in creating melody and his intense usage of theatrical effects.

Complete List Of Included Worksheets

  • Verdi’s Back
  • Year of the Opera
  • Bread Crumbs
  • Legacy Strikes
  • Crossed Words
  • Operatic Steps
  • Verdi’s Company
  • Musical Form
  • Learn to Play
  • Love, Verdi

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Use With Any Curriculum

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