Verdi the Reader!

Verdi the Reader

The development of Verdi’s artistic vision and style depended significantly on his reading, and we can learn about his favorite works by looking at the bookcase that he kept near his bed.  On the top shelf he kept the books to which he referred most frequently.    On this shelf were pocket scores of the String Quartets of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.  Also on this shelf was an Italian translation (by Giulio Carcano) of the complete works of Shakespeare, to whom Verdi always referred as “Papa.”  This shelf also contained the complete works of Dante Alighieri, and Italian translations of the plays of Friedrich Schiller, the German playwright, poet, and philosopher of a generation before Verdi.  On the second shelf of Verdi’s book case were Italian translations of John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the works of Lord Byron, along with the King James version of the Bible and dictionaries of French and Italian.

An overview of how these works showed up in Verdi’s operas:

Shakespeare: Verdi virtually opened and closed his artistic career with Shakespeare, producing in his early years Macbeth, and writing as his two last operas Otello, and Falstaff.

Biblical [Jeremiah]:  Nabucco

Schiller:  Giovanna d’Arco, I masnadieri, Luisa Miller, Don Carlos, and a scene of La forza del destino

Byron:  Il Corsaro

Another notable influence on Verdi was the Spanish playwright, Antonio García Gutiérrez, from whose works Verdi got his stories for both Il Trovatore and Simon Boccanegra.

Verdi was also a great fan of the works of his contemporary, Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi, like others, credited for the Tuscan dialect becoming the basis of the then-forming modern Italian.  At Manzoni’s death, feeling that the writer had not been sufficiently recognized by his countrymen, Verdi wrote his famous Requiem, first performed at the church of San Marco in Milan and less than a month later at La Scala, with Verdi conducting on both these occasions.

Dennis Chowenhill, Virago Resident Dramaturg
www.viragotheatre.org
Il Trovatore 1/31-2/9
http://viragotrovatore.brownpapertickets.com/