Giuseppe Verdi

Verdi moved gradually away from the rigid conventions of Italian Romantic opera

In paintings and in photographs, from youth to old age, Giuseppe Verdi cuts a rather severe figure – his brow creased, his mouth turned resolutely down beneath that bushy beard, his mood solemn and inscrutable. Only in some of the photographs taken late in life do we glimpse a twinkle in the eyes, as if the man had finally started to let down his guard. One wonders what he thought about the life he had lived, across almost a century of drastic social change and dramatic political events, of personal sorrows and astonishing professional achievements. The journey from son of a rural innkeeper to country squire – a rags-to-riches narrative that he was not averse to embellishing – had been a long one.

Verdi was born before the Battle of Waterloo; he died during the Boer War. He lived through revolutions