THE composer picks out a melody on the piano. It’s stirring—and sweetly sultry. ‘What do you think?’ he calls over his shoulder to the music journalist. ‘Awful,’ says the critic. Giuseppe Verdi smiles, scribbling the excerpt onto the manuscript. ‘Excellent—if you hate it, that means the people will love it!’ This much-quoted exchange—whether real or imagined—casts Verdi as the people’s composer, a role ascribed to him due to the widespread popularity of his music, which was created against a backdrop of political repression in pre- and post-Unification Italy. It isn’t only Italians who love his music—Verdi’s operas have become some of the most staged works in the repertory; barely a season goes past without the likes of Rigoletto, Aida or La Traviata appearing at the Royal Opera House (ROH) in the UK or the Metropolitan Opera House in the US.
Born into relative poverty in Le Roncole—a fact that Verdi (1813–1901) may have deliberately exaggerated—the composer learned music from the local organist and went on to study in Milan. By the late 1840s, following a period of personal turmoil, including at the time, which opened in Rome during the same year, and had to squeeze in preparations (not unusual for a jobbing composer) for what would become. The premiere was a disaster. In the days before body shaming was taboo, the audience complained—among other gripes —that the leading soprano looked too ‘healthy’ to be believable as a victim of consumption.
