Of all the composers who concentrated almost exclusively on opera, Verdi and Wagner are acknowledged to be the greatest. What a coincidence that both were born in the same year, 1813!

I analyzed Wagner three years ago in a seven-part series. Verdi surely deserves no less. The problem has been how to narrow the focus when writing about a man who lived 87 years, composed 29 operas and also was involved in Italy's political unification. By comparison, Wagner died at age 69, having written 13 operas.

Trying to judge who was the better composer is as impossible as choosing a favorite among one's children. There's no question, however, about who was a greater man, or mensch. Verdi was a national hero, a leader of democratic ideals, a champion of people who were dispossessed. His writing stirred patriotic fervor and also plumbed the emotional relationships between fathers and their children. These qualities suggest how we might subdivide his career, so I will survey his works by the ways they related to the Italian people and to the woman close to him. Few people are strongly devoted to a cause, and excel at their profession, and also maintain a long loving relationship. Verdi was a rarity.

At the age of 22 Verdi married Margherita Barezzi who was the same age. They lived in a small apartment and Margherita pawned family jewelry to pay the rent. The couple had two children who died in infancy then Margherita died of encephalitis, aged 26. Verdi wrote, "In the short space of two months three persons dear to me had gone forever; my family was destroyed." He, of course, was devastated. He met Giuseppina Strepponi two years later.

Biographies of Verdi deal euphemistically with his "lifelong companion" Strepponi. Let's be blunt. Society considered her to be virtually a whore, and shunned her. She slept with singers and managers and gave birth to three illegitimate children (whom she relinquished for adoption) in three years before she and Verdi got involved. Strepponi sang the wide-ranging lead roles in Rossini's Cenerentola, Bellini's Norma and I Puritani and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Roberto Devereux and L'elisir d'amore. She was described as having a "limpid, penetrating, smooth voice...a lovely figure...deep inner feeling."

Some critics said she lost her voice while still in her twenties. Perhaps that's true, or perhaps that was bad-mouthing by morally-judgmental writers. Also, some journalists described her as homely, yet I found a couple of portraits that look attractive. (See the attached)

Strepponi sang the lead role of Abigaille in the premiere of Verdi's Nabucco in 1842 when she was 27 and the composer 29. Peppina and Verdi began to live together in 1847, which scandalized the citizenry of his hometown. They finally married in 1859 and remained in a mutually-supportive relationship until her death in 1897 at the age of 82.

It is no coincidence that Verdi's masterpiece La Traviata (The Fallen Woman) is the story of a courtesan who falls in love with a respectable young man but is forced to leave him because of the shame their relationship brought to his family. Verdi wrote that it was "a subject for our own age."

Also relevant to Verdi's personal life are the characters of Aida, a black woman involved with an Egyptian general; Leonora in La Forza del Destino, a Spanish noblewoman who ran off with an Inca man, and several other operas where a person of rank was in a passionate relationship with an outcast.

Verdi's heros frequently were foreigners (Attila), racially despised (Alvaro the Inca in La Forza del Destino; also Zamoro the Peruvian in Alzira, and Otello; or outlaws (Ernani, Manrico and Simon Boccanegra.) These protagonists often were oppressed and excluded from society. They fought to gain recognition, and sometimes to expel invaders, just as Italians were doing in Verdi's time.

Scholars quarrel over the extent of Verdi's personal involvement in the Risorgimento, the political movement for Italian liberation and unification. There is no dispute over the fact that his music was used by the movement, that he was friendly with its leaders, and that his name became the cry for an independent Italian kingdom. The initials VERDI were scrawled on walls, meaning Victor Emmanuel, Re d'Italia (King of Italy). He rejected political office because he was at heart a libertarian. Verdi wanted to left alone, to work on his own projects, uncensored, with no government or religious institutional interference in his personal affairs. Yet he was the opposite of modern libertarian politicians who advocate states' rights over national.

The connection of the Risorgimento and Verdi's chorus Va pensiero from Nabucco is well-known. Hebrew slaves subjugated by the Babylonians sang of their dreams for freedom. Less-publicized is the furor stirred at the time by another hymn in that opera. Immenso Jehova, sung by the Hebrews to thank God for saving them, elicited calls for a repeat on opening night despite the knowledge that the Austrian rulers forbade the singing of encores.

Nabucco premiered in 1842, when Garibaldi formed his Italian Legion with a black flag that represented Italy in mourning, with a volcano at the center that symbolized the Italian people's dormant power. Nabucco told the story of people in despair, whose world seemed to have been destroyed, just as Verdi's family was destroyed.

In 1846, the year when some liberal reforms by the new Pope Pius IX gave hope to Italian dissidents, Verdi presented his Alzira, in which Peruvian Indians revolt against their Spanish masters.

Later that year came the premiere of his Attila, in which the Roman general Ezio sings to the Huns, Avrai tu l'universo, resta l'Italia a me ("You can have the universe, but leave Italy for me"). Spontaneous cheers greeted that phrase on opening night in Venice.

Next came Macbeth in which Verdi had Scottish refugees sing Patria oppressa ("Down-trodden country"). This chorus was taken up by Italians who sang it on the streets.

In 1847 Verdi traveled to London to conduct the premiere of his I Masnadieri in which the son of a count becomes a member of a gang of highwaymen but who longs to return home, singing O mio castel paterno ("O castle of my fathers").

From London, Verdi went to Paris, writing to friends about "being able to lead the life I wish." Verdi took an apartment around the corner from Strepponi's house and worked with her on the composition of Jérusalem, about the Crusade to liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. A handwritten love duet in the composer's autograph score contains alternative lines in Giuseppina's handwriting and in his. What a romantic memento of their relationship! At the end of 1847 Verdi rented a little house in Passy and went to live there with his Peppina, much like Alfredo and Violetta in La Traviata six years later.

When Verdi achieved money and fame as a composer he purchased a palazzo in his native city of Busseto and moved in there with Giuseppina. Residents ignored her on the street and no one sat near her in church.

During the Cinque Giornate, the Five Days of Milan in 1848 Italians rebelled against their Austrian rulers and the Austrian soldiers responded with swords and bayonets against the crowds. In the midst of this, Verdi quickly returned to Milan and wrote Il Corsaro. The chief corsair is a pirate in exile who laments his condition and vows Sì, di Corsari il fulmine ("Yes, I shall strike the lightning blow of the Corsairs.")

Verdi also wrote La Battaglia di Legnano, which premiered in Rome in January 1849, specifically as "an opera with a purpose." The final chorus proclaimed Italia risorge vestita di Gloria, invitta e regina qual'era sarà ("Italy rises again robed in glory!") Rome was in turmoil and the Pope held prisoner. Within days of the opera's premiere, on February 9, the rule of Rome by the Papal States was replaced by a republican government with a constitution saying that all religions could be practiced freely.

Alas, that republic did not survive. Within the year French troops re-occupied Rome and restored the Pope. Verdi lamented "Force still rules the world. Justice? What use is it against bayonets? All we can do is weep...and curse the authors of so many misfortunes."

You might wonder about the extent of Verdi's commitment to the cause because he personally did not write the words. It was he who repeatedly chose the topics, however, and he was closely involved with the composition of his libretti.

It seems beyond doubt that Verdi identified with the Risorgimento and intentionally tied himself to the cause. During this, the socially-shunned Peppina shared his political beliefs and his love.

  Next: Verdi's mature operas.