Fortunino, Giuseppe Francesco Verdi was born on October 9 or 10, 1813, in a hamlet near Busseto, which was part of the First French Empire at the time. In French, his given name was Joseph Fortunin François.1)
When he was a youngster, Giuseppe liked educating himself in the local Jesuit school's enormous library in Busseto. He also received his first composing instruction.2)
Verdi moved to Milan at the age of 20 to further his studies. While visiting operatic performances and concerts, he received private composing instruction. In 1830, he performed his first public concert in Bussetto at the home of Barezzi, a local trader and music enthusiast who had long encouraged his musical goals.3)
Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher, and the two soon fell deeply in love and married. Margherita gave birth to two children, Virginia and Icilio. Both died in infancy while Verdi was working on his first opera and, shortly afterwards, Margherita died aged only 26. Verdi was devastated by their deaths.4)
The presentation of Verdi's debut opera, Oberto, by La Scala Milan in November 1839 was a success, and La Scala awarded Verdi a contract for three further works.5)
According to international opera performance statistics, three of Verdi's operas, Traviata, Rigoletto, and Aida, are consistently among the most performed operas, with each receiving 300 to 400 performances every year.6)
La Traviata is based on Alexandre Dumas's popular French novel 'The Lady of the Camellias.' The sad love tale and compelling characters, along with Verdi's outstanding music, made the opera a huge hit from the outset. Even now, La Traviata is the most-performed opera in the world.7)
The tenor aria 'La donna e mobile' from 'Rigoletto' is one of the most renowned arias ever composed for an opera, and is well known even to those who have never heard opera.8)
According to legend, a prominent critic dropped by while Verdi was wrapping up his opera 'Il Trovatore.' Verdi sat at the piano and played him a few passages.9)
During a staging of Aida in Naples in the spring of 1873, Verdi decided to create a String Quartet piece, his sole known chamber music work. The work was given an informal debut in his hotel room in front of a small crowd.10)
Despite his humble sentiments, Verdi's String Quartet in E minor is regarded as one of the finest classical chamber compositions of the nineteenth century.11)
Hundreds of cinema scores have utilised Verdi's music. One of the most well-known sequences is from the film Pretty Woman, in which Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera. The opera they are watching, La Traviata, is not a coincidence because it is the narrative of a prostitute falling in love with one of her suitors, a concept that is mirrored in the film's characters. Scenes from Acts I, II, and III are seen.12)
Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner, who were born only a few months apart, are both regarded as the greatest operatic composers of all time. Although the two songwriters never met, they had a renowned rivalry.13)
During Italy's independence war, the slogan Viva Verdi was employed as an abbreviation meaning Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Long Live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), a play on the name of the famed Italian opera composer.14)
Giuseppe Verdi's burial in 1901 still has the greatest public gathering of any event in Italian history. During it, Arturo Toscanini led the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' from Nabucco, supported by a massive orchestra and choir made up of artists from all around the country.15)