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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050914013635
Giuseppe Verdi: a model of integrity
As the 200th anniversary of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi is celebrated, Rupert Christiansen pays tribute to a man whose moral values were rock-solid
There’s been a certain amount of baffled grumbling in recent months that Verdi’s bicentenary hasn’t
been as widely marked as Wagner’s. I’m not surprised or worried by
this. Wagner is Marmite: you love him or hate him, and because his work
always provokes faction and controversy, there’s always going to be an
aggressive push behind any memorial or celebration.
Verdi, however, has no need of a lobby or special pleading. His genius
is universal, beyond fashion or opinion, and his music needs no
promotion or defence. He would harrumph at the thought of posterity
erecting statues and spouting speeches in his memory: remember me by
performing the operas as well as you can, he would say, and don’t forget
the royalty cheque. Celebrity – his own or anyone else’s – was not
something that impressed him.
Giuseppe Verdi, painted by Giovanni Boldini in 1860 REX FEATURES
Yet what a model of integrity he offers today’s creative artists, with
their febrile quest for novelty and sensation. Verdi, in contrast,
ploughed his professional furrow for three score and 10 years, steadily
improving his technique and broadening his vision: almost every opera he
wrote, from Un Giorno di Regno in 1840 to Falstaff in 1893 improves or
advances in some dogged way on its predecessor, underpinned by a
fundamentally noble view of humanity that balances compassion with
justice. He may have been gruffly sceptical, disdaining lickspittle
politicians and pretentious frauds, but he was without cynicism: his
moral values were rock-solid and unassailable, rooted in the soil of
Emilia-Romagna and an entirely realistic sense of his own abilities and
worth.
Robert Carsen - Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence on MUZU.TV.
One lament of opera-lovers today is that there are so few singers with the grandeur of voice, style and presence to do Verdi’s music justice – a sad chorus in which I have myself often joined. But this bicentenary year has brought some satisfaction on this front: I have been profoundly moved at Covent Garden and the Salzburg Festival by performances of Don Carlo, which in some respects I consider Verdi’s supreme masterpiece.
In neither case did the production come close to an adequate visual realisation of the magnificent drama, but with Antonio Pappano in the pit, Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros brought to their interpretations of the leading roles rapturous arcs of phrasing and refulgence of tone that we have not heard for a generation. Verdi’s music can weather mediocrity and still provide audiences with enjoyment (in a way that Wagner can’t), but here he was truly honoured as he would have wished.
Now I am keenly awaiting two further productions of operas from his middle period which have been neglected or misprised. Next week, Les Vêpres Siciliennes will receive its first performance at Covent Garden, conducted by Pappano; and in December, the golden couple of Kaufmann and Harteros will be reunited for La Forza del destino in Munich. Viva Verdi!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/opera/10363435/Giuseppe-Verdi-a-model-of-integrity.html