Verdi, Giuseppe

5. Life, 1853–71.

After the première of La traviata in March 1853, the pace of Verdi's operatic production slowed considerably. The 11 years up to Traviata had produced 16 operas; the 18 years that followed saw only six new works: Les vêpres siciliennes, Simon Boccanegra, Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino, Don Carlos and Aida. Admittedly, such a comparison gives a slightly exaggerated picture. Two of the operas (Vêpres and Don Carlos) were written for the Paris Opéra; they are thus both considerably longer than any other of Verdi's scores and required the composer's presence in Paris during extended rehearsal periods. Furthermore, Verdi devoted much time and creative energy to revising various works: there were relatively minor adjustments to La traviata and Simon Boccanegra after unsuccessful first performances (the latter would undergo further and more important alterations later), and to Il trovatore for its Paris version; a thorough overhaul of Macbeth, again for Paris; the refashioning of Stiffelio as Aroldo; and substantial revisions to La forza del destino for a series of performances at La Scala. Such efforts notwithstanding, however, Verdi now spent an increasing amount of time away from the theatre, and on at least one occasion – in the more than three-year gap between finishing Un ballo in maschera (early 1858) and starting La forza del destino (mid-1861) – he seems to have decided to stop composing altogether.

His three most extensive foreign expeditions were all related to professional engagements: a two-year period in Paris (1854–5) saw the completion and performance of Les vêpres siciliennes; La forza del destino required two trips to Russia, with interim visits to Paris, London and Madrid (1862–3); and the production of Don Carlos kept him in Paris for nearly a year (1866–7). When not travelling, Verdi divided his time between periods of intense activity on his farmlands at Sant'Agata (he added substantially to his estate in 1857, and supervised extensive renovations in the 1860s) and visits to friends in other cities, notably Naples and Venice. In 1859, after more than ten years together, Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi were secretly married in the village of Collange-sous-Salève, near Geneva. In 1866 they set up permanent winter quarters in Genoa, finding the climate of Sant'Agata too hostile.

Verdi entered briefly into public political life, becoming in 1861 – after personal urging from none other than Cavour – deputy for Borgo San Donnino (now Fidenza) in the first Italian parliament, a post he retained until 1865, though attending sessions only sporadically after the first few months. For reasons that remain obscure, he lost touch with friends in Milan, his centre of professional operations and social milieu through most of the 1840s; after his dramatic return during the 1848 revolutions, he seems hardly to have visited the city for 20 years. (As early as 1845 he had quarrelled with the directors of La Scala over what he considered the unacceptable production standards, but this could not have been the whole story.) But the late 1860s saw a rapprochement. In 1868 he returned to the city to visit Clara Maffei, and to meet for the first time Alessandro Manzoni, whom he had long revered. A year later he re-established contact with La Scala, supervising there the première of the revised Forza del destino. On hearing of the death of Rossini (in November 1868), Verdi suggested to Ricordi that a commemorative Messa per Rossini be written jointly by a team of the most prominent Italian composers of the day. The Mass was duly completed, Verdi supplying the final ‘Libera me’, but there was much bitter wrangling over administrative problems and the work was never performed.