A man revealed through his letters
This group of letters by the great 19th Century composer of Italian opera, Giuseppe Verdi, reveals a huge amount about his methods of composition from the beginning of an idea for an opera to plans for its first performances.
And, in his 1879 "Autobiographical Sketch" (one of the prime reasons I bought the book), it also reveals a man looking back from old age and remembering selected details of his youthful experiences. Much of Verdi?s version of events has led to the survival of many of the myths surrounding the aftermath of the failure of his second opera, a comedy, ?King for a Day?, and the composition of his first ?hit?, ?Nabucco?.
But the bulk of the book ? and the prime reason for reading it ? contains Verdi?s letters, written to librettists, patrons, impresarios, and others over the course of his career. They strikingly reveal why he has come to be regarded as the greatest Italian opera composer of all time and why, when compared to the (albeit) wonderful operas that poured forth from the pens of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti in the first 50 years of the 19th Century (not to speak of the 70 or 80 each composed by now-forgotten composers such as Pacini and Mercadante), Verdi?s operas stand supreme.
The letters reveal his working methods, such as the pleas to his librettists to keep it short, to maximize the dramatic impact of their poetry. Overall, they reveal Verdi to have been a great man of the theatre and theatrical effect. The fact that for many of the compositions, composer and librettist were living far apart, which necessitated lengthy correspondance and much back-and-forth between the two men, has given the world a wonderful insight into how a Verdi opera came into being. Had both been living in the same city, many of these processes might never have been revealed at all.
What is especially revealing to this reader is the enormous effort which Verdi underwent to have a libretto prepared for an operatic version of Shakespeare?s ?King Lear?. The opera, ?Le roi Lear?, was never written, but years of correspondence reveal Verdi?s intense effort to have not just one but two librettists shape the material into something theatrical and effective. Given his lifelong love of Shakespeare and the adaptations of two of Shakespeare?s plays which became two of his most successful operas, ?Otello? and ?Falstaff? (as well as his early, 1847 ?Macbeth?), ?Lear? might have been another masterpiece for the world to still enjoy today.
