Verdi: The Iconic Italian Composer's Story | Perspective

there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download veli today [Music] come with us on a musical journey through some of the most magnificent places on earth great towns and cities of europe steeped in history and beauty and resounding with the stories and music of the world's great composers [Music] mozart bach beethoven grieg vivaldi tchaikovsky just some of the greats in our classical destinations welcome we're off on our musical travels again visiting some of the most beautiful cities and vistas in europe resounding with the stories and of course the music of the great classical composers [Music] once again we're joined by nikki vasilakis [Music] we're starting in the piazza verde in the heart of busetto just to the north of tuscany in italy and we'll head into the magnificent tuscan countryside and along the way also explore the music of two of italy's most renowned composers giuseppe verdi and giacomo puccini [Music] toscana tuscany begins on the shores of the ligurian sea in northern italy studded with some of italy's most historic cities set among rolling hills the region has produced the delectable chianti wine and an impressive array of great composers something in the soil i believe we'll start in the ancient town of lucca luca is even older than it appears founded by the etruscans a thousand years before christ it became a roman colony in 180 bc once the empire was out of the way in the 5th century a.d lucca fell into the hands of goths then byzantines and then lombards you'd think all this would confuse a city but luckily the rectangular roman street plan had been preserved in the town's historic center [Music] luka is also one of the few larger towns in italy still to have its walls intact originally built by the romans the walls that are seen today were built in the 12th century and then heavily reinforced in the 17th [Music] this is the church of san giovanni era which dates back to the 5th century some of these ruins go back further to pre-christian times on the 23rd of december 1858 at this very front the world was introduced to giacomo antonio domenico michele secondo maria puccini giacomo puccini was the last in line of a family that had been central to the musical life of lucca for 150 years [Music] when giacomo was just five his father died bequeathed him the role of organist and superintendent of music here at lucca san martino cathedral as a young boy he played organ at various churches in lucca the nearby son pauline and san michele are just two that were blessed by this young musician pochini started with his uncle who was keeping the organ seat warm at san martino until giacomo was considered ready to take over but the youngster playing heavenly strains in the loft was also something of a lad sneaking out at the back for a cigarette when he needed more money for his habit he stole and sold the organ pipes from one of the local village churches the theft was concealed in a musical way puccini just changed the harmonies during the services [Music] once in his teens puccini walked the 20 kilometers from lucca to pisa to hear a performance of verdi's aida at the opera house it seems he had enough money to get in the door but not to get to the door the performance had a profound impact on puccini not just the quality of verdi's music heard in the superb acoustic of the auditorium but also in the sheer impact of the operatic experience itself the magic of theater from that night on he knew his future lane music and in particular opera the young puccini picked a beautiful city in which to experience his epiphany a major maritime power of the middle ages pisa's glory days were long past but many of the architectural symbols of its power have been preserved [Music] the best known are here on the campo de miraguli the field of miracles near the old town center and what miracles they are the duomo cathedral clad in grey marble and white stone with discs of coloured marble is a masterpiece in the romanesque style begun in 1064. the baptistry at the western end of the duomo is about a century younger but this is what everyone comes to see the campanile or bell tower of the cathedral the bell never hung straight though because things went out of kilter within five years of the commencement of building in 1173 the leaning tub has been a challenge for engineers ever since not even mussolini could straighten it the tower has now been declared stable for at least another three centuries which will delight tourists as we all know anything off-center is so much more interesting [Music] this is boseto north of tuscany between bologna and milan here back in the mid-1820s the twelve-year-old giuseppe verdi started lessons in composition from a local organist he was sponsored by antonio barretsi a grocer and distiller who played the flute and started the local philharmonic society this band of 70 amateur musicians had a crack at some of eddie's first pieces years later verdi said of barretzi i owe him everything reggio teatro nuevo or new royal theater as it was called at the time of young puccini's pilgrimage has been known as the verde theater the teatro verdi since 1904. it is a jewel of a theater first opened in 1867 when verdi was at the height of his career very himself was invited to the grand opening and all the ladies wore green while all the men wore green ties in honour of him because of course in italian verde means green but he didn't attend the ceremony he thought the construction was too expensive and that the theater had no future yet the italian art historians consider this to be the ideal prototype of a small 19th century theater so who was this man so opinionated and so musically influential in 1832 verdi applied to enter the milan conservatoire in their wisdom the examination board turned down the man later considered one of italy's greatest musicians he was advised to study privately and so with financial support from the ever-loyal senior barretzi he stayed in milan for lessons with the local composer vincenzo lavina though a good student his personal life was somewhat undisciplined and he earned a reputation for being a rude arrogant scoundrel the difficult young man grew into an accomplished musician and there he returned to busetto as the local music director his duty should have included that of organist here at the collegiate san bartolomeo but he was considered to be too liberal in his religious views instead he was confined to lesser paid municipal teaching duties there was another reason why verdi stayed in bozetto for the time being his early sponsor bharetsi had now become his father-in-law verdi had married his childhood sweetheart maritz's daughter margarita who grew up in this house and they had two children virginia who lived for only 17 months and a son after three years very didn't renew his contract in bushetto instead he moved back here to milan to try and stage his latest opera alberto conte san bonifacio premiere here at nascar opera in november 1839 and was an immediate success bringing both recognition and a commission for three further operas but then everything went horribly wrong in the young composer's life money was tight and margarita had to pawn her jewellery to pay the rent then suddenly and mysteriously both she and their remaining child iquilio died it was impossible to imagine how wretched there they must have felt wife and two children all of his family wiped out by illness there he was in his 20s with an opera commission to fulfill for a comedy of all things unsurprisingly it failed and verdi swore he'd never compose again but then one wintry night a certain senor merely who ran the la scala opera house in milan tantalized verdi by offering him a libretto concerning the babylonian emperor nebuchadnezzar who had conquered the jews until he was finally slain by a vengeful god after seeing inscribed across the sky in flaming letters the most frightening words anyone could ever hear thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting [Music] legend has it that the depressed verdi's attention was caught by the opening phrase of a chorus for a group of hebrew slaves in the third act fly thought on golden wings the very phrase may have roused verdi from his despair he proceeded to write the chorus and then the rest of the opera nabucco premiered at la scala in 1842 and an instant hit nobody failed to recognize the deliberate parallels between the jews oppressed by the babylonians and the italians chafing under the austrian yoke that his very name became a code word for revolution containing as it did the initials of the name of the man who would be king of a united italy vittorio emmanuel ray litalia b-e-r-d-i more than 160 years later vapencierro is as close as anything has ever come to being the unofficial italian national anthem [Music] very eventually moved in with the female star of nabucco the prima donna giuseppina strepone and the pair moved to buzetto their domestic arrangement scandalized the local town's people for many years much of italy had been ruled by the mighty habsburg empire but there was growing discontent and because of the nature of verdi's music the strength the passion the heroic themes productions of his operas became rallying points [Music] in 1847 a performance of nabucco almost caused a riot in milan the following year saw the premiere of his opera la battaglia just 10 days before rome declared her independence and the whole country was bubbling the opening chorus went something like long live italy a sacred pact unites her children the audience went wild with patriotic fervor and the final act had to be repeated in its entirety [Music] and giuseppina eventually married in 1859 and adopted the orphan child of one of verdi's cousins the battle for independence raged for years but after italy was unified verdi was nominated as a senator more because of his wealth than anything else representing among other places in the region the town of busan the irony must have amused him because the people of busetto had been at odds with verdi's morality for years there is operas even today almost household words rigoletto travatore la traviata and aida the masterpieces kept coming as verdi unusually among composers moved into old age they culminated in two great adaptations of shakespeare otello in 1887 and then falstaff in 1893 the 79 year old's last opera and his first return to comedy after the disaster of 50 years before [Music] there were other ways in which vedi was not deterred by the advancing years in his late 50s he took a mistress 20 years his junior another singer called teresa stoltz the composer's wife giuseppina put up with this relationship for over 20 years until her death in 1897. after this verdi and teresa lived most of the time in his suite in the grand hotel in milan in january 1901 while buttoning his waistcoats in his rooms at the grand hotel verde suffered a stroke he lingered on for a few days tram drivers were ordered not to ring their bells horse's hoofs were wrapped in straw even traffic was diverted all out of reverence for italy's grand old man of opera there he died on january the 27th he was 87. he was interred with giuseppina in the casa di riposo in milan accompanied by a level of public mourning unseen for any musician before or since over 300 000 people followed the cortege as they processed they sang the chorus music that had become a hymn for the italian liberation movement and had proclaimed verdi's talent to the world 60 years earlier fly fought on golden wings but by then italy had found its successor to verdi if there is one name that is revered in coastal tuscany there are no prizes for guessing which it is when you arrive in torre del lago this is the villa puccini which the composer built for himself in the 1890s with the proceeds from his first big operatic success manolesco after the inspiration of verdi's aida in pisa puccini entered the conservatory in milan where he came under the teaching of pankieli the composer of the popular la gioconda after his graduation in 1880 puccini submitted a one-act opera called levilli or the witches to a competition the work didn't win because of the composer's illegible scroll but the music itself impressed the influential publisher jewelry cordy ricordis staged the work with great success and then supported puccini for years as he tried his hand at an unsuccessful full-length opera but the slow working puccini's fortunes changed and recorded his investment paid off with the premiere of manolesco at turin in 1893. [Music] it was a phenomenal success receiving over 30 curtain calls puccini's future was guaranteed both at home and abroad but his success didn't come overnight ricordi had supported puccini for nine years with little to show for it many of the publishing companies shareholders had wanted puccini dropped but recording was a man of great insight and even today the name recordi is synonymous with success in music publishing this place was a peaceful retreat ideal for work and also for his much-loved hunting expeditions on the lake and he obviously wanted some rooms with the view the ecstatic new homeowner wrote to friends the viewers enchanting the coast from livorno to spezia the arno and sergio and a clear day corsica the islands of gorgona and capria and also the scrub land of san rosari miliarino and the lucan scrub of the borboni it's easy to see why puccini loved the place he'd grown up hunting in this area and became a close friend of the owner of the lake and the surrounding territory the marques de carlo ginorilici in fact he dedicated his next great opera la boheme to the marquesa [Applause] pouchini worked hard on labo m but he also liked to party hard with his friends he enjoyed wild parties and nights of drinking and playing cards at an inn in torre del lago which incidentally was later renamed the cafe alabama la boheme wasn't immediately successful public acceptance was gradual but soon it became overwhelming by the time it was premiered in manchester england it was so popular that people everywhere were naming their newborn daughters after mimi [Music] puccini was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing opera into the 20th century telling the stories of actual people as they were lived which paved the way for the era of the great stage musicals that followed opera is a blood sport for puccini and especially for his sopranos who usually end up dead by the end of the show manolesco dies of exhaustion in a new orleans plain mimi has essentially had it from the beginning dying from tuberculosis as she is tosca hurls herself of a castle madame butterfly commits seppuku or ritual suicide the list goes on in his final opera turondot the cruelly unattainable chinese princess of the title survives that puccini does dispatch the slave girl liu hopelessly in love with prince khalaf he has her commit suicide but then having written her death he found that he couldn't continue and he died himself in 1924 leaving the opera unfinished the cruel princess causes a servant girl to commit suicide perhaps the personal resonances were just too much for puccini too guilt inducing for him to work towards the happy resolution that his story seemed to demand just before liu's demise the tenor who survives sings what has become puccini's greatest hit nesundorma none shall sleep contrary to modern practice it tenses out rather better sung by one tenor than three although there is a certain splendor about it sung by an entire football crowd manolesco labo m and their immediate successors tosca and madame butterfly demonstrate puccini's talent for understanding what people wanted to hear and what moved them but by the end of the first world war puccini's music was increasingly unfashionable with a new generation of composers the once glamorous and virile composer was aging and sick with diabetes he began work on what was to be his last opera turondot and began to suffer more than acute pain in his throat by the time throat cancer was diagnosed his condition was inoperable puccini died in november 1924 at the age of 65. his son antonio created a mausoleum in the villa puccini near the room in which the keen huntsman kept his guns [Music] was left unfinished and the opera was completed by another composer franco alfano yet when turandot was finally premiered in 1926 conductor arturo toscanini who incidentally had also conducted the crowd at verdi's funeral 25 years before made the orchestra stop playing at the point of which puccini had stopped writing then he turned to the audience and said here the master laid down his pen and so we come back to the villa puccini on his beloved torre del lago in which the composer's remains are interred puccini had written that he would one day love to hear one of his operas performed here in the open air that wish is now realized with the puccini festival held here annually in a custom-built theater with room for four thousand spectators what a setting the beautiful lake massachusetts on which puccini used to go boating and hunting the small villages on the opposite shore and the tuscan sky overhead classical destinations joined the crowd for a performance of what else turned out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] so now it's time reluctantly to leave tuscany and head to our next stop the german city of bomb the birthplace of the great beethoven see you then at our next classical destination

Channel: Perspective

Views: 27,407

Keywords: Italian classical heritage, Italian classical opera, Italian composer, Italian composers, Italian music culture, Verdi and Puccini, Verdi biography, Verdi tragic life, Verdi's legacy, classic music stories, classical music biographies, classical music documentary, classical music history, dramatic Italian operas, famous Italian composers, influential composers, opera masterpieces, tragic composer biographies, tragic opera composers, tragic opera geniuses

Id: MLNvb5xtnX4

Length: 25min 31sec (1531 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 01 2022