On January 30, 1901, as a hearse drove the coffin of Giuseppe Verdi to the cemetery in Milan, a huge crowd gathered to honor the greatest 19th-century Italian composer. As the small funeral procession advanced through the city, the people waiting along the route began to sing the Va, pensiero (Fly, Thought) from the opera Nabucco. Also known as the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, the piece had become the unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian unification. Indeed, the lyrics of the chorus, intoned by the Jews longing for their lost homeland, resonated with the Italian patriots fighting to free the peninsula from foreign control.Giuseppe VerdiThe house in Roncole Busseto, now Roncole Verdi, where Giuseppe Verdi was born. Source: Parma WelcomeGiuseppe Verdi was born in 1813 in Roncole, a small village near Busseto, a rural town in the Duchy of Parma. Verdi, the son of an innkeeper, was a musically gifted child. At the age of nine, he was already playing the organ in the local church. His unusual talent captured the attention of Antonio Barezzi, a wealthy resident of Roncole and music enthusiast. Barezzi soon took young Verdi under his wing, sponsoring his musical studies.After spending some time in Milan, Giuseppe Verdi returned to Roncole, where he married Margherita Barezzi, the daughter of his patron, in 1836. Three years later, he finally made his operatic debut with Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, which premiered at the La Scala theater in Milan.The following year, however, the loss of his two young children and wife sent the composer into a depressive spiral. His career also suffered a step back. Then, in 1842, Verdis third operatic work, Nabucco, was a roaring success, turning the 28-year-old artist into a prominent Italian musician. In the 1840s, a period he dubbed his anni di galera (years of prison), Verdi composed more than 20 new operas in rapid succession, including Ernani, Macbeth, Attila, and I Lombardi alla prima crociata. At the end of the decade, his fame grew both in Italy and abroad, earning him commissions from France and England.Portrait of Giuseppina Strepponi by Karoly Gyurkovich. Source: Biblioteca Digitale Licei Musicali e CoreuticiIn 1859, Verdi married his long-time mistress, opera singer Giuseppina Strepponi. The couple had been living together in Busseto since 1849, provoking a scandal among the local community. In the 1850s, Verdis second wife performed in some of his most important operas, including La Traviata (The Fallen Woman). Based on La Dame aux camlias by Alexandre Dumas fils (son of the famed author Alexandre Dumas), the tragic story of the courtesan Violetta, along with Rigoletto (1851) and Il Trovatore (1853), cemented Verdis fame in Italy and abroad.During his prolific career, Verdi challenged the rules of operatic composition of his time, creating compelling and emotionally rich stories and characters. His ability to portray the complexity of human nature and ponder on topics such as power, love, and betrayal turned him into one of the most celebrated opera composers of the 19th century. Today, opera houses still regularly stage many of his pieces.In 1893, La Scala Theater produced Verdis final opera, Falstaff. Based on Shakespeares Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, the composers comic work is a humorous and self-deprecating self-portrait and retrospective reflection on his life. Giuseppe Verdi died in Milan on January 27, 1901. Upon hearing of his death, the Italian Parliament lamented the loss of one of the highest expressions of the national genius.Giuseppe Verdi & the Italian OperaExterior of the La Scala theater in Milan. Source: Regione LombardiaWhen Giuseppe Verdi composed his first opera, the European music landscape was dominated by the German composer Richard Wagner, who posited the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art). In Italy, the tradition of bel canto (beautiful singing), a style of singing featuring vocal ability and smooth melodies, mastered by Gaetano Donizetti and Gioacchino Rossini, was entering its final stage. In his works, Verdi began challenging the rigid rules of the bel canto, filling his operas with vigorous themes and dramatic scenes.At the beginning of the 19th century, the Italian peninsula, where a group of Florentine intellectuals had invented opera singing in the 16th century, was divided into several states and principalities controlled by different European powers. In 1814, Count Metternich scornfully remarked that Italy was only a geographical expression.In a territory lacking a national identity and even a common language, operas, whose productions were organized by theaters across the peninsula, provided a means to unite audiences otherwise separated by different customs and laws. In a sense, before being politically united, Italy had already been musically unified by opera.Portrait of Giuseppe Verdi. Source: Dallas Symphony OrchestraIn his 1836 essay La filosofia della musica (The Philosophy of Music), published in the magazine Litaliano, Giuseppe Mazzini emphasized the civic and social role of music. In particular, he focused on opera, a unique musical style he identified as intrinsically Italian. In this sense, the philosopher of the Risorgimento called for an Italian opera composer who would develop a national culture.The peculiar connection between opera and italianit (Italianness) also filled the diary entries of Austrian diplomat Joseph Alexander Hbner in 1848. Describing a demonstration in Milan, the count ironically commented: From three in the afternoon until eleven at night one could admire the strength of the lungs and the resonance of the throats of this populace. Each one seemed to have been born for the Opra.Va, pensiero: The Patriotic ChorusesHandwritten score of the Va, pensiero. Source: Corale Giacomo PucciniIn the mid-19th century, when the movement for Italian independence was well underway, Giuseppe Verdi seemed to embody the patriotic composer envisioned by Giuseppe Mazzini. According to a popular anecdote, during the premiere of Nabucco, the audience, defying the rigid rules introduced by the Austrians, demanded an encore of Va, pensiero, the chorus of the Hebrew slaves longing for their lost fatherland as they languished under the despotic rule of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.Fly, thought, on wings of gold Oh, my country, so beautiful and lost, sing the captives. While modern research has cast doubt on the veracity of the event, the link between the scene and the Italians patriotic struggle is evident.An 1853 map of Italy. Source: TreccaniGiuseppe Verdi was the first Italian composer to give the chorus a leading role in his operas. The impactful choral scenes, with the choir at the center of the stage to evocate lost homelands, became the leitmotiv of Verdis musical works. Commonly known as cori patriottici (patriotic choruses), they played a central role in establishing the image of Giuseppe Verdi as the Bard of the Risorgimento. Oppressed land of ours, mourn the Scottish refugees in the opening scene of the fourth act of Macbeth, you cannot have the sweet name of mother now that you have become a tomb for your sons.In the politically and emotionally charged environment of the Risorgimento, Verdis patriotic choruses seemed to garner the nationalist aspirations and ideals of the Italians in impactful scenes of spiritual unity, thus providing a visual representation of that national sentiment the Risorgimento activists strove to ignite throughout the peninsula. In this sense, Verdis choral moments, depicting a community of heroes liberating their homeland, were the embodiment of the patriotic dream about a nation one in arms, in language, in faith/In remembrance, in blood, and in heart, as evoked by Alessandro Mazzoni in his poem March 1821.Viva V.E.R.D.I.The slogan Viva VERDI handwritten on a wall. Source: Associazione Mazziniana ItalianaAlthough primarily set in the Middle Ages, Giuseppe Verdis operas, filled with revolts against oppression and tyranny, resonated with the contemporary audiences increasing frustration with authoritarian foreign control. As strict Austrian censorship prevented artists from openly referring to the present situation, retelling past events as paradigms for the independence movement became a common practice.The 1282 Sicilian successful rebellion against the Angevin rule, for example, became an emblem of the 19th-century patriotic struggle. The event, known as Vespri siciliani (Sicilian Vespers), inspired Giuseppe Verdi and the Italian painter Francesco Hayez. Oh thou, Palermo, land of my devotion, sang Giovanni da Procida in I Vespri Siciliani (1855), Summon thy pride from shameful emotion/In ancient glory once more to shine.The political messages hidden in Verdis compositions were not lost on the theatergoers. I remember, wrote Marco Marcelliano Marcello in Rivista contemporanea, with what marvelous avidity the populace of our Italian cities was seized by these broad and clear melodies, and with what agreement they walked singing.Similarly, the so-called Ernani hat, from Verdis 1844 opera with the same name, was popular among the Milanese rebels who took part in the 1848 uprising against the Habsburg Empire known as the Cinque giornate di Milano (Five Days of Milan).La battaglia di Legnano by Amos Cassioli, 1870. Source: Catalogo generale dei Beni CulturaliA true believer in the patriotic struggles, Verdi supported the 1848 revolt. Honour to these heroes, enthusiastically wrote the composer to Francesco Piave, one of the authors of his librettos, The hour of her liberation has sounded.While Verdi claimed that the music of the cannon was the only music welcome to the ears of Italians in 1848, he did not interrupt his musical activity.In Milan, Verdi was a frequent guest in the salon of Countess Clara Maffei, where he met several leading intellectuals and artists involved in the nationalist cause. In 1848, on Giuseppe Mazzinis suggestion, Giuseppe Verdi composed the patriotic song Suona la tromba (The Trumpet Sounds). Goffredo Mameli, the young author of the future Italian official hymn, The Song of the Italians, wrote the text.The following year, his La battaglia di Legnano, telling the conflict between Frederick Barbarossa (ruler of the Holy Roman Empire) and the Lombard League, premiered in Rome, where Mazzini had established the revolutionary Roman Republic, forcing Pope Pius IX to leave the city. In 1867, Verdi addressed the Roman Question (the clash between the Catholic Church and the Kingdom of Italy) with Don Carlo, where Philip II of Spain and the Grand Inquisitor battled over the control of the state.During the performance of La battaglia di Legnano, the audience allegedly shouted Long Live Italy and Long Live Verdi while the choir started singing the words Long Live Italy! A secret pact binds all her children.In the 1850s, the phrase Viva Verdi became a common refrain among Italian patriots. Written on walls and yelled during demonstrations and operatic performances, the slogan was the acrostic for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re dItalia (Long Live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy). Thus, Giuseppe Verdi and his music became forever interwoven with the Risorgimento.Giuseppe Verdi Between Nation-Building & MythMonument of Giuseppe Verdi in Busseto. Source: Teatro Regio ParmaAfter the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, prompted by Count Camillo Benso of Cavour (the first Italian Prime Minister), Giuseppe Verdi agreed to take an active role in politics. However, the composer was ill at ease in the political scene. As a result, he soon opted to leave his post as deputy to devote himself to his music. In 1874, King Victor Emmanuel II appointed him as a senator, thus officially acknowledging his prominent role during the patriotic struggle.By that time, Giuseppe Verdi was already venerated as a national monument. Indeed, the composer rivaled Giuseppe Garibaldi, the military hero of the Risorgimento, in popularity. Over the following centuries, his operas became an international emblem of italianit (Italianness). In 1946, after the end of World War II, the La Scala theater reopened with a concert featuring, among other pieces, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. Arturo Toscanini, the anti-fascist Italian conductor, directed the orchestra and choir. In 2011, the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, Riccardo Muti also conducted a performance of Verdis most popular chorus. During the encore, the audience rose to their feet and sang along.Recently, some scholars have questioned the narrative claiming that Giuseppe Verdis operas played a key role in spreading the ideals of the Risorgimento throughout the peninsula. According to these scholars, the image of Verdi as father of the fatherland appeared later, when the new state was building founding myths. While the link between Verdi and the Risorgimento may have developed later than traditionally assumed, there is no denying the cultural impact of Verdi and his music on the process of national unification and nation-building.