born Oct. 9/10, 1813, Roncole, near Busseto, duchy of Parma
died Jan. 27, 1901, Milan, Italy
Italian composer.
He was the son of an innkeeper, and he showed talent early. While earning a living as an organist, he began to write operas in Milan; in 1839 his Oberto was successfully performed at La Scala, and it initiated Verdi's long association with the publisher Giulio Ricordi. His next opera, Un giorno di regno (1840), was a failure. Much worse, Verdi's two young daughters and his wife died. He overcame his despair by composing Nabucco (1842); it was a sensational success and was followed by the equally successful I Lombardi (1843). For the rest of the decade he wrote a hit opera every year. Rejecting the prevailing structure of Italian opera
a patchwork of open-ended scenes and inserted arias, duets, and trios
he began conceiving of an opera as a series of integrated scenes, then as unified acts. Specializing in stories in which people's private and public lives come into conflict, he produced a series of masterworks, including Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), and Aïda (1871). A fervent nationalist, he was regarded as a great national figure. After composing his Requiem (1874), he retired, but when Ricordi brought him together with the poet and composer Arrigo Boito , initially to revise Simon Boccanegra , their mutual esteem led to the two great operas of Verdi's old age, Otello (1886) and Falstaff (1890).