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 | | Verdi: A Biography by Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, Andrew Porter (Foreword) ISBN-10: 9780193132047 ISBN-10: 0-19-313204-4 ISBN-13: 9780193132047 ISBN-13: 978-0-19-313204-7 Hardcover 1993-11-18 Oxford University Press, USA Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Amazon.com A magnificently detailed portrait of the great Italian composer (1813-1901) that refutes many myths and uncovers some unsavory new material, including the strong likelihood that before their marriage Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi conceived several children who were abandoned at birth. Just as important as her full-bodied rendering of Verdi's personal life is Phillips-Matz's powerful delineation of his confrontations with pre-Unification Italy's foreign masters. Verdi's art was deeply political, she reminds us, and he used his wild popularity to ensure that it would be heard in the form he intended. | ||
Product Description On October 9, 1813, in the small town of Roncole, Italy, a baby by the name of Giuseppe Verdi was born. Little did his parents know that this child, born in the auspicious week of the Feast of San Donnino, would grow up to be not only a national hero of Italy, but also one of the most successful composers of all time. Many books have been written about Verdi's music, yet few have sufficiently covered Verdi the man. Now, in Verdi: A Biography Mary Jane Phillips-Matz brings us the result of more than thirty years' research on the life of this colossus of Italy. Drawing on numerous original documents provided by Verdi's descendants, the Carrara-Verdi family, this long awaited biography presents a reexamination of Verdi's life not only as a composer, but as a philanthropist and son of Italy. Matz places Verdi against a backdrop of a century of fierce Italian nationalism that dictated that not only musical, but political considerations permeate his life and work. As Phillips-Matz writes, in Verdi's music, in the patriotic phrases of his librettos, "nationalism found a voice that aroused Italians to the cause of the Patria." In fact, Verdi's stature as a cultural icon rose to such heights that in 1861, he was pressured to serve on the First Parliament of Italy. As his close friend Carlos Cavour wrote, Verdi's membership would lend great dignity to the Parliament both in and beyond Italy and thus further the efforts of the national party in its fight for independence. Here too is a glimpse into the personal life of Verdi--his turbulent relationships with his friends and family, his dedication to his music, his passion for his country. In defense of his second wife, former soprano Giuseppina Strepponi--shunned by his family for her tarnished reputation--Verdi obtained a legal separation from his parents and for a time withdrew from public life to ensure their privacy. In protest over the Teatro La Fenice's poor choice of a soprano for La Traviata (1853), Verdi threatened to defect from the project ("I have no faith whatsoever that it will succeed, and--on the contrary--it will be a complete fiasco"). And in the midst of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, in which the very freedom of Italy was at stake, Verdi, objecting to France's support of Austria, asked to be released from his contract to finish Don Carlos for the Paris Opera (the opera house, however, did not think war a good enough excuse). Upon his death in 1901 there were scenes of national mourning for the man whose actions had become a model, and music an inspiration to all of Italy. With an eloquent foreword by Andrew Porter, Verdi: A Biography brilliantly illuminates the life of the composer, patriot, and philanthropist who not only created the operas that would prosper generations after the artist, but who also emboldened the cultural pride of a country fighting for its freedom. | ||
Reviews | ||
Viva Verdi in this magisterial and definitive tome! Viva Verdi is the opera lover's response to this magisterial work by Phillips-Matz. Her years of research has produced a detailed life of Verd. The author traces the family lineage of Verdi in Bussetto, chronicles the genesis of his operatic masterpieces and delves into the private life of the greatest Italian opera composer of the nineteenth century. I dove into this huge book during Christmas 2002. The book will immerse you in the life of the complicated composer detailing his relationships, his tragedies and triumphs. The book is essential to anyone interested in knowing more about Verdi and his times. The book is not easy reading but is worthwhile for the time it takes to peruse it. Viva Phillips-Matz on a superb biography! | ||
What else would you need to know? I have just finished reading this book. It was my intention to get the bits and pieces I have been taught over the years about Verdi together in order to teach a short course on him in January 2000. It has done so much more. If you're looking for a book that details the opera plots and offers translations of the librettos, this isn't it. But if you're looking for a great summary of what we know about this truly great man, his friends and enemies, his work habits, his interests in farming and charity, the gestation and difficult birth of his operas and other words -- and what we *don't* know, things that might still be discovered -- you've come to the right place. It has NEVER taken me so long to read a book because the pages are so densely detailed. That being said, I am very glad that I did. VERY glad. Here is a hero for the ages, pace his operas. | ||
The definitive biography of Verdi I can't imagine a more complete collection of information about Verdi's long and productive life. Phillips-Matz captures the feeling of mid-century Italy and among other things she shows how Verdi became a hero in the movement culminating in Italian statehood. Viva Verdi! | ||