Organization

Stage director

Lo Kingman

Singer

Soprano

Jasmine Law

Tenor

Chen Yong

Mezzo-soprano

Melody Sze

Chorus master

Felix Yeung

Musica Viva Singers

Homage to Giuseppe Verdi

Hong Kong

China

Homage to Giuseppe Verdi: Concert Various

Public

Concert

Approved

Giuseppe Verdi (1818-1910): The man and his works outside the theatre
For more than six decades, Verdi was the reigning Italian composer of his time. One of the few Italians to attain international stature in the nineteenth century, Verdi is often fictionalized as the ‘antithesis’ of Richard Wagner. Like Wagner, Verdi was outspoken and unrelenting with his visions, from the genesis of the libretto, to the casting of singers, down to the last detail in staging towards his late years. However, unlike Wagner, pragmatism remained the motto throughout Verdi’s career. Music was designed to appeal to the audience, instead of mere fulfillment of the composer’s own ambition. When Verdi died, the famous Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, wrote that the patriarch of Italian opera “gave a voice to all our hopes and struggles, he wept and loved for all of us.”

Verdi’s music transcends the barriers between high and low culture. This could be explained perhaps by the circumstances of his formative years. Verdi’s humble beginning in Bussetto resulted in an array of compositions that might elude other opera composers in the making. As the composer later recalled, “from the ages of 13 to 18, I wrote a motley assortment of pieces: marches for band by the hundred, perhaps as many little sinfonie that were used in church, in the theatre and at concerts, five or six concertos and sets of variations for pianoforte, which I played myself at concerts, many serenades, cantatas (arias, duets, very many trios) and various pieces of church music, of which I remember only a Stabat mater.”

By the time Verdi had established himself as the most sought-after composer in Italy, the experience gained from the provincial training ground found its way to his most innovative, mid-century operas. Comic elements are infused into the gloomy milieu of Rigoletto. Waltzes from the Paris Salons are shaped to depict the joys of life and the agony of imminent death in La traviata. Music with such popular appeal as the “Anvil chorus” from Il trovatore is heard on the same evening along with the hauntingly beautiful ‘D’amor sull’ali rosee’. Verdi was also unafraid in crossing the borders of genre. His Requiem Mass, with its blatantly theatrical presentation, was reproached by Hans von Bülow as an ‘Oper in Kirchengewande’ (opera in ecclesiastical dress) even before its first performance.

The practice of mixing genres was reflected on a smaller scale, within Verdi’s relatively small body of non-operatic works. Apart from the 26 operas which earned Verdi’s fame at home and abroad, the composer’s long career was punctuated by about two dozens of ‘liriche da camera’ (chamber setting of songs), a single string quartet and a handful of sacred choral works. Among these works, Verdi’s pen flowed freely between the boundaries of genres, conventions and expression.

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