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Verdi: Italy
built 644 days ago
Italy's failure to produce another Verdi is mirrored by its failure to advance as a nation-state beyond the fudges of the Risorgimento. The nation is once again divided between rich north and poor south, an anxious citizenry and a flood of Balkan and Maghreb refugees. No composer, living or dead, can unify its dissents.
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The small village where Verdi was born lies in the valley of the river Po in the north of Italy. It was a poor district. His father was an innkeeper who had a small farm. The young boy must have been very talented. He was given a spinet which he kept all his life. At the age of 9 he often played the organ for church services in the village when the organist was away.
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In 1859 Giuseppina and Verdi were quietly married. Now considered one of the most distinguished of Italian citizens as well as the undisputed leader of the Italian theater, Verdi became a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 1860, representing Busseto after Parma declared by plebiscite its intention to join the kingdom of Italy. His fame had been carried throughout Italy not only by his musical accomplishments but by use of his name as an anagram - V (ittorio) E (mmanuele), R (e) D'l (talia), that is, "Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy" - often shouted in the streets as a revolutionary slogan during the struggle for Italian independence and unification.
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[I]t is in Italy that the Anno Verdi assumes a significance that is greater than centenary coincidence. "We are not here to perform Verdi," said Riccardo Muti in a curtain-raising interview, "we are here to rethink him." For Italians, the top-hatted icon of Verdi with a wintry scarf around his throat is as familiar as spaghetti and as challenging as it was when they claimed Va, pensiero as a crypto-national anthem and the letters of his name as a revolutionary acronymn: "viva Vittorio Emanuele, Re D'Italia".
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