1
CONFUSED BEGINNINGS
Giuseppe Verdi, the greatest of all Italian operatic composers and a patriotic advocate of Italian independence, was born a Frenchman. The village of Le Roncole, in the Po valley, where he was born, had been annexed by Napoleon a matter of months before his birth.
If his nationality at birth comes as a surprise, we might be no more certain of the date on which Verdi was born, nor of the house in which he was born. We might consider these facts to be beyond doubt – but Verdi himself disagrees with us.
The entry in the register of births, dated 12 October 1813, records Carlo Verdi reporting the birth of a son at eight o’clock in the evening of 10 October. The baptismal certificate is dated 11 October, and records that the baby was ‘born yesterday’.
Both official documents seem to agree, therefore, that the baby was born on 10 October 1813. Verdi himself, though, stated later in life that his mother always told him he was born at nine in the evening of 9 October 1814. Clearly exasperated at repeated requests for more information once he had achieved fame, he wrote to a local official, ‘Which of the dates is correct, I do not know, nor do I care to know.’1 He appears to have accepted later that the year was indeed 1813, but he stuck to the 9th as the date of his birth.
The confusion might have arisen because in old Italy (during the early nineteenth century before the country was unified) it was customary to count a new day as beginning at sunset. What was the evening of the 9th to Verdi’s mother could well be the start of the 10th to the authorities. Verdi himself was in no doubt. He took his mother’s word for it and throughout his life he celebrated his birthday on 9 October.
History has trusted the evidence of multiple official documents, rather than Verdi’s personal belief. International celebrations marked the bicentenary of his birth on 10 October 2013, with productions of his operas in the great opera houses of the world.
When it comes to identifying the house in which Verdi was born, there is similar confusion. His grandparents leased a grocery store and inn in the centre of Le Roncole. They traded in a wide range of goods – from coffee, cured meats and spices to wine and possibly brandy and liqueur as well. The entry in the birth register describes Verdi’s father as an innkeeper and his mother as a seamstress.
In time Carlo took over the business and the family retained the lease until 1830, when Verdi turned seventeen. The Church authorities, who owned the building, stipulated that the lessees were to occupy the house; it could not be sub-let. When the lease expired the family moved into the house that has come to be regarded as the composer’s birthplace and was destined to become a national monument. However, there is no documentary evidence that the Verdi family lived there any earlier than 1833.
Later in life, Verdi told family members that the house that even in his lifetime was preserved as his birthplace was not actually where he was born. He apparently added that the actual dwelling in which he was born had been burned down by Russians.
But the house his grandfather had leased had not been destroyed by fire; in fact parts of it are still standing to this day. And when foreign armies did march through Le Roncole, demolishing buildings as they went, there is no evidence that Russian soldiers were among them. The Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, however, reports that it was a local legend in Le Roncole that several Russian soldiers had been killed by local people and buried at night at the roadside. As late as the 1960s, she writes, when a tree was weighed down with fruit, local farmers would say, ‘There’s a Russian buried there.’
Considerable uncertainty, then, about both the date on which Verdi was born and the house he was born in. I suspect that is what Verdi himself would have wanted.
I feel I have come to know Verdi well during the writing of this book. He was a man who rejected adulation, had a certain contempt for formality and officialdom, and was truly happy only when he was pursuing one of his two passions: agriculture and music. Even with music, it was only when he was in the process of composition that he was really at peace with himself. Whenever he had to deal with all the layers of authority involved in the staging of an opera, he reverted to his curmudgeonly self.
It seems to me entirely in character that he should take delight in casting doubt on apparently established facts or legends, particularly when people purported to know more about his early life than he himself did.*
So lovers of Verdi’s work can surely feel (almost) justified in celebrating his bicentenary on 10 October 2013, while visitors to the national monument that proclaims itself Verdi’s birthplace can be in (almost) no doubt that they are in the right place.
In 1813, Le Roncole belonged to France. It was situated in the province of Parma, which was annexed to the First French Empire established by the newly crowned Emperor Napoleon. The man we know as Giuseppe Francesco Fortunino Verdi was born French and baptised Joseph Fortunin François.
A week later, Napoleon – still reeling from his disastrous invasion of Russia – suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, fought over four days from 16 to 19 October 1813. Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden joined forces on the battlefield and outnumbered the French emperor.
Following this defeat, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled to the island of Elba. There followed an almost farcical exchange of territory as the victorious alliance sought to divest the French empire of land it had seized.
Not so farcical, though, for the people living in the area that matters most to our story. The province of Parma was overrun by troops of the anti-French alliance. On 11 February 1814 the French prefect who had been put in control of the city of Parma handed it over to the Austrians. Three days later French soldiers retook the city. Two weeks after that they lost it again. Not until after the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 would the people of the province be able to call themselves Italian.
The whole province, including Le Roncole, was overrun with soldiers of the anti-French alliance. Boots trampled through the village while Carlo Verdi attempted to run his grocery store and tavern, and his wife Luigia nursed their newborn son.
Late in life, when Verdi was seventy years old, he gave an interview to a German writer, who described him pointing up at the old bell tower of the Church of San Michele Arcangelo (where he was baptised and played the organ as a boy), and telling his interviewer that his mother had hidden there, with him as a five-month-old babe in her arms, as soldiers brought terror to the village:
During this whole time, she hid herself up in the middle of the tower, which was reached by one single ladder, terrified that I with my cries could betray our hiding place. Luckily, though, I slept almost all the time, and when I awakened I smiled contentedly.2
We have only Verdi’s word for the story, recounted a lifetime later. It is certainly true that soldiers rampaged through Le Roncole, and perhaps it is not too fanciful to imagine Luigia scurrying the short distance to the church and taking refuge there.
I particularly like the last sentence. It is easy to imagine Verdi, an old man, famous throughout Europe, his eyes twinkling as he persuaded a German interviewer that his placid nature as a baby saved both him and his mother from certain death.
Let us not forget, though, that Verdi was not averse to gilding the lily. In old age he was more than ready to stress his humble and poverty-stricken childhood. He described himself as a simple peasant from Le Roncole, rough-hewn and ignorant, shoes slung round his shoulders to save wear on the leather.
In reality both sets of his grandparents were relatively well-off as grocers and innkeepers, and his father carried on the family tradition. Carlo Verdi leased just over forty acres of land around Le Roncole, and was frequently absent from home tending the land or buying provisions. They might not have been wealthy, but the family was certainly not as poor as Verdi later made out. Furthermore, both godparents to the new arrival owned property and land. Carlo’s younger brother Marco also ran a grocery store in Le Roncole. Between them, Verdi’s father and uncle had substantial holdings in and around the village.
Giuseppe was born to Carlo and Luigia Verdi after almost nine years of marriage. His birth fell just a day or two – depending on whether he was born on the 9th or 10th! – before the wedding of his uncle Marco.
There was thus a double celebration in Le Roncole with the two brothers throwing a lavish party to celebrate, attended by locals, friends and the clergy who had officiated at the wedding and the baptism.
It is said that one of Verdi’s godfathers hired a band of local musicians to play as the infant was taken back to the family home after he was baptised. We have no reason to doubt it. The future composer thus heard music for the first time at one (or two!) days old.
A second baby, a girl, was born to Carlo and Luigia Verdi on 20 March 1816, though you would be hard put to it to find much reference to her in biographies of her brother. He rarely spoke about her in later life, except to family members, and the earliest mention of her is in the first biographical sketch of Verdi, written by a boyhood friend of his by the name of Giuseppe Demaldè.
Demaldè uses the most general language, describing her as a ‘handsome girl, with excellent manners and beautiful hopes for the future’, and writes that there was a strong bond between brother and sister.3
Bizarrely the baptismal certificate refers to the baby as a ‘child of male sex’, given the names Giuseppe Francesco. This was corrected only on her death. She grew up as Giuseppa Francesca (Giuseppe and its female equivalent being traditional Verdi family names).
A later biographer, Carlo Gatti, suggests that Giuseppa was mentally disabled or incapacitated in some way, quoting his source as Verdi’s niece, whom he interviewed. There have been suggestions she suffered brain damage as a result of meningitis.
Certainly her life was a short one, and we know almost nothing about it. Her death at the age of seventeen robbed Verdi of his only sibling, at a time in his young life when he needed as much support from family and friends as he could get.
But that lies in the future.
Giuseppe Verdi – ‘Peppino’ to his family – could hardly be said to have been born either in the right place or at the right time for a future career in music. Or, indeed, into the right family.
There is no suggestion of any musical talent in the Verdi family in immediate or preceding generations. An ancestor of Verdi’s mother married a niece of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, but there is no direct line to Verdi. If the boy were to develop a gift for music, it would not be down to genetic inheritance.
As to time and place, neither were particularly propitious to a burgeoning musical talent. Music was largely the preserve of the aristocracy. Composers relied on patronage and commission. That was how Mozart made a living, and if Beethoven was breaking away from that tradition, he was still prepared to compose for money when the opportunity arose.
It was largely thanks to great musical names such as Mozart and Beethoven, Haydn and Bach, that the geographical focus of musical excellence lay primarily north of the Alps. Vienna was indisputably the musical capital of Europe. Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart; Bonn, the birthplace of Beethoven; Munich, Augsburg, Mannheim, Leipzig, Dresden, and numerous other cities, mainly in German principalities, were the places where music flourished, with resident orchestras and a wealth of players.
In one musical genre, though, Italy outshone them all. Opera. No other country could match names such as Bellini, Donizetti, Cherubini, Rossini. Just as so many German towns and cities had their resident orchestra, so any Italian city worth its salt had an opera house, or at least a theatre where opera was regularly performed.
It was no accident that when Leopold Mozart wanted his son Wolfgang to win commissions to compose opera, he brought him to Italy. Together father and son toured the country no fewer than three times, performing from Milan in the north to Naples in the south, and sundry points in between.
This was the one point that would seem to be very much to Verdi’s advantage – a future composer of opera born in the country that was the home of opera. In addition, the Po valley lay conveniently between two cities that could boast a fine operatic tradition.
Milan, around seventy miles to the north-west of Le Roncole, had had an opera house since 1778. La Scala remains to this day the most prestigious opera house in Italy. Just twenty or so miles to the southeast, Parma – known as the Athens of Italy – had its own theatre dating back more than a hundred years, which would be rebuilt as an opera house in the mid-nineteenth century.
Though both opera houses would go on to play a large part in Verdi’s life, neither was of much concern to the residents of Le Roncole. Milan was a full day’s coach ride away, Parma a journey of several hours. Neither company felt the need to send its singers out to perform in remote towns and villages. It is safe to say the residents of Le Roncole had never heard the work of Italy’s great operatic composers.
Music existed, though, as we saw with the local band accompanying the newly baptised infant back to the family tavern. And growing up in a tavern exposed the boy to all forms of local music, from folk songs to fiddlers.†
Describing his childhood, Verdi himself spoke of being in ecstasy when he heard an itinerant musician playing in Le Roncole. His mother told a friend that when her son heard the sound of a hand-organ, he pestered her until she let him go outside and stand near it. Demaldè recalled that his friend was hypnotised by the sound of any musical instrument.
In later years Verdi’s relationship with his parents was not always good, and he would describe his childhood as difficult, spent in poverty and obscurity. But his parents in fact deserve more credit than that.
Carlo Verdi was determined his son should have a good education. He hired a local schoolmaster to teach Peppino Latin and Italian privately when the boy was just four – further evidence his parents were not as poor, nor his childhood as poverty-stricken, as Verdi was later to claim.
At the age of six, Peppino was enrolled in the village school, which was run by the same teacher who had taught him privately. By a fortunate coincidence, for which the world can be forever grateful, this schoolmaster, an aged gentleman by the name of Pietro Baistrocchi, was also the organist at the Church of San Michele.
In a further stroke of good fortune, Baistrocchi recognised Peppino as a clever and intelligent boy, and was keen to encourage him in whatever pursuit took his interest. It is therefore almost certainly thanks to Baistrocchi that when Peppino expressed a desire to play the church organ at San Michele, Baistrocchi allowed him to do so.
We have no direct evidence of it, but we can safely assume Baistrocchi was hugely impressed, and reported the fact to Peppino’s parents, because they then did something quite remarkable.
They acquired a spinet, a small keyboard instrument, for their eight-year-old son. It is possible they bought it, or borrowed it on some sort of long-term loan, from Baistrocchi, who at an advanced age and in ill health no longer played it and wanted to see it put to good use.
It was a beautiful instrument. A keyboard of four octaves set in a wide wooden case. Now we have, for the first time, direct evidence of just what a skilful keyboard player young Peppino was. The spinet needed restoring. This was undertaken by one Stefano Cavaletti, who left an inscription inside stating that
I, Stefano Cavaletti, have remade these keys and leather jacks and have adapted the pedals that I added as a gift; just as I have remade the keys free of charge, seeing the aptitude shown by the young Giuseppe Verdi for learning to play this instrument, which for me is payment enough. Anno Domini 1821.4
Verdi himself said later in life he did his first lessons on the spinet, that he appreciated the sacrifice his parents made to acquire it for him, and that having it made him ‘happier than a king’.5
This spinet became Giuseppe Verdi’s most treasured possession. It stayed with him for the rest of his life. It had pride of place in his home, and is today in the Verdi room of the La Scala museum.
Young Peppino was now clearly recognised in his own village as a boy of remarkable musical talent. It is no surprise that Baistrocchi allowed the boy to assist him in church services, playing the organ, singing in the choir and possibly even coaching the singers.‡ Soon he was playing alone for Sunday service in Baistrocchi’s absence.
It was during this time that a notorious incident occurred, which has become part of Verdi legend. It is a riveting story and throws light on Verdi the man. Throughout his life Verdi was sceptical of religion. His wife described him as an atheist, and he had a lifelong and overt antipathy towards priests.
It is possible the seed for that was sown in the Church of San Michele, packed for Sunday Mass. Peppino, aged around seven, was not at the organ, but assisting the priest, one Don Giacomo Masini. At a crucial point in the service, listening intently to the music coming from the organ loft, he failed to hear Masini calling for the water and wine to be passed to him.
Masini, angry that the boy was not paying attention, gave him a swift kick. Peppino lost his balance and fell down the altar steps. Humiliated in front of the congregation, he gave back as good as he got.
‘Dio t’manda na sajetta!’ (‘May God strike you with lightning!’) he shouted at the priest.
God was clearly listening. Eight years later Peppino was due to sing in the choir at Le Roncole’s other church, La Madonna dei Prati, at half-past three in the afternoon on the Sunday of the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.
On his way across the fields, he called in on friends, possibly for lunch. While he was there, a violent storm blew up, of the kind local people were used to on the open plain of the Po valley.
He arrived at the church to find his nemesis, Don Masini, sitting outside, his thumb pressed against his nose as if he was taking snuff. But his face was blackened and terrifying. God had indeed struck him with lightning.
The event was a local tragedy. Lightning killed four priests, two members of the choir, a mare, a dog and a puppy, and there was widespread mourning, as well as prayers to the Holy Virgin imploring her protection from storms, hail, lightning and earthquakes.
The only source we have for the tale (apart from the deaths from lightning, which were documented) is Giuseppe Verdi himself. But the story of how he was humiliated in church and cursed the priest is one he would tell for the rest of his life.
One can imagine friends and relatives at Sant’Agata, the villa that was his refuge for half a century, settling back with fixed grins on their faces as the famous composer, in old age, would regale them once again with ‘Have I told you about the time I cursed the priest …?’, almost certainly ending the story with ‘Just imagine if I had not stopped off to see friends. I would have been outside the church when the lightning struck.’ In which case the history of music would have been rather different.
By the time Peppino reached the age of ten, he had outgrown the village in which he had been born. It was evident to all that in one area, at least, he had an ability that no one, trained musicians even, could match.
Credit is due to his father for recognising that his son needed further education, and for being prepared to lay out funds to pay for it. As Mary Jane Phillips-Matz has pointed out, Carlo could quite easily have put Peppino into one of the fields as a labourer, or used him as an extra pair of hands in the tavern. This was a time when very few children even attended school and most country people were illiterate. It once again suggests that when Verdi later described his childhood as being spent in ‘poverty and obscurity’ and his youth as ‘very hard’, he was guilty of a certain amount of exaggeration.
In 1823, at the age of ten, Giuseppe Verdi was sent away from home to be educated in the town of Busseto. It was, as things would turn out, the best possible development that could have happened to him.
* Quite extraordinarily, as we shall see, in later life he misremembered the dates – wilfully or otherwise – of the tragic events that were to befall him as a young man.
† A decade earlier, and to the north, another future musician, Johann Strauss the Elder, was hearing music in the same way in his father’s tavern on the banks of the Danube Canal in Vienna.
‡ Echoes of the young Beethoven, who at the age of thirteen was appointed assistant court organist to his teacher Gottlob Neefe.