Verdi's Hero Lives Again In `Requiem'

January 28, 1996|By TIM SMITH and Music Writer

For Giuseppe Verdi, death was a rude, leering stalker, never far from his mind. As a young man, just on the road to becoming one of history's greatest opera composers, he saw his wife and their two infant children die within a few months.

In more than five decades and two dozen operas, he set to music the demise of one fictitious character after another. After the premiere of Il trovatore, there were some complaints. "People say the opera is too sad and there are too many deaths in it," Verdi said. "But after all, death is all there is in life. What else is there?''

That pessimism never left the composer. He did not find comfort in religion and the promise of eternal reward. "To have faith is good," he said, "but not to rely on faith is better."

Understanding that mindset is crucial to appreciating the inner drama of Verdi's Requiem, a work of profundity and often overwhelming emotion that will be performed by the Florida Philharmonic this week and next. Understanding the impetus behind the music's creation - the death of Verdi's greatest idol - is just as important.

This compelling piece for four vocal soloists, chorus and orchestra used to be known as the Manzoni Requiem. Today, the work's association with Alessandro Manzoni, the most important literary figure in 19th century Italy, has become obscured.

Verdi was a fervent admirer of Manzoni's I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), still considered the most popular novel in the Italian language. The author wrote it in 1827 using the Tuscan dialect - the one in widest use at the time - and as his book circulated, it helped encourage a universal language in a land still divided by regional speech.

The linguistic effect of I promessi sposi was not its only unifying power. The plot, set in the 17th century when part of Italy was under Spanish rule, also touched a nerve: When the book came out, Austria occupied much of the country.

Manzoni's goals were evident: a united Italy, an end to regional differences. He soon became a rallying point for those who wanted to push out foreign invaders and create a new nation. Verdi espoused the same ideals.

Just how intense was Verdi's admiration for Manzoni? Giuseppina Strepponi, the woman Verdi lived openly with and eventually married, helped arrange for a meeting between the two men in 1867. Manzoni was 83, Verdi 53.

Strepponi described Verdi's reaction: "He went red, he turned deadly pale, he perspired; he took off his hat and screwed it up in a way that reduced it almost to shapelessness. His eyes were full of tears."And that was just when she told him he was going to meet Manzoni.

After actually coming face to face with the author of I promessi sposi, he said he felt an "extraordinary, indefinable sensation."

Too moved to attend the author's massive funeral in Milan in 1873, Verdi offered to write a requiem for the first anniversary of his death - to honor someone he "venerated as a man, a model of virtue and of patriotism."

To others, Manzoni was also a model of religious faith. He had a dramatic conversion at the age of 26 and remained a devout Catholic for the rest of his life. Verdi had no such experience. He was widely believed to be an atheist, though agnostic is probably closer to the truth. While Manzoni espoused the redemptive power of faith, the parting moral of I promessi sposi, the composer focused on the harshness of fate.

"For some virtuous people a belief in God is necessary," Strepponi wrote. "Others, equally perfect, while observing every precept of the highest moral code, are happier believing nothing. Manzoni and Verdi! These two men give me food for thought."

Verdi obviously found food for thought in the ancient Latin text used in the Requiem Mass for the Dead. One part of the liturgy, the 12th century poem Dies Irae, was ripe with depressing worries about the final judgment. The concluding orison, Libera me, returned to that theme: "Free me, Lord, from eternal death on that terrifying day when the heavens and earth are shattered ... I tremble and am afraid."

Both passages seized Verdi's imagination. It would be hard to imagine a more vivid musical depiction of that "terrifying day," or a more heartwrenching plea than can be found in his Requiem.

Was it only Manzoni's death that prompted such outbursts from Verdi? Perhaps he was coming to terms with himself. Here, after all, was a man who once said, "I think that life is a stupid thing and, worse still, useless. What do we do? What have we done? What shall we do? Summing it up, the answer is humiliating and very sad: NOTHING!''


The Requiem is often considered an extra opera of Verdi's. If so, perhaps he is the principal character, confronting the ultimate fate.

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