In the space of three years Giuseppe Verdi lost everything: first his two children, then his wife. He was twenty-six. He wrote a comic opera that failed — and resolved to give up music. Then he read the libretto of Nabucco, and could not refuse.
He was born in Le Roncole (Parma) in 1813, an innkeeper's son. He studied in Busseto, then applied to the Milan Conservatory and was turned away. Private lessons instead.
Nabucco (1842): the chorus of the Hebrew captives, "Va, pensiero," became an anthem of the Italian Risorgimento, the struggle for unification and independence. Rigoletto, La traviata, Il trovatore, Aida, Otello, Falstaff — each opera opened up, in its own way, new possibilities for the voice.
Falstaff came at eighty — his first comedy since Nabucco. He died in 1901. Two hundred thousand people came out into the streets of Milan.