| Page Views: 975 Last Visit to Busseto: March, 2008 | Cycling in Busseto by Nemorino - last update: Jan 3, 2009 |
Home of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Busseto is a small town of 6,890 inhabitants, located in the Po Valley of northern Italy about a hundred kilometers southeast of Milan.
The great opera composer Giuseppe Verdi was born near Busseto in 1813. He grew up in and around Busseto, had his first music lessons here, went to school here, met his first wife here, later bought a large house in the center of town and finally bought a farm just outside of Busseto where he spent the last fifty years of his long life.
A bicycle is the ideal form of transportation in this area, since the Po Valley is absolutely flat and some of the most interesting Verdi sites are a few kilometers outside of town. I cycled over to Busseto from Cremona, which took about two hours on a mainly car-free route along the dikes, and spent the next day cycling around Busseto and vicinity visiting all the places where Verdi lived, learned or performed (or boycotted) in various phases of his life. |
During his long career, Giuseppe Verdi composed 26 operas -- or 28, depending what you count as what. The following list is the 28-opera version, with the year of the world premiere in parentheses after each title. I have listed the opera titles in different colors:
Red means I have seen the opera at least once on stage, with costumes, stage sets, lighting, acting, etc.
Green means I have only seen it in concert, with the singers dressed formally and standing in front of the orchestra when it is their turn to sing.
Blue means I have only seen it on television, video or DVD.
Black means I've never seen it at all.
1. Oberto (1839)
2. Un giorno di regno (1840) was a comic opera that flopped when it opened in Milan, but later had successful runs in Venice and Naples before disappearing from the repertoire.
3. Nabucco (1842) was Verdi's first big hit, and made him famous throughout Italy. The Hebrew prisoners' chorus, Va Pensiero, became the unofficial anthem of the Italian independence movement.
4. I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843) |
| Bust of Verdi in Casa Barezzi |
5. Ernani (1844)
6. I due Foscari (1844)
7. Giovanna d'Arco (1845) = Joan of Arc, based on a play by Friedrich Schiller.
8. Alzira (1845)
9. Attila (1846)
10. Macbeth (1847 / 1865), based on the Shakespeare play.
11. I masnadieri (1847), again based on a play by Friedrich Schiller. I recently saw this one on stage for the first time when it premiered at the Frankfurt Opera (for the first time ever in Frankfurt) November 30, 2008. This was a memorable premiere because the orchestra was out on strike that weekend (highly unusual in Germany, though it happens in Italy all the time) so pianists Felice Venanzoni and Karsten Januschke saved the premiere by taking turns as accompanists on a grand piano in the orchestra pit.
12. Jérusalem (1847) was a French-language version of Verdi's earlier Italian opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata.
13. Il corsaro (1848)
14. La battaglia di Legnano (1849)
15. Luisa Miller (1849), also based on a play by Friedrich Schiller.
16. Stiffelio (1850)
17. Rigoletto (1851) is the opera that made Verdi famous throughout the world, not only in Italy.
18. Il trovatore (1853) = The Troubadour. See my Bregenz and Kassel pages.
19. La traviata (1853) is probably the world's most popular opera. See my Braunschweig page.
20. Les vêpres siciliennes (1855), in French, composed for the Paris opera.
21. Simon Boccanegra (1857 / 1881) -- I once saw both versions within a few days of each other, as recounted on my Gelsenkirchen page.
22. Aroldo (1857) is sometimes listed as a revision of Stiffelio.
23. Un ballo in maschera (1859) is based on a true incident in which a king of Sweden was assassinated at a masked ball, but the censors wouldn't allow a king to be killed on stage, so Verdi was forced to move the story to Boston (!) and turn the king into a British colonial administrator.
24. La forza del destino (1862 / 1869) = The Force of Destiny.
25. Don Carlos (1867 / 1884) was the fourth of Verdi's operas to be based on a play by Friedrich Schiller. Over the years Verdi wrote seven different versions of this powerful opera, some in French and some in Italian. I have seen the five-act French version in Strasbourg and a five-act Italian version in Frankfurt am Main and Wiesbaden, also a four-act Italian version in Braunschweig, Dresden and Geneva, as well as a German translation in Dessau.
26. Aida (1871) was originally composed for the Cairo opera house, to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. I've seen it among other places in the huge outdoor Arena of Verona.
27. Otello (1887), based on the Shakespeare play Othello. The libretto (opera text) was written for Verdi by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918).
28. Falstaff (1893) was Verdi's last opera, completed when he was eighty years old, but only his second comedy. The libretto was again by Arrigo Boito, and it was based on scenes from two Shakespeare plays. |
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 Comments for Nemorino about Busseto | | | | |
Yaqui Wed Sep 16, 2009 18:25 UTC
Your attention to details is so delightful! It is wonderful to see such wonderful places thru your pages. Thank you for the tour! | hopang Fri Sep 4, 2009 22:13 UTC
Wonderful and interesting Busseto page. Busseto certainly has numerous interesting tourist attractions. St. Michael Church and Piazza Verdi indeed look amazing. Thanks for sharing. ~ho & pang | LoriPori Mon Aug 31, 2009 13:18 UTC
Enjoyed the way you told Verdi's story. So much tragedy in his life - losing his first wife and two children to illnesses. His Villa Verdi looks amazing. | Bwana_Brown Tue Jun 30, 2009 13:21 UTC
Don, thanks for this interesting journey tracing Verdi's life in words and photos! Busseto itself looks like a nice place to enjoy some biking. I had a nice laugh at your 'shortest bike path' tip! |
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