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Giuseppe Verdi, full name Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, was an Italian opera composer.
The son of a village innkeeper, Giuseppe showed musical talent very early, already playing the organ in church by the age of nine. He studied music in Milan, taught, and in March 1839 staged his first opera "Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio" at La Scala. In 1842 Verdi's opera "Nabucco" was a great success, passing through all the major theaters of Europe.
Verdi wrote a total of 26 operas during his career, the most famous of which are Rigoletto (1851), Trovatore (1853), La Traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).
In 1873, Giuseppe Verdi decided to retire from the world of opera. He settled in Sant'Agata, where he became a large landowner and a very wealthy man due to his tireless work in agriculture, he also financed large charitable organizations.
Verdi took a break from these activities for his opera Otello, but after a successful tour of Europe with it, he retreated again to Sant'Agata. The work of Giuseppe Verdi is one of the greatest achievements of world opera art. Many generations of opera lovers still enjoy the composer's brilliant works.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German pioneering composer, conductor and opera reformer.
His first proper Symphony in C major was performed at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concerts in 1833. Wagner lived in a colony of poor German artists and made his living in music journalism. Nevertheless, in 1841 he wrote his first representative opera, The Flying Dutchman, based on the legend of a ship captain doomed to sail forever. In 1842 his Rienzi was triumphantly performed in Dresden, after which Wagner was appointed conductor of the court opera and held this position until 1849.
In 1848-49 Wagner became involved in the German Revolution, wrote a number of articles in support of it, and took an active part in the Dresden Uprising of 1849. When the uprising failed, he was forced to flee Germany. His subsequent years were occupied mainly with writing theoretical treatises on philosophy and music. Wagner held anti-Semitic and Nazi views. And reflecting on the future of music, he predicted the disappearance of opera as an artificial entertainment for the elite and the emergence of a new kind of musical stage work for the people, expressing the self-realization of free humanity. This new work was later called "musical drama."
By 1857 his style had been enriched with new interpretations, and Wagner had composed "Rheingold," "Die Walküre," and two acts of "Siegfried." By 1864, however, unwise financial habits had driven him into debt and ruin, and he was forced to flee from prison to Stuttgart. He was rescued by King Louis II, an ardent admirer of Wagner's work. Under his patronage for six years in Munich, the composer's operas were successfully staged. The King also practically ensured him a trouble-free life, thanks to his support Wagner built his own opera house (Bayreuther Festspielhaus), in which many new constructive ideas were realized. The premiere of "The Ring" and "Parsifal" took place here.
As a result of all Wagner's creative innovations and methods, a new kind of art emerged, the distinctive feature of which was a deep and complex symbolism, operating in three inseparable planes - dramatic, verbal and musical. He had a significant influence on European musical culture, especially on the development of opera and symphonic genres.
Richard Wagner's major works include The Flying Dutchman (1843), Tannhäuser (1845), Lohengrin (1850), Tristan und Isolde (1865), Parsifal (1882), and his great tetralogy, The Ring of the Nibelung (1869-76).
