We are grateful to Pierluigi Petrobelli, president of the Learned Committee of the National Institute of Verdi Studies and “Knight of Verdi” - nominated by the Club of 27 of Parma - for kindly allowing us to publish his biography of Giuseppe Verdi.

Born at Le Roncole, near Busseto (Province of Parma), on 9 or 10 October 1813, to an innkeeper and a spinner, Verdi showed musical talent early on, as the inscription on his spinet bears witness: Cavalletti, a harpsichord-maker, repaired the instrument free of charge, “seeing the good willingness that the boy Giuseppe Verdi has for learning to play this instrument.” He owed his cultural and humanistic education mainly to his frequenting of the well-endowed library of Busseto's Jesuit School, which still exists.

Ferdinando Provesi, the local bandmaster, taught him the rudiments of musical composition and instrumental techniques, but it was in Milan that his personality was formed.

Although he was not accepted at the Milan Conservatory (because he was over the age limit), for three years he mastered counterpoint technique as a student of Vincenzo Lavigna, former maestro al cembalo at La Scala. At the same time, frequenting Milan's opera houses allowed him to become familiar, first hand, with the contemporary opera repertoire.

The Milanese atmosphere, influenced by the Austrian occupation, also permitted him to become familiar with the classical Viennese repertoire, especially the string quartet repertoire. His relationships with the aristocracy and contacts within the theater world were also decisive for the young composer's future: he would not dedicate himself to sacred music, as a church music master, or to instrumental music, but instead almost exclusively to music for the theater.

His first opera began life as Rocester (1837), had a long gestation period, and was then transformed into Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio; it was first performed on 17 November 1839, at La Scala, and the outcome was on the whole satisfactory.

Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario of Milan's greatest opera house, offered him a contract for two other works: Un giorno di regno (Il finto Stanislao), a comic opera, was performed only once (5 September 1840), and it was only with Nabucco, which premiered on 9 March 1842, that Verdi's talent was fully revealed.

The same model - a grandiose spectacle with a plot painted in broad strokes - was used again in his next opera, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (Milan, La Scala, 11 February 1843), and it was only with Ernani (Venice, La Fenice, 9 March 1844) that he focused his dramatic experience on the characters' conflicting passions. This stylistic path was followed again in I Due Foscari (Rome, Teatro Argentina, 3 November 1844) and was further refined in Alzira (Naples, Teatro San Carlo, 12 August 1845).

All of the operas dating from Verdi's first creative period differ from each other, because in each of them this or that particular aspect of the musico-dramatic experience was explored.

Thus, in Giovanna d'Arco (Milan, La Scala, 15 February 1845), based on a tragedy by Schiller, the supernatural plays a decisive role in the plot, which, once again is adapted to the grandiose style; whereas in Attila (Venice, La Fenice, 17 March 1846) Verdi experimented not only with putting the spectacular on stage but also with the overall organization of the individual acts that make up the score.

With Macbeth (Florence, Teatro alla Pergola, 14 March 1847), Verdi dealt for the first time with a Shakespearean text and, above all, emphasized the dramatically important connections among the plot's critical moments. This he did by exclusively musical means.

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