Giuseppe Verdi

Introduction & Top Questions
Early years
Early career
The early middle years
The later middle years
Late years
Legacy

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Verdi, portrait by Giovanni Boldini, 1886; in the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna, Rome

Opening scene of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello

At a Glance

Giuseppe Verdi summary

Quizzes

Illustration of musical notes. classical music composer composition. Hompepage blog 2009, arts and entertainment, history and society, music notes

Composers & Their Music

Related Questions

How did Arrigo Boito help Giuseppe Verdi create Otello and Falstaff?
How did French grand opera influence Giuseppe Verdi's middle-period works?
How did Giuseppe Verdi adapt Shakespeare's Macbeth for opera?
How did Giuseppe Verdi change the bel canto traditions of Italian opera?
How did Giuseppe Verdi first show musical talent as a child?
How did Nabucco change Giuseppe Verdi's career?
How did Otello differ musically from Giuseppe Verdi's earlier operas?
How did later productions make La traviata successful?
How does La traviata portray its main character, Violetta?
How does the music of Rigoletto help portray its characters and emotions?
How many operas did Giuseppe Verdi compose during his career?
What biblical ruler inspired the story of Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco?
What jobs did Giuseppe Verdi handle while preparing an opera in the 1840s?
What sacred work did Giuseppe Verdi compose after the death of Alessandro Manzoni?
What was Giuseppe Verdi's Casa di Riposo per Musicisti?
When and where did Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff premiere?
When and where did Giuseppe Verdi's Otello premiere?
When and where did Il trovatore first premiere?
When and where did Rigoletto premiere?
When and where was Giuseppe Verdi born?
When did Giuseppe Verdi die?
When did Nabucco first premiere?
Where did Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida first premiere?
Which Alexandre Dumas fils play inspired Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata?
Which Shakespeare plays did Arrigo Boito use to create the libretto for Falstaff?
Which Shakespeare plays inspired Giuseppe Verdi's operas Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff?
Which Spanish play inspired Giuseppe Verdi's Il trovatore?
Which Victor Hugo play inspired Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto?
Which character sings “La donna è mobile” in Rigoletto?
Which instrument did Giuseppe Verdi play in his village church when he was young?
Which three Giuseppe Verdi operas are often considered his great middle-career works?
Which writers supplied stories for Giuseppe Verdi's early operas?
Who persuaded Giuseppe Verdi to return to opera after his retirement?
Who taught Giuseppe Verdi privately after the Milan Conservatory rejected him?
Who was Antonio Barezzi, and how did he support Giuseppe Verdi's education?
Who was Giuseppe Verdi's first wife?
Who wrote the libretto for Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto?
Why can Otello be difficult for opera companies to perform?
Why did Giuseppe Verdi become widely seen as an Italian national hero after 1861?
Why did Giuseppe Verdi never complete his planned opera based on King Lear?
Why did Giuseppe Verdi revise Macbeth in 1865?
Why did Giuseppe Verdi stop composing operas for 16 years after Aida?
Why did Giuseppe Verdi's demanding work schedule between 1843 and 1849 harm his health?
Why did La traviata receive a poor response at its first performance?
Why did the Milan Conservatory refuse Giuseppe Verdi as a student?
Why was Falstaff an important achievement for Giuseppe Verdi late in life?
What was Claude Debussy’s early life like?
What was Franz Schubert’s early life like?
What changes did Franz Schubert make to classical harmony?
What are some of Franz Schubert’s most famous compositions?
What were George Gershwin’s jobs?
What did George Gershwin compose?
What was Johann Sebastian Bach’s childhood like?
How did Franz Liszt begin his career in music?
What did Franz Liszt do while in Weimar, Germany?
What was the role of religion in Franz Liszt’s life?

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External Websites

Smithsonian Associates - Giuseppe Verdi (PDF)
AllMusic - Giuseppe Verdi
San Francisco Classical Voice - Giuseppe Verdi
CUNY Pressbooks Network - Understanding Music: BMCC Edition - Music of Giuseppe Verdi
English National Opera - Giuseppe Verdi
The Kennedy Center - Giuseppe Verdi
Gresham College - Verdi and Milan
Opera Philadelphia - Giuseppe Verdi
World History Encyclopedia - Giuseppe Verdi

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Giuseppe Verdi - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Giuseppe Verdi

Italian composer

Also known as: Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi

Written by

Joseph Kerman

Musicologist, critic, and Emeritus Professor of Music, University of California, Berkeley. Author of The Beethoven Quartets, Write All These Down, Concerto Conversations, and many others.

Joseph KermanAll

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 5, 2026 •History

Giuseppe Verdi (born October 9/10, 1813, Roncole, near Busseto, duchy of Parma [Italy]—died January 27, 1901, Milan, Italy) was a leading Italian composer of opera in the 19th century, noted for operas such as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893) and for his Requiem Mass (1874). Verdi’s father, Carlo Giuseppe Verdi, an innkeeper and owner of a small farm, gave his son the...

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