All Letters of Music
V – VERDI
When you set off from baroque towards the 21st century, through the opera, from one epoch to another, from composer to composer, from music theatres and performances, premieres, you can see for yourself that throughout musical history to this very day there has been no opera composer as popular and beloved by audiences as Giuseppe Verdi! This creator lived and composed in the 19th century, when opera was at its pinnacle, so high that we can even say that it overpowered other musical forms. What made it so popular? For one, the audience was excited to listen to opera singers who nurtured bel canto, a style characterised by beautiful singing, which had been developing for two centuries. Opera singers were the true stars, and the appearance of some of theme generated great excitement.
It is this environment that Giuseppe Verdi, a noble Italian whose name was even a symbol for political ideas of that time, created in. The cry “Viva Verdi!” was at the same time an abbreviation for “Viva V(ittorio) E(manuele) r(e) d’I(talia)!”, which meant “Long Live Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy.” But let’s get back to composing. Verdi has composed twenty-six operas, but not all of them stayed on the repertoires of opera houses. The opera Nabucco was the first to achieve great success, followed by Rigoletto, The Troubadour, La traviata, A Masked Ball, The Power of Fate, Don Carlos, Aida, Otello and Falstaff. And remember this: Verdi reached quite the old age. He died when he was eighty-eight, celebrated and respected, and his artistic personality has an unbreakable bond with Italy’s cultural life of the second half of 19th century.
And now, along the trail of letter V, which has taken us to Verdi, we are listening to the famous “Drinking Song” from the opera “Traviata”. We are listening to it as performed by soloists, sopranos Ivana Srbijan and Dragana Radakovic, tenor Stevan Karanac and baritone Nikola Mijailovic. They are performing alongside RTS Choir and Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Bojan Sudjic is conducting.
All you need to do is bring your exploratory spirit and as a regular follower of RTS Music Production Facebook page and Instagram profile join us on our musical letters trail.