Chronologically, Il Trovatore followed Rigoletto, and was itself followed by La Traviata. Il Trovatore was finished in July 1852, and successfully staged at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853 (negotiations for a first performance at the San Carlo in Naples had fallen through). Less than two months later, on 6 March, La Traviata failed miserably at La Fenice in Venice. Although we can see from the sketches and autographs preserved at Sant'Agata that La Traviata was hurriedly composed – the orchestration was completed in twelve days – it must in some sense have already been in the composer's mind from at least the end of May 1852, when he signed an agreement with the directors of La Fenice for delivery of a new opera.

Even though it is not justifiable to say that Verdi composed Il Trovatore and La Traviata simultaneously, the two operas were certainly both in his mind during the entire second half of 1852 as he waited for them to be performed, even though one was on the point of completion and the other was not. The two operas resemble each other in no important respect, but the presence of two almost identical pieces (‘Ai nostri monti’ and ‘Parigi, o cara’) in an identical concluding situation suggests compositional processes which, in certain substantial areas, ran parallel.

Books about composers and their music by non-musicians are usually viewed with mistrust, especially when the subject is first and foremost a composer of opera – a form which lends itself to all manner of ignorant fantasising by the musical layman. The present study, however, is an exception to the rule. Gabriele Baldini makes up for his lack of technical knowledge by a life-long familiarity with the works which he discusses, a wide acquaintance with opera in general, and – most important of all – a thorough understanding of the problems of ‘music theatre’. Add to this a lively but well-disciplined mind, an immense culture and a direct and economical prose style; and the result, as may be imagined, is a book packed on every page with stimulating and provocative theories and observations. Its most serious shortcoming is its incompleteness (it stops short near the beginning of La forza del destino). Baldini on Falstaff would have been worth much.

The book cannot be recommended to those in search of an orthodoxy. Many of the judgements are idiosyncratic, some even perverse; none are – to put it vulgarly – ‘half baked’. We purists may deplore his defence of the theatrical habit of slicing cabalettas in half; but, having read it, while still retaining our preference in the matter, we may wonder whether the practice is quite as damaging to the musical architecture as is sometimes claimed.

As we have already mentioned, the rhythm of Verdi's creative life slowed down after Ballo, and was eventually counted in decades. For the next forty years and more, Verdi remained in public opinion the composer of Nabucco, Ernani, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Il Trovatore. These operas continued to be performed, and were invariably given the warmest possible welcome. But the younger generation criticised him for not being influenced by foreign music, for not regarding himself as a part of the European tradition. With the sole exception of the last two operas, nothing Verdi wrote during this long period responded adequately to these people's demands. The three operas which followed Ballo represented a crisis for both the public and the critics: they were too complicated and even abstruse for the former, yet the latter saw them as tied to ancient, worn-out conventions. Aida and the Requiem made both groups alter their opinions, while Otello and Falstaff were an apotheosis, something so overwhelming as to submerge almost everything which had gone before. By today's standards these opinions are, of course, unacceptable and equivocal, but they fall neatly into place in the context of the late nineteenth century's delight in polemics, and its superficial manners.

All we know about an opera entitled Rocester (sic), which Verdi, in a letter of 1837, was hoping to have performed at Parma, is that the librettist was called Piazza. It is even possible that Rocester was identical to Oberto, and that its title reflects early flirtations with a remote setting, later to be abandoned.

Whatever the case, Oberto was not performed until some years later, on 17 November 1839 at La Scala, Milan, and this thanks to the mediation of the impresario Merelli. Merelli also made it his business to give the composer an especially favourable contract; instead of expecting the young man personally to finance the staging of his opera, which was still usual, at least among beginners, he generously offered to divide the profits. In the end, the contract did not turn out too badly, because although, in Verdi's own words, the opera did not have ‘enormous success’, it did ‘fairly well, with enough performances for Merelli to see profit in staging a few extra outside the subscription Period’, and it was eventually shown a total of fourteen times. Piazza's libretto was revised by Temistocle Solera, who later collaborated with Verdi on Nabucco, I Lombardi, Giovanna d'Arco and Attila.

We have already discussed several times how Verdi gradually moved farther and farther away from the possibility of composing a King Lear as he included various aspects of it into his operas. In one sense Verdi's complete work might be compared to an immense King Lear, with the cabaletta playing the role of the fool. I Masnadieri also constitutes a stage in this frustrated search: not so much in the central subject as in the irrationality of the feelings which tear Francesco Moor apart. This brings us to the sub-plot of King Lear, and the relationship between Gloucester and his two sons, which finds a very clear, perhaps intentional parallel in Massimiliano Moor and his two sons, Francesco and Carlo. But to feel the force of this relationship one must remain within its closed, elemental, primitive irrationality.

We know how amazed Muzio was by London, but Verdi's reaction is not recorded. As Muzio wrote to Barezzi:

The origins of Nabucco are steeped in an aura of legend, mostly because this opera marks the emergence of Verdi's individual style. In fact it began at the lowest ebb of his fortunes, after the young man had been practically booed off the stage, and had sent all the furniture from his Milanese home back to Busseto: he must have considered it useless and too painful to remain there alone after all the tender associations had been rooted out. The handwritten, almost too detailed list of furniture which Verdi sent to Barezzi has come down to us, and provides a brief glimpse into the sadness of this move:

The furniture remained at Busseto, and Verdi put it out of his life, like his destroyed family. He returned to Milan, to feed his melancholy and lack of confidence, and also to attend a revival of Oberto, which did not however repeat its original success:‘ … the music (especially in the first act) seemed to many more insipid this year than last’.

Giuseppe Verdi had humble origins, but his parents were not, as is often written and believed, peasants. Small tradespeople would be a more accurate description. This fact is not without significance. In the town register of Busseto we read that ‘[…] est comparu Verdi Charles, âgé de vingt ans, Aubergiste domicilié à Roncole, lequel nous a présenté Enfant du sexe Masculin … de lui déclarant et de la Louise Uttini, fileuse […]’

They were, then, an inn-keeper and a spinner, and if with these titles they were trying to exaggerate their social standing – as far as we know, Carlo Verdi was less an ‘inn-keeper’ than what we might nowadays term a small-time barman – this only emphasises their middleclass character. As if to stress the point, the occupations of the two witnesses are added: ‘Romanelli Antoine, âgé de cinquante un ans, Hussier de la Mairie, et Carità Hyacinthe, âgé de soixante un ans, Concierge’. Some may object that the latter could have been assembled on the spur of the moment, as often occurs today; but while this is certainly the custom in large cities, which are in some sense corrupted, it was not followed in small communities, where it was almost easier to follow the letter of the law, especially the Napoleonic Code, recently established and particularly severe during that period.

Luisa Miller was composed in Paris and Busseto in 1849 to a libretto by Salvatore Cammarano, based on Schiller's Kabale und Liebe. It was first performed on 8 December at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, and though initially the success was mediocre, later performances were more warmly received. With this opera Verdi opened a completely new phase of his artistic career.

Things did not of course happen overnight, with no antecedents: Luisa Miller develops ideas which had already been important in the ‘galley years’: but there is something here which is essentially different from any previous opera. On the surface, we might find similarities between Luisa and I due Foscari, because in both there is a crowded economy of musical action within a tender, intimate circle of family relationships; but in terms of artistic value the opera is comparable only to Nabucco, Ernani and Macbeth. It is, in short, the fourth Verdi opera which may be taken completely seriously: and up to this point he had written fourteen.

As often occurs, the subject matter and the libretto which Cammarano drew from it do not help us to understand Verdi's intentions. Situations like the one which closes Luisa Miller may have been horrifying, but they were not as remote, abstract or rhetorical as those usually favoured by Verdi up to this point (and this includes, in my opinion, even the geometric symmetry of Ernani and the supernatural elements of Macbeth).

The essential reason why Verdi decided to set to music a Macbeth, arranged and adapted by him for the operatic stage and with a libretto by Piave, had nothing to do with his particular interest in Shakespearean tragedy. It primarily concerned the choice of singer who would ‘create’ the principal role. Had Moriani been available Verdi would certainly have composed I Masnadieri, in which he envisaged a long, elaborate tenor part; if on the other hand the management – in this case Lanari – could guarantee the baritone Varesi, then the composer would put I Masnadieri to one side and tackle Macbeth which, as well as having a large baritone part, required almost no contribution from the tenor and would thus be in no danger even if the latter part were entrusted to a mediocre performer.

We should remember that all this took place before a single note of either I Masnadieri or Macbeth had been written. Verdi was not deciding on a particular artistic direction, still less whether to confront a great tragic theme. We are dealing with an opera of the kind written to suit specific singers. Nothing could be put down on paper until these had been engaged: later on the music would or would not come, of its own accord.

First, a note on Gabriele Baldini's title for this book: Abitare la battaglia. A literal English version would be To Live the Battle, and at least on the surface the Italian phrase has no more powerful association or literary resonance than its translation. On the dust jacket of the Italian edition appears part of a letter the author wrote to a friend only a few weeks before his death. It sheds some light on the problem:

Clearly the phrase carried a weight of personal significance: the Italian publishers even suggest that the ‘battaglia’ should be regarded as Baldini's rather than Verdi's. This ambiguity of meaning and intention set the translator a severe initial problem. In Italy, where Baldini's reputation as a scholar of English Literature (he was professor of the subject at Rome University), as a specialist in Elizabethan drama, and as a literary critic and journalist was widespread, such an ‘imaginative’ title could naturally be balanced against die expectations created by the author's name; there was little possibility of misunderstanding.

The libretto of Un ballo in maschera is as absurd as that of Il Trovatore, but it has an additional element, lacking in the earlier work. In Ballo Verdi for the first time brings to fruition (not extensively or grandly, but still significantly) his propensity towards comedy. The comic sense had made an appearance in Rigoletto: the Duke cannot be understood without his inclination towards laughter (or better towards smiling). In creating his new opera, Verdi added this disturbing element to Il Trovatore's lucid vision.

The libretto of Ballo is the only Verdian operatic text not to carry a signature, and the explanation for this lies in more than one direction. The librettist was a person of some distinction, and could have taken offence at seeing so little of his own work in the final text. On the other hand, Ballo presented Verdi with his greatest opportunity of approaching the technique of Wagner, who wrote his own libretti. The libretto of Ballo was not written by Verdi in the same sense that Wagner wrote the text of Die Meistersinger, but neither was it similar to Rigoletto and La Traviata, which both made use of die amanuensis Piave. It was written by the composer for want of anything better, because although Somma dedicated great efforts to it he was no Piave, and retained his literary pride.

Soon after the clamorous success of Ballo, which took place at the Teatro Apollo, Rome, on 17 February 1859, Verdi became officially involved with the Risorgimento for the first time. On that occasion a political demonstration was backed by the words ‘Viva Verdi’, with the understanding that the composer's surname spelt ‘Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia’. But Ballo was primarily a public success, and the critics remained lukewarm. In spite of this, the opera was revived at the Teatro Apollo for the carnival seasons up to and including 1861. From May 1859 onwards, the war against Austria anxiously occupied the minds of every Italian, and Verdi ceased working altogether. On 14 June a sort of anthology of pieces from Il Trovatore, in the French version entitled Le Trouvère, including the entire first and last acts, was performed at La Scala in front of Vittorio Emanuele II and Napoleon III. At Busseto the composer placed himself and his family at the head of a list of subscribers (promoted by him) for the aid of the wounded and their families. But his participation in public ceremonies was still rather infrequent and cautious: in July, for example, he refused to write a ‘cantata’ which the Marzi brothers (impresarios at La Scala) had requested in honour of the French emperor.

As one can imagine, many critics have lamented the fact that Verdi ‘did not give us his Lear’; they tumble over one another to conjecture its possible form, convinced that ‘it would have been his masterpiece’. It is one of those simple pseudo-problems which captivated the mediocrities of nineteenth-century criticism, and was made even more attractive because, in spite of never bringing the piece to fruition, Verdi intended to make use of so many smaller themes in the play to which he was drawn. As far as the Fool is concerned, and Verdi's interest in the possibilities of expressing that character's relationship with Lear, even though we have mentioned that Rigoletto is a completely different case, the composer did depict his views through the worldly, yet in its way light and fantastic relationship between Riccardo and Oscar in Un hallo in maschera.

But from this great, never fully grasped myth, Rigoletto takes the secondary theme of a daughter regained and then lost. After the failure of the King Lear project, Rigoletto marks a new stage in our discussion of Verdi.

With Rigoletto (begun in April 1850 at the invitation of La Fenice, Venice) begins the period in which the essential points of the reader's dialogue with Verdi are well known: everything attempted up to now has rather resembled an act of excavation; something more experimental than really critical, something which, as well as revealing treasures, has also brought to light material justifiably buried.

With the acknowledged, definitive successes of Nabucco and I Lombardi, Verdi became a public figure – although, as we have said, the latter work merely reflected the former: Nabucco has always remained in the repertoire, while I Lombardi was swiftly forgotten. Verdi demanded certain inalienable rights and, with extremely sound business sense, requested higher and higher prices; but he was also well aware of his duties, and made it a point of honour not to fail in either direction. It is these duties which above all define the ‘galley years’, that period from about 1843 to 1851. By the latter date, with the composition of Luisa Miller and Rigoletto, Verdi entered a new phase: independence and artistic freedom gradually emerged as his fame consolidated, and his personal wealth increased to the point where it was no longer necessary to undertake commitments which did not correspond to his artistic ideals.

In a certain sense, Verdi had been reasonably free up to I Lombardi. His fame was initially limited to the Milanese background and La Scala, and the real ‘gallery years’ began only when an opera was commissioned by another theatre – in this case La Fenice in Venice. In short, this next work marks a genuine turning point, and, as well as a new cultural milieu, entails an orientation towards new problems of style and language.