![]() ![]() It is safe to say that “Otello” and “Falstaff” would not exist without Giulio Ricordi. As Verdi entered his 60s in the mid-1870s, he was grumpy, bitter about trends in Italian music and politics. ![]() (In both areas, he rued the country’s turn away from France, toward Germany. ![]() ) His domestic life was messy, with his house increasingly shared not just by his wife but also by the woman who was most likely his mistress. Even Ricordi disappointed him: The company had to compensate him for account irregularities Verdi had discovered. Image Credit… Leemage/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images Image Credit… Archivio Storico Ricordi, Milan, via the Morgan Library & Museum, New York He wrote his Requiem, which had its premiere in 1874, but no operas, to the increasing anxiety of those close to him. A friend wrote to him in 1877: “Even if I attach no weight to the rumors that you’re at work on a new score (some say ‘Nero, ’ others ‘Julius Caesar, ’ others something else again) I hope that you have not terminated your career and that your genius will manifest itself with new creations. ” But Verdi, writing to another friend the following year, was resolute. Returning to the stage would inevitably cast him as a pale imitator of Wagner, at that time the sensation of Europe: “For what reason should I write? What would I succeed in doing? What would I gain by it? The results would be quite wretched.
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