Giuseppe Verdi

• Sculptor: Pasquale Civiletti
• Dedicated: 1906
• Medium and size: Overall 25.5 feet; marble figures (life-size), granite base
• Location: Triangle between West 73rd Street, Amsterdam and Broadway
• Subway: 1, 2, 3 to 72nd Street

Most of the material below is from Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan (OMOM).

Almost the Italian National Anthem

Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate
Va, ti posa sui clivi, sui colli
Ove olezzano tepide e molli
L’aure dolci del suolo natal!

Go, thought, on golden wings
Go, alight on the cliffs, on the hills,
Where there are wafting the warm and gentle
Sweet breezes of our native land.

Chorus of Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco, lyrics by Temistocle Solera, music by Verdi, 1842

About the sculpture

Below Verdi, in his conventional frock coat, stand figures from four of his operas. Leonora from La Forza del Destino, first produced in 1862, wears a nun’s habit.

Aida, from the 1871 opera of the same name, seems Wonder-Woman-like in a fringed sarong.

Gaunt Otello, from the 1887 opera, wears long curved dagger tucked into his sash.

 

Falstaff, from the 1893 opera, is cheerful and rotund.

 

Even when Verdi died in 1901, these four operas were not his most famous in the United States. La Forza del Destino, for instance, didn’t premier at the Metropolitan Opera until 1918. Why, then, are these four characters on the Monument, rather than characters from La Traviata or Rigoletto?

The obvious place to seek the answer would be Il Progresso Italo-Americano, whose editor Carlo Barsotti conceived and sponsored the drive for the Verdi Monument. Il Progresso devoted page after page in issue after issue to woodcut engravings illustrating the five figures and the complete Monument. Not once, however, did an article appear explaining why these particular figures were chosen.

So let’s speculate. Perhaps Civiletti chose those operas to show Verdi’s international sources and reputation: La Forza del Destino debuted in St. Petersburg, Aida in Cairo; Otello and Falstaff derive from Shakespeare. The characters might also have been chosen to show the breadth of Verdi’s work: Falstaff was a successful comedy, Aida a profound tragedy. Then again, perhaps Civiletti chose these figures for their visual contrast: brooding Otello and cheerful Falstaff, prim Leonora and exotic Aida.

A sculpture whose message is unclear is esthetically flawed (see Lincoln, OMOM #15). On the other hand, the choice of figures here might be deliberately thought-provoking. For Verdi fans, the Monument offers an opportunity to consider which of Verdi’s works are most innovative, most emotionally charged and most appealing. If you were creating a monument to Verdi, which characters would you include?

About the subject

On a bleak, rainy day in January 1901, Giuseppe Verdi (b. 1813) was laid to rest. Although he had asked that no music be performed at his funeral, five thousand mourners spontaneously burst into “Va, pensiero” from his 1842 opera Nabucco. When the bodies of Verdi and his wife were moved to the grounds of the musicians’ retirement home that Verdi had founded, Toscanini led eight hundred singers performing “Va, pensiero.” Why was this piece so beloved that it became virtually the Italian national anthem?

Nabucco (or Nabucodonosor) is played out against the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II and the Babylonian captivity of the Israelites. In Act 3 the Chorus of Hebrew slaves sings “Va, pensiero,” whose lyrics are based on Psalm 137: “By the rivers of Babylon we sat mourning and weeping when we remembered Zion.” The psalm ends with a gruesome imprecation:

Fair Babylon, you destroyer, happy those who pay you back the evil you have done us! Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock.

Solera, the librettist, wrote a kinder, gentler ending:

Rekindle the memories in our hearts,
Remind us of times gone by!
Remembering the fate of Jerusalem
Play us a sad lament,
Or may the Lord inspire you
So that we can endure our suffering!

According to one account Verdi, reluctantly scanning the libretto after he had resolved to terminate his short, unsuccessful career, found the lyrics of “Va, pensiero” so moving that he decided to return to composing.

In the early 1840s, the Italian peninsula comprised a patchwork of provinces under foreign rule. A Hapsburg duke held Tuscany, the French held southern Italy and Sicily, the Austrians Lombardy and the Veneto. The Austrians were inclined to deny permission for Nabucco’s performance at La Scala, fearing it would encourage anti-monarchical sentiments. They ultimately granted permission with the proviso that no encores be performed. The opening-night audience, however, demanded a repetition of “Va, pensiero.” Ever since, it has been traditional to sing an immediate encore at every performance.

In a country 80% illiterate, “Va, pensiero” became a rallying cry. Like the image of Jagiello (OMOM #39), it made no explicit statement about the prevailing political situation, yet had a theme that roused strong patriotic feelings. Verdi’s name even became an anagram for those seeking the reunification of Italy under the king of the Piedmont. “Viva Verdi” stood for “Viva Victor Emanuel, Rei d’Italia.” When Verdi died forty years after Italy was unified, “Va, pensiero” still held profound emotional resonance for those who had struggled to create the Italian nation.

January 27, 1901: Death of Giuseppe Verdi

Verdi (1813-1901) was the most distinguished Italian opera composer of the 19th century, with over 20 operas to his credit. One biographer noted, “He devoted himself to a series of operas in which the causes of individual freedom, patriotism, loyalty, and nobility of the human spirit were paramount.” (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998; reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2002)

This elaborate monument includes not only a portrait of Verdi, but four of the most famous characters from his operas: Falstaff, Leonora, Aida and Otello. Carlo Barsotti, editor of the newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americanoat the beginning of the 20th century, was largely responsible not only for raising funds to the Verdi monument, but also for raising funds for the Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle, the Giovanni da Verrazzano in Battery Park, the Dante near Lincoln Center, and the Garibaldi in Washington Square Park.

Ponselle on Fridays, Caruso in the Ether

Above: Enrico Caruso (as Alvaro) supports the dying Rosa Ponselle (as Leonora) in Forza del Destino. Caruso died in 1921, but you can listen to him singing an aria from Forza here.

 

Above: A statue of Rosa Ponselle on the second floor of the south side of the former I. Miller building at 1552 Broadway (northeast corner of 46th St.: now TGIFriday’s). Miller, whose stores specialized in shoes for dancers and actors, adorned the building with sculptures of four notable early 20th-century actresses of stage and screen: Ethel Barrymore, Marilyn Miller, Mary Pickford, and Rosa Ponselle.

Video of Verdi

The video of the cortege is the earliest known moving picture to have been recorded in Italy. It is probably not Verdi’s actual funeral (which was a small affair) but the ceremony in February, 1901 in which his and his wife’s remains were transferred to the grounds of the retirement home for musicians that Verdi had founded. At that event, Arturo Toscanini led 800 singers performing “Va, pensiero” from Nabucco.

More

• A favorite Verdi quote: “Io…vorrei che il giovane quando si mette a scrivere, non pensasse mai ad essere né melodista, né realista, né idealista, né avvenirista, né tutti i diavoli che si portino queste pedanterie. La melodia e l’armonia non devono essere che mezzi nella mano dell’artista per fare della Musica, e se verrà un giorno in cui non si parlerà più né di melodia né di armonia né di scuole tedesche, italiane, né di passato né di avvenire ecc. ecc. ecc. allora forse comincierà il regno dell’arte.” Translated: “I wish that every young man when he begins to write music would not concern himself with being a melodist, a harmonist, a realist, an idealist or a futurist or any other such devilish pedantic things. Melody and harmony should be simply tools in the hands of the artist, with which he creates music; and if a day comes when people stop talking about the German school, the Italian school, the past, the future, etc., etc., then art will perhaps come into its own.”
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