Celebrating Giuseppe Verdi
“Giuseppe Verdi was a composer who expressed the most essential feelings of mankind: love, hate, friendship, jealousy—everything that reflects our life, our way of being human. His music is the mirror of who we are. Each of Verdi’s operas expresses human nature in such a profound way that we often recognize ourselves in Verdi’s characters.
When Verdi died, the famous Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio wrote a few lines that I think perfectly express who Verdi was: ‘Diede una voce alle speranze e ai lutti. Pianse ed amò per tutti’—he gave a voice to all our hopes, he wept and loved for all of us. That’s why Verdi will always be of the moment, and he will never become old-fashioned. I feel certain that in 50 years, 100 years, 200 years, Verdi will still be a composer who speaks to people. His voice is universal.”
– Riccardo Muti
Music Director Riccardo Muti and the CSO celebrate the 200th birthday of Italy’s greatest opera composer, Giuseppe Verdi, with concerts from September 18-October 10, 2013.
Muti Conducts Verdi’s Macbeth
Revering Shakespeare above all other playwrights, Giuseppe Verdi based three operas on the Bard’s works. His electrifying psychodrama Macbeth was the first, a blood-soaked portrayal of ambition and guilt. Riccardo Muti, the “greatest Verdi conductor of our time” (Chicago Tribune), leads the incomparable Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in this dramatic concert.
Performers
JOIN MAESTRO MUTI AND THE CSO FOR THE VERDI 200TH BIRTHDAY SPECTACULAR, FEATURING THE REQUIEM.
Though the performance at Symphony Center is sold out, audiences around the globe can still get a “free seat” to the Verdi 200th Birthday Spectacular, a culmination of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s celebration of the bicentennial of the incomparable Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi.
The event will take place on the evening of Thursday, October 10, 2013 – 200 years to the day that Verdi was born. CSO Music Director Riccardo Muti, who is considered to be the world’s greatest living interpreter of Verdi’s music, will lead the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a special one-night-only performance of Verdi’s Requiem Mass at Symphony Center. The Requiem is one of Verdi’s most striking choral works, and one that portrays all aspects of humanity. As Maestro Muti has said, “Everybody can … see themselves in the music of Verdi. With his music, he translated the feelings of all of us.”
Oct. 10: Requiem Live Webcast
To celebrate the Verdi bicentennial with people around the world, the CSO is offering a free live webcast of the Verdi 200th Birthday Spectacular featuring the Requiem.
7:30 p.m. CDT U.S. (GMT -5) on Thursday, October 10, 2013.
(Find the time of the performance in your time zone here.)
Online, the Requiem performance can be viewed live
- here at CSO.org/Verdi
- at Maestro’s personal website, RiccardoMutiMusic.com
- on facebook.com/ChicagoSymphony, the CSO’s Facebook page. (Please “like” us!)
And for those in the Chicago area, the Verdi webcast will be simulcast live, via satellite, on the new state-of-the-art screen in the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in downtown Chicago.
Opera, My Love Magazine 