威尔第(1813～1901年)
Verdi, Giuseppe (Fortunato Francesco)
义大利歌剧作曲家，其父为客栈主，自幼显露出音乐才华。靠弹风琴维生。经人资助赴米兰学习。1839年作歌剧《奥贝托伯爵》，在史卡拉剧院上演，获成功。第一部喜歌剧《一日王》（1840）首演失败，加上丧妻失子之痛，发誓不再创作。待威尔第创伤愈合後，创作了《纳布科》（1842）首演获巨大成功并从此立足乐坛。其三部名作《弄臣》（1851）、《吟游诗人》（1853）及《茶花女》（1853）相继问世後，使他成为义大利家喻户晓的着名歌剧作曲家。《弄臣》以音乐连贯地表现剧情，突破了宣叙调与咏叹调的界限，以二重唱为核心，《吟游诗人》旋律充满强烈激情，而《茶花女》则亲切抒情。1871年受委托为庆祝苏伊士运河通航作大歌剧《阿伊达》，该剧在刻画人物及运用乐团手法上之精巧程度达到登峰造极境界。1873年作唯一的一首弦乐四重奏，後为悼念义大利爱国诗人曼佐尼作《安魂弥撒》。又根据莎士比亚悲剧和喜剧写了《奥赛罗》（1887）和《福斯塔夫》（1893），後者是其最後一部歌剧。
English version：
1813～1901年
Verdi, Giuseppe (Fortunato Francesco)
Italian composer. An innkeeper's son, he showed talent early. While earning a living as an organist, he began to write operas in Milan; in 1839 his Oberto was successfully performed at La Scala, and it initiated Verdi's long association with the publisher Giulio Ricordi. His next opera, Un giorno di regno (1840), was a failure. Much worse, Verdi's two young daughters and his wife died. Ready to give up, he was manipulated into starting Nabucco (1842); it became his first big success, and was followed by the equally successful I lombardi (1843). For the rest of the decade he wrote a hit opera every year. Rejecting the prevailing structure of Italian opera—a patchwork of open-ended scenes and inserted arias, duets, and trios—he began seeking ways of maintaining momentum, and began conceiving of an opera as a series of integrated scenes, then as unified acts. Attracted to stories in which people's private and public lives come into conflict, he produced a series of masterworks, including Rigoletto (1851), La traviata (1853), Simon Boccanegra (1857), Un ballo in mascara (1859), Don Carlos (1867), and A?da (1871). His long open liaison with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi (1815-1897) attracted censure, which he rejected. A fervent nationalist, he became a great national figure. After composing his great Requiem (1874), he decided to retire, but when Giulio Ricordi brought him together with A. Boito, initially to revise Simon Boccanegra, their mutual esteem led to the two great operas of Verdi's old age, Otello (1886) and Falstaff (1890).
