- Galina Gorchakova- Gegam Grigorian - Georgy ZastavnyEvents after the premiere of Un Ballo in Maschera in February 1859 conspired to keep Verdi from composing, and it seems he was not too sorry about that, considering his disenchantment after the problems he had encountered in bringing Ballo to the stage. In fact, shortly after the premiere of Ballo he announced his retirement at a dinner party in Rome.He preferred to potter about his estate at Sant'Agata, planning extensions, planting shrubs, putting things in order. He and Giuseppina finally got married after living together for a dozen years. Verdi also got involved in politics.Italy was still a conglomerate of individual states, many of them under foreign rule including the Duchy of Parma where the Verdis lived. The republican cause relented increasingly to the idea of a united and free Italy under King Vittorio Emanuele II of Piedmont, and in 1859 a dual-purpose slogan that was to spread like wildfire, Viva VERDI (short for 'Vittorio Emanuele, Re D'Italia'), was seen scrawled on walls in Naples for the first time.Support came from Napoleon III with the Treaty of Piombières. The Second War of Independence began in the spring of 1859 with the bloody battles of Magenta and Solferino (the latter inspired Henri Dunant to found the Red Cross). The Treaty of Villafranca succeeded in driving the Austrians out of Lombardy, but they kept a hold on the Veneto region. A partial success that was no success at all to patriotic Italians like Verdi. And the Bourbons were still in power in parts of Southern Italy.The following year, Garibaldi and his army landed in Sicily and overthrew the Bourbons, while Piedmont troops took Umbria and the Marches. Italy was on its way to unification.In the autumn of 1859 Verdi was elected to represent Busseto in the Assembly of Parma provinces, and in this capacity he and other members of the Assembly travelled to Turin to petition the King of Piedmont for annexation. During this visit he met the much admired statesman Cavour (there's probably not a single town in Italy that does not have a Piazza named after him). Cavour was instrumental in persuading Verdi to stand for election to the Italian Parliament, and early in 1861 he was duly elected Deputy of Borgo San Donnino (today Fidenza). On 18 February he and Giuseppina attended the opening of the Italian Parliament in Turin. At first Verdi frequented the sessions diligently. It was Giuseppina who made sure that he wasn't lost to the opera world forever after.Mauro Corticelli, one of her friends from the old days, who was now secretary to a famous actress (and later to become the supervisor at the Sant'Agata estate), suggested to tenor Enrico Tamberlick in St Petersburg that he write to Verdi proposing a project for the Imperial Opera House there. Giuseppina advanced the cause where she could, but as it turned out Verdi was a willing victim and needed little persuasion to start composing again.Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas was the first subject he proposed. This ran foul of the Imperial censors, so Verdi turned to another Romantic play which had interested him since the mid-1850s, a very successful 1835 Spanish drama by Angel de Saavedra, the Duke of Rivas: Don Alvaro o La Fuerza del Sin.An Italian translation was located, Verdi wrote a synopsis and Piave set to work amidst the usual admonitions. Verdi also wanted to use a scene from Wallensteins Lager for Melitone's comic sermon and contacted Andrea Maffei for the translation he had made of Schiller's drama. By November 1861 the composition was finished bar the scoring.At the end of that month the Verdis travelled to St Petersburg via Paris - accompanied by great quantities of Neapolitan pasta, French wine, Italian cheese and salami for a taste of home and to ward off the freezing temperatures - only to find that the soprano had been taken ill and that the premiere had to be postponed to the following season. They headed back to Paris, where Verdi composed the Inno delle Nazioni on a text by the young Arrigo Boito.In September 1862 they set out again for Russia. The premiere of La Forza del Destino on 10 November 1862, as successful as it was with the audience, received mixed notices in parts of the Russian press, which may be attributed to the developing musical nationalism rather than any shortcomings of the opera itself. However, the critic of the French-language Journal de St Petersbourg was very enthusiastic:"We should not want this issue of the paper to go to press without mentioning the brilliant success of this beautiful work. We shall speak again at leisure about this magnificent score and about this evening's performance; but for the moment we wish to report the composer's victorious success and the ovations for the artists who, in order to comply with the insistent demands of the entire audience, had on several occasions to drag the celebrated composer on to the stage, to the sound of wild cheering and prolonged applause. It is our opinion that La forza del destino, of all Verdi's works, is the most complete, both in terms of its inspiration and the rich abundance of its melodic invention, and in those of its musical development and orchestration."Bronchitis prevented the Czar from attending the opening, but he and the Czarina saw the fourth performance. Verdi was presented with the Cross of the Royal and Imperial Order of St Stanislas.Performances in Rome 1863 (as Don Alvaro) and Madrid (with the Duke of Rivas, the play's author, in attendance) shortly afterwards proved a huge success. The opera travelled to New York and Vienna (1865), Buenos Aires (1866) and London (1867).Soon after the St Petersburg premiere, Verdi - "we've got to find some way to avoid all those dead bodies", he wrote to Piave - thought about revising the ending (in the original version, as in the play, Alvaro goes mad and hurls himself to death off a cliff). But it wasn't until later in the decade that he tackled the changes in earnest, and by this time Piave was too ill for collaboration. Verdi, with the aid of Antonio Ghislanzoni, drastically altered the finale of Act 4. Changes were made also to the sequence of scenes in Act 3, and minor changes occurred elsewhere in the opera. A new, longer, potpourri overture (a popular concert piece) replaced the 1862 prelude.The 'new' Forza was Verdi's first premiere at La Scala since Giovanna d'Arco in 1845, and it is in this form that the opera has been shown since, although occasionally productions revert to the original version.The action is set in Spain and Italy around the 1850s.Don Alvaro is a young nobleman from South America (presumably Peru) who is part Indian and who has settled in Seville, where, however, he is not very well thought of. He falls in love with Donna Leonora, the daughter of the Marquis of Calatrava, who, notwithstanding his love for his daughter, is determined that she shall marry only a man of the highest origin. Leonora, knowing her father’s aversion, and deeply in love with Alvaro, determines to elope with him, aided by her confidante, Curra. On the point of departure with him, she suddenly desires to see her father for a last time. Her father unexpectedly enters and discovers Alvaro. He threatens him with death, and Alvaro in order to remove any suspicion as to Leonora’s purity, offers to surrender himself to the Marquis. He flings down his pistol which goes off and mortally wounds the Marquis who dies cursing his daughter.The Alcade, several peasant muleteers, and Don Carlo of Vargas, the brother of Donna Leonora, are gathered in the kitchen of an inn in the village of Hornachuelos. Don Carlo is searching for Don Alvaro to avenge the death of his father and is disguised as a student of Salamanca, under the fictitious name of Pereda. Leonora, in male attire arrives. During the supper, Preziosilla, a young gypsy, tells the young men’s fortunes and exhorts them to enlist in the war for Italy’s freedom, which all agree to do. Don Carlo tells them of his father’s death. Leonora overhears, and barely escapes discovery by him. She takes refuge in a monastery where she tells the abbot her true name and that she intends to spend the remainder of her life in a hermitage. After the abbot has recounted the trials she will have to undergo, she departs for her cave.Meanwhile Don Alvaro has joined the Spanish army under the name of Don Federico Herreros. One night he saves the life of Don Carlo who is serving in the same army under the name of Don Felix Bornos. They become close friends and go into battle side by side. In one of these engagements Don Alvaro is, as he supposes, mortally wounded, and confides to Don Carlo’s care a valise containing a bundle of letters which he is to destroy as soon as Don Alvaro dies. Don Carlo has sworn not to look at the contents of the letters. But he becomes suspicious of his friend, opens the valise and finds his sister’s picture. At that moment a surgeon brings word that Don Alvaro may recover. Don Carlo is overjoyed at the idea of revenging his father’s death. The scene changes to a camp near Velletri (Italy) where Don Carlo and Don Alvaro fight a duel, in which Don Alvaro thinks he has killed his opponent. In expiation, Don Alvaro vows to enter a monastery.Don Alvaro has entered the monastery at Hornachuelos, near which is Leonora’s cave, under the name of Father Raphael. Don Carlo arrives cured of his wound and forces him to fight. They choose the ground before Leonora’s cave, and Don Carlo is mortally wounded. Alvaro calls for help, and Leonora recognizing his voice rushes out, and seeing her brother dying, stoops over him. He thereupon stabs her to the heart. Don Alvaro flings himself to death from some rocks, before the monks arrive singing the Miserere.
