Canon
Where to start with Verdi
Essential works to know this composer by — spread across their styles-
StageAida — Opera
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VocalRequiem
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ChamberString Quartet in E minor
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StageIl trovatore — Opera
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StageLa traviata — Opera
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StageOtello — Opera
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StageRigoletto — Opera
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StageNabucco — Opera
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StageDon Carlo — Opera
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StageFalstaff — Opera
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StageLa forza del destino — Opera
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VocalQuattro pezzi sacri — For soloists, choir and orchestra
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VocalAd una stella — Song
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VocalAl tuo bambino — Song
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VocalAlbum di Sei Romanze — Songs
Listening guide
Hand-curated paths into Verdi's catalogueMost Popular
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La traviata (opera)
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Rigoletto
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Aida
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Va, pensiero (from Nabucco)
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Requiem
Most Acclaimed
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Otello
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Falstaff
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Requiem
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Simon Boccanegra
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Don Carlos
Most Weird
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Falstaffhis last opera at age 79 — the most sophisticated comic opera ever written; ends with an 8-voice fugue on ”All the world’s a joke”
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Requiem — Dies Iraethe brass attack is violent; Brahms said ”only a genius or a fool could have written that”
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String Quartet in E minorhis only chamber work — he wrote it as a private exercise and didn’t intend it for performance; it’s extraordinary
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Don Carlos5-hour grand opera about the Spanish Inquisition and Philip II; the full version is almost never staged
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Macbethhis first Shakespeare opera; the Witches scene was rewritten multiple times; the sleepwalking scene is unlike any other Verdi
Similar composers
Same era, overlapping styles — by genre & period affinityWorks 67
- Stage
- ● Aida — Opera
- ● Il trovatore — Opera
- ● La traviata — Opera
- ● Otello — Opera
- ● Rigoletto — Opera
- ● Nabucco — Opera
- Don Carlo — Opera
- Falstaff — Opera
- La forza del destino — Opera
- Alzira — Opera
- Aroldo — Opera
- Attila — Opera
- Ernani — Opera
- Giovanna d'Arco — Opera
- I Lombardi alla prima Crociata — Opera
- I Masnadieri — Opera
- I due Foscari — Opera
- I vespri siciliani — Opera
- Il corsaro — Opera
- Jérusalem — Opera
- La battaglia di Legnano — Opera
- Luisa Miller — Opera
- Macbeth — Opera
- Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio — Opera
- Simon Boccanegra — Opera
- Stiffelio — Opera
- Un ballo in maschera — Opera
- Un giorno di regno — Opera
- Vocal
- ● Requiem
- Quattro pezzi sacri — For soloists, choir and orchestra
- Ad una stella — Song
- Al tuo bambino — Song
- Album di Sei Romanze — Songs
- Ave Maria — For soprano and strings
- Chi i bei dì m'adduce ancora — Song
- Cupo è il sepolcro e mutolo — Song
- Deh, pietoso, oh addolorata — Song
- Guarda che bianca luna — For soprano, tenor, bass and flute
- Il brigidino — Song
- Il mistero — Song
- Il poveretto — Song
- Il tramonto — Song
- In solitaria stanza — Song
- Inno delle nazioni — Cantata for tenor, choir and orchestra
- L'abandonnée — Song
- L'esule — Song
- La preghiera del poeta — Song
- La seduzione — Song
- La zingara — Song
- Laudate pueri — For 2 tenors, bass, choir and orchestra
- Lo spazzacamino — Song
- Mass in E flat major
- More, Elisa, lo stanco poeta — Song
- Nell'orror di notte oscura — Song
- Non t'accostare all'urna — Song
- Pater noster — For choir
- Perduta ho la pace — Song
- Pietà, Signor — Song
- Qui tollis — For tenor, clarinet and orchestra
- Sei Romanze — Songs
- Sgombra, o gentil — Song
- Stornello — Song
- Tantum ergo in F major — For bass and orchestra
- Tantum ergo in G major — For tenor and orchestra
- È la vita un mar d'affanni — Song
- Chamber
- String Quartet in E minor
- Orchestral
- Symphony in C major