' Guiseppe Verdi ' (Italian Composer 1813-1901) .Giovanni Boldini ( Italian 1842-1931) Oil on canvas, circa 1886 . Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna di Roma .

. Guiseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Italian composer . He was the son of an innkeeper , and he showed talent early . Whilst earning a living as an organist , he began to write operas in Milan ; in 1839 , his 'Oberto' was successfully performed at La Scala . His next opera 'Un giomo di regno '(1840) was a failure . Much worse , Verdi's two young daughters and his wife died. He overcame his despair by composing ' Nabucco ' (1842); it was a sensational success and was followed by the equally successful 'I Lombardy' (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 conceiving of an opera as a series of integrated scenes , then as unified acts . Specialising in stories in which peoples private and public lives came into conflict , he produced a series of masterworks including , 'Rigaletto '(1851) 'Il Travatore' (1853), 'Don Carlos' (1867) and 'Aida' (1871). A fervent nationalist,, he was regarded as a great national figure . After composing his 'Requiem ' (1874) he retired , but when Ricordi brought him together with the poet and composer , Arrigo 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)