7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7From 1855 to 1870 Verdi, who had become an interna-
tional celebrity, devoted himself to providing works for
the Opéra at Paris and other theatres conforming to the
Parisian operatic standard, which demanded spectacular
dramas on subjects of high seriousness in five acts with a
ballet. His first essay in the new manner, Les Vêpres siciliennes
(1855; The Sicilian Vespers), is a rather cold piece that had
only lukewarm success from its premiere on. Two pieces
for Italian theatres, Simon Boccanegra (1857) and Un ballo in
maschera (1859; A Masked Ball), affected to a lesser extent
by the impact of the grand operatic style, show the enrich-
ment of Verdi’s power as an interpreter of human character
and as a master of orchestral colour. Boccanegra includes
powerful scenes and creates a special windswept atmosphere
appropriate to its Genoese pirate protagonist. Much more
successful with the public was Ballo, a Romantic version
of the assassination of Gustav III of Sweden.
In 1862 Verdi represented Italian musicians at the
London Exhibition, for which he composed a cantata to
words by the up-and-coming poet and composer Arrigo
Boito. In opera the big money came from foreign commis-
sions, and in the same year his next work, La forza del
destino (The Force of Destiny), was produced at St. Petersburg.
The epic-style Forza, includes the most extended religious
scene in a Verdi opera and his first substantial comic role.
Don Carlos (1867) is a setting of another play by Schiller in
which religion is portrayed much more harshly, and much
more in accordance with Verdi’s lifelong strong anticlerical
sentiments, than in Forza; it is regarded by some as Verdi’s
masterpiece.
Verdi felt that both operas with foreign commissions
required revision for Italian theatres; this he accomplished
for Forza in 1869 and Don Carlo (as it is now usually called)
in 1884 and 1887. He needed none with the piece in which
at last he fashioned a libretto exactly to his needs, Aida.