Jarek Paul Ervin

JarekPaulErvin@gmail.com
Verdi Seminar
Dr. Stephen Willier
05/05/2010

Giuseppe Verdi in Fascist Italy

Many discussions of fascism focus on the term as an abstract notion, independent

of individual choices or the era in which fascist ideals evolved. Yet, fascism hardly

constituted a singular force, and in many instances, what was true of fascism in one

country at one time would be quite false, even contrary to fascism, in another. Fascism

had no true beginning, nor has it had a conclusion, and efforts to distort fascist historical

events into anomalies or universal ideals risks obscuring its origins, as well as its

persistence, in human culture. Italy's own fascist period greatly reflects this

inconsistency, and it was while advancing such ideals as “futurism” and a break with

tradition that Italians of fascist persuasion turned towards history for guidance. The

aesthetic debates of the period are intertwined with those of fascism, and both fascists

and artists experienced a renewed fascination with such realms as ancient Rome, music of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and with Giuseppe Verdi.

The latter of the three greatly overlapped with many of the Romantic and

Risorgimento ideals assumed by the fascists, and suggests Italian Fascism had many of its

roots in the nineteenth century. Verdi became a symbol of a larger, fiercely contested

debate about political, social, and aesthetic values, and study of his place in Fascist-era

offers an angle to approach such conflicts. This work will be comprised of two halves:

the first, a discussion of the aesthetic climate of the Fascist-era, in which Verdi

experienced a renewed degree of pertinence, and the second, an examination of the real-
 2

world situations in which Verdi shaped the Fascist-era. Though often focusing on the

time between the March of Rome in 1922 when Mussolini entered Rome and the Italian

national landscape, and 1943, when the dictator was ousted and fascism began to retreat

(although not disappear) from the national stage, it will be necessary to extend backwards

into the years preceding the Fascist-era and beyond. Although avoiding any judgements

of Verdi for his political sympathies or the Italian Fascists for their use of his works, I

will argue that Verdi and his works typified and aided the fascists in their efforts to shape

Italian culture.

Part I: A Conflicted Artistic Landscape

While numerous scholars have explored the aesthetics fascism, much of the

discussion reflects the above-mentioned fascination with totalizing narratives, and is

further hampered by politically charged perspectives. Much of the rhetoric about the

topic is directed by the original proponents of fascist ideals or by their opponents, the

former who sought to establish fascism as a totalizing force for social repair and the latter

who treat it as the singular face of evil. Even excellent studies of fascist-era music tend

to pit freedom against fascism, as in the case of Sachs,1 or conglomerate Italian and

German fascist history and aesthetics into a single work, as in the case of Tambling.2

Though it is important to consider the implications of fascism as an ideal, divorcing

fascism from practice is to obscure the conflicted nature of the Italian political landscape

in first half of the 20th century. Such perspectives run the risk of obscuring the conflicted

nature of the era, and it becomes necessary to depart from such views in order to

1
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy.
2
Tambling, Opera and the Culture of Fascism.
 3

understand how the iconic opera composer of 19th century Italy could remain so relevant

in Fascist Italy.

Closer examination of the country leading up to and during the Fascist-era reveals

that while many efforts to assert a unified aesthetic were present in the rhetoric of the key

political and artistic figures, the country remained in a state of deep conflict about the

past and the future of the nation, and even the most canonized schools of thought debated

bitterly about which aesthetic paths to follow. Mussolini himself has oft been criticized

by historians for what many view as opportunistic changes of policy and philosophy,3 and

while an extensive discussion of the merits and flaws of his political strategy falls far

outside the scope of this paper, it should suffice to say that such ‘inconsistencies’ were far

from infrequent in politics or the arts.

Many of these perceived inconsistencies owe their existence to the musical

landscape of early twentieth century Italy. Composers and musicologists faced a very

characteristic dilemma of this time; how to respond to the artistic successes of the past

while creating something that would have relevance to the contemporary world. Italy

was in the midst of a period where musicology, a fledgling field making its first marks on

the academic institutions of the country, led to a renewed interest in the musical history of

Italy alongside a canonization of earlier music figures. Composers, faced with onset of

the great dilemma that persists in composition to this day, struggled to decide how to

progress in light of recent developments such as atonality as audiences remained

infatuated with earlier, tonally-oriented music.

The unique concern for Italian composers of course, was that of how to confront

the legacy of 19th century melodramma. Works by Verdi and his bel canto precursors,
3
Sachs, in particular, holds this view.
 4

while beloved to the public even after his death, became a key issue of debate within

intellectual circles in the beginning of the century.4 Many composers and critics, as Maier

notes, viewed opera as the “country’s counterpart to the Austrian and German

symphony,”5and saw it thus the legacy to build upon. Others, however, aligned

themselves with the movement that saw Italian instrumental music of the 16th and 17th

centuries as the most potent source of compositional wisdom, and even further, the model

for all European music that followed.6 Sachs illustrates this divide, saying,

The word 'culture' was heard with increasing frequency, and the notion began to
circulate that the works of Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi, and perhaps even
of earlier, largely forgotten masters like Monteverdi, Pergolesi and Cimarosa,
were national treasures, cultural monuments worth perpetuating as such... At the
same time, some Italian musicians and critics, blinded by recent developments in
German and French music, began to feel embarrassed about Verdi and company...
They looked for and found Italian ancestry for transalpine symphonism, and
declared that [opera] had been a betrayal of the true mission of Italian music,
which was instrumental and therefore 'pure.'”7

This divide between operatic and instrumental composers would strengthen, but the

trumpeting of a minor portion of academia hardly stifled the populace's interest in the

former genre. In spite of modernist “embarrassments” about melodrama, opera remained

a broad topic of debate, and many composers simply accepted opera as the most

important genre of the time.

Within debates about opera in the Fascist-era, two figures emerged as most

worthy of concern: Verdi and Monteverdi. In this period, the two composers became the

subject of highly politicized legacies, both of which have now come under attack from

historians, but are informative as to the desires of contemporary Italian composers and

4
Maier and Painter, “'Songs of a Prisoner': Luigi Dallapiccola and the Politics of Voice Under
Fascism,”579.
5
Ibid.
6
Dell’Antonio, 278.
7
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 56.
 5

scholars. Even at the end of his lifetime, Verdi began to be seen as an icon of the

Risorgimento and of Italian nationhood, despite the limited and largely symbolic role he

played in the forging of the country. Musicologist and composer Riccardo Gandolfi

characterized the appeal of Verdi to scholars and composers skeptical of cosmopolitanism

and contemporary music as early as 1884, characterizing composers such as Verdi as

imaginative and nationalistic, in contrast to contemporary music, which was cynical and

subject to German style and taste.8

Others who considered the post-Verdian Italian music scene to be in a state of

decline abandoned a search for Verdi's successor or competitor in the contemporary

realm, turning instead to Monteverdi. It was especially the force of Wagner that so

frightened Italian scholars; his dominance of opera reached deep into Italy, and many

domestic composers could hope only to be labeled as post-Wagnerian. Yet, in

Monteverdi, Italians found a means of suggesting that even if their current music could

not escape the influence of the German composer; at least the latter owed a debt to their

former. Dell’Antonio suggests that this line of thinking begins with the of the poet

Gabriele D’Annunzio, who sought to reclaim the ‘lyric spirit’ from Wagnerian Germany.9

Contrasting Monteverdi with Puccini and other “commercialist” composers,10

D’Annunzio sought to establish Italian music as the source of “lyric spirit,” achieved

primarily by discounting Monteverdi’s sacred works and emphasizing development

throughout his madrigals and operas. Indeed, Dell’Antonio hints at the larger context of

this revisionary reading, characterizing the emphasis by many placed on L’incoronazione

di Poppea as a culminating masterpiece comparable to Verdi's own Otello or Falstaff.11

8
Ibid, 19-20.
9
Dell’Antonio, “Il divino Claudio: Monteverdi and Lyric Nostalgia in Fascist Italy,” 271.
10
Ibid, 273.
11
Ibid, 276.
 6

The concern for 'decline' mentioned above had deep ramifications beyond the

issue of arts, and was typical of a larger preoccupation of Italians in the early twentieth

century. Many Fascist-era critics of belle èpoque Italy cited what Wilson calls the

“omnipresent spectre of 'decadence,'”12 or a greater fear that Italian culture had failed to

live up to its promises and would, as a result of increasing technology and empty

comforts, crumble in the light of declining ethical and spiritual values. While much of

fin-de-siècle art was chastised for its decadence and emptiness, it was Italian verismo that

was viewed as the most dangerous force at home. Puccini especially remained a hotly

contested composer, touted by some as the successor to Verdi and by others as typical of

the most dangerous aspects of modernism. His music music was characterized by

'internationalism,' excessive French influences, and for its bourgeois sentiments.13

The turn away from contemporary opera to Monteverdi and his contemporaries

coincided with the and the revival of Classicism in the arts throughout Europe. To many

attempting to cope with the brutality of World War I and the decadence of the arts, the

obvious solution was a return to an earlier world represented by classical ideals. In the

larger art world, it was the French who responded, with such works as Cocteau's 1923 Un

Rappel à l'Ordre and Rey's 1931 La Renaissance du Sentiment Classique, but Italy's

infatuation with music of the 16th and 17th centuries greatly reflected a concern for

classicism in the Italian musical landscape.

Neo-classicism and the canonization of past music related heavily to the Fascist

party and the paradox of fascist culture which Dell'Antonio characterizes as “nostalgia for

the future.”14 The deep dissatisfaction felt by many towards the present and the

12
Wilson, The Puccini Problem, 16.
13
Tambling, Opera and the Culture of Fascism, 129.
14
Dell'Antonio, “Il divino Claudio,” 275-276.
 7

canonization of past works left artists in a position where the present was to be regretted,

the past idealized, and the future left somewhere in between. Wilson uses Verdi to

illustrate the dilemma caused by this aesthetic, when she writes, “Verdi might plausibly

have provided a more acceptable model of 'organic' composition, and yet advocating that

composers on the brink of the twentieth century imitate Verdi sat at odds with the critics'

need for progress.”15 Mussolini's use of both neo-imperialist and futurist rhetoric

embodies this conflict completely: the paradox of employing visions of ancient Rome

alongside those of destruction and progress is as bold in politics as in the arts.

Fascist Aesthetics and Verdi's Fascism

Yet, the question of why Verdi was such an important symbol in the Fascist-era

remains. His works hardly advocate aspects of fascist political thought, but as all history

can be read in a variety of different contexts, it is far from the point to argue that Verdi

was a proto-fascist composer or that the fascists “misunderstood” the “true meaning” of

the works. The fact remains that so many with fascist affiliations and sympathies were

attracted to his works in particular, and suggests that many connections between Verdi

and the Fascists can be drawn.

Indeed, much of the vocabulary associated with either opera or fascism overlaps.

Benjamin suggests that much of fascism's strength came from what he calls “introduction

of aesthetics into political life.”16 Steinberg and Steinberg follow in this line of thinking,

suggesting that fascism attempted to appropriate an “operatic” (Verdian) aesthetic and

merge it with their aesthetic of the “spectacular.”17 Even Verdi himself justifies an

15
Wilson, The Puccini Problem, 68.
16
Benjamin, Illuminations, 241.
17
Steinberg and Steinberg, “Fascism and the Operatic Unconsciousness,” 268-269.
 8

exploration that seeks to find not just why fascism could be operatic, but why opera can

be fascist, remarking of Garibaldi's army, “Those are composers! And what operas!

What finales! To the sound of guns!”18

It was through the 1922 March on Rome that Mussolini and his strain of fascism

first entered the national “stage.” Characterized by Adamson as a event “which owed its

success not to military force but to its force as mythic theatre,”19 the March on Rome

brought all of the drama of Verdi into the era of Fascist spectacle. Mussolini's symbolic

gesture, when read as an act of mythic theatre, warrants much comparison with Verdi's

works, which are invested heavily with acts of political and spiritual defiance and

triumph. Indeed, the image of Mussolini leading the fascists triumphant toward Rome

when viewed alongside Radames triumphantly marching to the gate of Thebes suggests

that fascism came to Italy not by surprise, but evolved from the nineteenth century.

By the time of Mussolini's assent to power, the relationship of Italian culture to

Europe as a whole had been discussed for over half a century. The oft-quoted statement

by Massimo d’Azeglio, “we have made Italy; now we must make Italians”20 characterized

an anxiety about national identity that began in the nineteenth century, but persisted and

intensified in the early twentieth century. Musicians was especially plagued by concerns

about the importance of Italian music in comparison to foreign styles, and the concerns

mentioned above for asserting Monteverdi over German music or about Puccini as an

overly “French” composer are only two examples of a fear of declining Italian glory and

foreign supremacy that lent strength to the images of both Mussolini and Verdi in the

Fascist-era.

18
Reprinted in Tambling, Opera and the Culture of Fascism, 74.
19
Adamson, Modernism and Fascism, 359.
20
Reprinted in Wilson, The Puccini Problem, 11.
 9

In the face of both real and perceived threats to Italian culture, it became

necessary for many to turn to such symbolic figures. The Fascist Party made the

promotion of Italian culture its mission, initially offering funding to encourage Italian

artists to search for a distinct national path in the arts. The regime used these

scholarships and competitions to construct a notion of “Italianness” with which fascism is

clearly intertwined. The state interventions into the great proving ground of Italian art,

the Venice Biennale, reflect this focus; their prize offerings for representations of

maternity, “the poetry of labor,” and works inspired by “labor and industry”21 all were

intended to steer culture in this newly constructed “Italian” direction.

Unfortunately, the culmination of this fascist vision of a “pure” Italy led to the

xenophobic exclusion of other cultures, culminating in the Fascist's tragic adoption of

many of the anti-semitic cultural policies of Nazi Germany. As funds and positions were

made available to the vanguard of composers of Italian nationality, many exceptional

composers such as Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco were forced to flee the country,22 and

“Jewish” works or those of the Second Viennese School (including those of Berg, an

Austrian) were banned.23 Of course, this application of a violent nationalism extended far

beyond the arts into violence against Jewish citizens and Italy's failed attempts at

imperialism in World War II.

21
Alloway, The Venice Biennale 1895-1968, 103.
22
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 185.
23
Ibid., 142.
 10

Yet, it seems impossible to consider that this strain of fascism came to Rome only

with Mussolini in 1922. Rather, Verdi music, as it lived beyond its first performances,

came to reflect and shape discourse about Italianness. As Dell'Antonio says of the

composer,

[p]laying a conscious role in the development of nationalist and unificationist

rhetoric, Verdi was seen by his contemporaries as the foremost artistic motivator

for unification; references to the 'patria' in his operas were interpreted as calls for

the return of an Italian homeland...Verdi's image and his operas thus fused into a

political/folkloric signifier for united Italy.24

It is easy to see that such a notion of national sovereignty could be transformed through

the course of the first half of the twentieth century, and that in constructing an ideal of

Italian uniqueness, nationalism would transform into xenophobia. When reread through

this Fascist-era nationalism, Verdi's works would possess a whole new degree of

significance.

Part II: Verdi in Fascist-Era Italy

Verdi's works were especially relevant to Italian culture in the Fascist-era, and

while it is impossible to completely isolate the individual realms of a society, his works

were particularly renewed in the realm of the government, in the halls of the universities

and conservatories, and through a variety of public events. Taking on new implications

for nationalism and Italian exceptionalism, Verdi's works became surprisingly important

to a party initially bent on radically breaking with the democratic tradition Verdi

previously seemed to signify. In this new climate, it too became possible for new
24
Dell'Antonio, “Il divino Claudio,” 272.
 11

readings, both critical and favorable, of Verdi's works in the intellectual world. Still ever

ubiquitous in the minds of the public, who hardly was willing to part with Verdi's works

in response to d'Annunzo's aesthetic arguments, the opera halls, festival grounds, and

public celebrations became key venues where Verdi's importance was affected.

Verdi and the Bureaucrats

Mussolini and his government had an active involvement with music in the

Fascist-era that directly impacted Verdi reception. The Fascists, who strove to portray

their leader as an omnipresent figure, not just in politics but in culture, actively sought to

promote the image of Mussolini as a active participant in Italian musical life. However,

this was far from empty propaganda: for better or for worse, the dictator was genuinely

interested in music and took an active role in the debates about aesthetics.

Rhetoric by and about Mussolini reveals his part in this conflicted realm. In the

many articles written about Mussolini, he was presented under a variety of guises, each

representing key areas of contemporary musical values. In one book, L'arte e il Duce,

Mussolini is connected to the early music revival through an interest in “reawaken[ing]

the art of polyphony” of composers such as Palestrina, Monteverdi, and Frescobaldi. Yet,

as Sachs points out, Mussolini also sought to be seen within the context of the modernist

revolution; when asked about his favorite contemporary composers, Pizzetti, Malipiero

and Dallapiccola are mentioned.25

Mussolini and his party certainly weighed in on the debates surrounding

contemporary and nineteenth century music. The many bureaucracies established by the

Fascist party also weighed in for the modernist side of music. Many composers, artists,
25
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 15-16.
 12

and philosophers held key posts within various ministries, and exploited what leverage

they could gain to promote their musical interests, conservative or progressive. Key

groups that affected music were the Ministry of Popular Culture (MinCulPop), which

superseded the Press and Propaganda Ministry in 1935, and served to regulate music,

among many other aspects of culture, in the public sphere. As part of the larger project of

promoting Italian culture, many bureaucracies fell on the side of contemporary music,

offering scholarships and awards, some of which will be discussed later.

One very strong quote from the leader suggests his stance erred towards the

modernists and futurists, where he says,

I prescribe that from now on, no favour be shown in any way to... operas, vocal
[recitals], concerts or musical evenings... It is high time that the world... get to
know a different type of Italian from that of yesterday – the eternal tenor and
mandolinist [who exist] for others' diversion. Caruso and the like were or are
[representatives of] the old Italy.26

An attack on opera and Caruso can most certainly be interpreted as an attack on Verdi and

his perceived lack of relevance to contemporary audiences. Yet, il Duce was a man of

many contradictory positions, and much of his actions suggest that his feelings toward

older Italian music were far from antagonistic. At the ten year anniversary of the March

on Rome, the music chosen to initiate the ceremony was the overture of Verdi's own I

Vespri Siciliani.27 Even one of the most militant fascists, Roberto Farinacci, staged an

official Verdi festival in his hometown of Cremona.28 These two examples are far from

atypical: regime-sponsored events placed Verdi in the center, as further study of music

festivals will show below.

26
Reprinted in Sachs, Music of Fascist Italy, 17.
27
Ibid., 82.
28
Maier and Painter, “'Songs of a Prisoner,'” 579.
 13

Verdi and the Academy

Along with the rise of the bureaucratization of the arts under the Italian Fascists

came the increasing academization of music scholarship and composition, and it was now

through the writing of articles and the modification of university curricula that wars over

style were waged. In the beginning of the century, conservatories had a conservative

bent, but lacked any semblance of a standardized curriculum. They followed the tradition

of performing the “master works” of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Bach

fugues and Paganini caprices were required for many examinations. With the rise of

Mussolini, the Education Ministry was created with Giovanni Gentile, the “official”

philosopher of Italian fascism, at the helm. Gentile attempted many reforms, yet after his

departure from the Ministry, the conservatives who succeeded him blocked many of his

reforms.29 Similar recidivism was the nature of music studies in this era: musicians

struggled to create new and novel works of art, yet could not escape the legacy of the

past.

Many progressively-minded figures in the academy sought to resist what to them

appeared to be the fetishization of older music; to those modernists, the worship of past

forms was crippling for innovation and creativity. The critic and teacher Luigi Torchi

offered one of the first rallying cries in the 1890s for breaking with the tradition of Verdi

and his contemporaries through his writings for the musicological journal Rivista

musicale italiana.30 Advocating Wagnerian ideals and the music of other progressive

composers, Torchi argued for the creation of a new Italian opera, independent from the

influences of Verdi and other operatic composers. It would not be until the 1920's and the

29
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 19.
30
Wilson, The Puccini Problem, 63.
 14

rise of the fascists that voices such as Torchi's would have supporters such as Gentile in

places of power. One of the first actions against conservative forces in the music world

was the removal of Giuseppe Gallignani from his position at the Milan conservatory by

the Ministry of Public Education. Gallignani, who assumed the directorship in 1897,

represented much of the older values of music and ascended to his position with Verdi's

blessing.31 His ousting and other new hirings would seem to have paved the way for a

reborn academic world.

Yet, Gallignani's successor, Ildebrando Pizzetti, was far from a radical composer.

Though being influenced by Wagner, d'Annunzio, and the early music revival32 that

would make him much more appealing to the Fascists and progressive voices, Pizzetti

participated in one of the most striking efforts by conservatives to challenge modernist

forces and reassert the universal nature of Verdian style. This effort was the declaration

“A Manifesto of Italian Musicians for the Tradition of Nineteenth Century Art,”

published in three of Italy's most important contemporary newspapers – Il popolo d'Italia,

Il corriere della sera, and La Stampa – in 1932. This work, framed by Alceo Toni,

future president of the Milan Conservatory, was signed by many of the important

composers of the era, including Respighi and Mulè; current and future conservatory

administrators Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli (director, Milan Conservatory), Gennaro

Nappoli (assistant director, Naples Conservatory), and Guido Guerrini (director, Florence

Conservatory); and Pizzetti himself.33 This document attacked the avant-garde, which to

them was dominated by “foreign” influences, sought only to be original at the expense of

“centuries-old fundamental laws of art,” and sounded like “atonal and polytonal

31
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 34.
32
Gatti and Waterhouse, “Pizzetti, Ildebrando.”
33
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 23-24.
 15

honking.” The document concludes that “romanticism” was and will (or should) continue

to be the defining value of music.34

Though Verdi was certainly implied and central in the signatories' usage of the

term “romanticism,” his name was explicitly used by many like-minded and moderate

figures in their efforts to reassert the primacy of nineteenth century music. Vincenzio

Morello, writer for La tribuna, voiced an early reaction to thought such as that of Torchi,

discussed above, in which Verdi is central. Writing in 1900 to attack Puccini and

contemporary music, Morello asserts Verdi as the one persistent voice of true Italian

musical values. To Morello, Puccini or his contemporaries could never be “national”

composers in the sense that Verdi was, as only the latter composer had the ability to bring

to life Italian “passion,” “pain,” and “soul.”35 Verdi was also suggested as a model for

future composers by Luigi Perrachio, who in 1929 published an article about reforming

conservatory curricula in Rassegna musicale. Perrachio argued against the foreign

domination of Italian schools, and argued that alongside the great German masters, Italian

music should be studied, both by performers and composers. In addition, Perrachio

suggested that students of composition should have to analyze “one of Verdi's recitatives

– the most beautiful ever conceived” for exams.36

Many academic reformers even sought to directly connect Verdi and the Fascist

Party. Adriano Lualdi, director of the Naples conservatory from 1936 to 1944, a Fascist

regime supporter from their early years, and an officer in the Fascist Union of Musicians,

offered a great deal of praise for the link between music and fascism. In a 1941 address

in memory of Verdi, Lualdi suggested that Mussolini was “the 'Man' hoped for by

34
Ibid., 24-25.
35
Wilson, The Puccini Problem, 85.
36
Reprinted in Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 37.
 16

Verdi.”37 A more detailed exploration of Verdi and fascism came in the form of an article

by musicologist Remo Giazotto, entitled “Popolo e valutazione artistica: L'arte di Verdi in

clima fascista” (The people and artistic evaluation: The art of Verdi in the fascist

climate”), published in Musica d'oggi in 1940. In the article, Giazotto connects Verdi to

Mussolini and the “fascist climate,” implying that the three are deeply definitive of to

“Italianness.” Giazotto suggestively defines the values of Italy, especially exploiting

images such as bread and working under the sun to give his work a populist perspective.

Verdi, Giazotto argues, was a citizen of Italy before the Italian citizen was created, and

his music is embedded with faith in his country, freedom, and Italy. Giazotto concludes

with a vision of a new Italy, independent and united under Mussolini and Verdi, ready to

succeed in “battle.”38

Opera Practice in the Fascist-Era

Of course, a discussion of Verdi's persistence into the twentieth century would be

incomplete without considering it in the world of opera practice. Despite many efforts by

contemporary composers to attenuate Verdi's inescapable presence in the opera world, his

music remained far more popular than that of the avant-garde in the Fascist-era. Even

significant changes in the world of multimedia entertainment failed to displace Verdi

from his position as king of opera, and while many of his detractors have faded from the

limelight (both fairly and unfairly), he remains among the most celebrated opera

composers today.

37
Ibid., 22.
38
Giazotto, “Popolo e valutazione artistica: L'arte di Verdi in clima fascista,” 233-235.
 17

Many social forces at work in the Fascist-era threatened to push Verdi from the

public eye. Many artists and politicians who meddled in the arts sought to create opera

more suited to the values inherent to fascism. As Steinberg and Steinberg note, the

fascists were interested in shaping opera to possess the element of “spectacle” they

sought to impart to culture, and Mussolini attacked the “triangular configurations” of

Italian opera, arguing for a theatrical style better suited to the fascist ideals.39 Composers

too attacked the stranglehold of nineteenth century opera, and figures such as Casella and

Malipiero called for a new aesthetic in the theaters.40

Also dangerous for Verdi's legacy was a change in the way in which theaters were

administrated. Beginning with a prototypical system at La Scala in 1898, opera houses

sought to reform the impresario system which had dominated in the century then

concluding. To many in an era of increasing bureaucratisation, a system in which a single

individual who made most of the decisions about programming and casting was

inefficient (the irony of such thoughts in the era of Mussolini apparently lost to them),

and individual funds were certainly less adequate for the increasing costs of mounting

operas. After a hiatus beginning in 1917, La Scala reopened its doors in 1921 as an enti

autonomo, a self-governing and nonprofit society. Other houses, attracted to the prospect

of greater independence from the city and the old families who had dominated, began to

shift to the new system.41

In 1926, a conference of enti autonomo was held in Bologna, and many

foundations for greater government subsidization and regulation were laid. By 1938, the

MinCulPop had declared that half of works performed in enti autonomo should be

39
Steinberg and Steinberg, “Fascism and the Operatic Unconscious,” 268-269.
40
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 6-7.
41
Ibid., 57-58.
 18

composed in the twentieth century and half of those in the previous twenty years.

Independent theaters, though “autonomous” from government regulation, were expected

adhere to the same regulations.

Yet, these efforts to challenge the sovereignty of Verdi hardly managed to secure

contemporary composers equal attention from audiences. Whereas contemporary works

were the most typical offerings in the nineteenth century, in the twentieth century, the

hegemony of “classics” eclipsed new offerings. In Italy, it was difficult even for

domestic composers to find acclaim, and many of the foreign works attracting the most

press outside of the country were paid little attention by the opera-going public. While

modern works were poorly attended, performances of works by nineteenth century

composers were consistently sold out, and the independent theaters often violated the

MinCulPop's decree that they should adhere to the “fifty-fifty rule.” Such tirades against

romantic opera were simply ignored.

Musical Festivals and Tours

During the Fascist era, Verdi had a key role in many of the musical festivals and

tours, which often served as the places where Italianness was debated and defined.

Verdi's central position in these events, many of which were (in theory) intended to

promote contemporary art and culture, suggests that the composer, although hardly

current, was central to Italian culture. Both domestically and abroad, Verdi was

performed, and in those contexts, stood for many values with which the Fascists hoped to

define Italy.
 19

One means by which the Fascists attempted to shape Italian culture with music

was by carro lirico [“operamobiles”]. Established in 1930, the carro lirico were part of a

project began the year before with carro teatrale [“theatermobiles”], both of which were

touring companies meant to travel to the more provincial regions of Italy and perform

“master works” for the uncultured public. The touring operamobiles emphasized

nineteenth century opera, especially Verdi, Bellini, and Rossini, and the more

contemporary works generally performed were Puccini and Mascagni.42 The casts were

heavily composed of La Scala veterans, as was the repertoire: for the 1932 season,

Rigoletto, La bohème, I pagliacci, and Cavelleria rusticana were the chosen works.43

The Venice Biennale, discussed above, established in 1895 as a fine arts festival,

incorporated a concurrent music festival, Festival internazionale di musica, in 1930.44

Directed by two of the great musical bureaucrats, Casella and Lualdi, the festival featured

numerous premieres, including the Italian premiere of Bartók's Fourth String Quartet,

world premieres of works by domestic stars including Castelnuovo-Tedesco (not to

mention Casella and Lualdi themselves), and included composers Lambert, Milhaud,

Pizzetti and Stravinsky conducting their own works. Even so, the 1934 festival, with a

personally approved by Mussolini, featured a performance of Verdi's Messa di Requiem,

featuring such stars as De Sabata and Beniamnio Gigli. Despite the grumblings of some

contemporary composers, the performance was a central and defining event of the

festival.45

Verdi's music also maintained a prominent position in the Florentine music

festival, the Maggio Musicale (“Musical May”). This festival, created in 1933 by an
42
Steinberg and Steinberg, “Fascism and the Operatic Unconscious,” 270.
43
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 63.
44
Alloway, The Venice Biennale 1895-1968, 114.
45
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 89-91.
 20

orchestra associated with Florence's Ente autonomo, was more directly linked to the

fascist party, featured a musicological conference, and placed productions of infrequently

performed operas alongside contemporary orchestral works. Verdi's Nabucco was one of

the former which helped to inaugurate the festival, and in 1937, Luisa Miller was

performed alongside the Italian premiere of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex and a transcription

of Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea. Yet, the most interesting instance of Verdi in

the Maggio Musicale came the following year, when Hitler and other representatives of

the Nazis attended the festival. Although swastika decorations and German music were

central that year, Vittorio Gui conducted a “special performance” of excerpts of Simon

Boccanegra.46

The Verdi Memorial

Worthy of note is the now destroyed Verdi monument in Parma, envisioned in

1901 but not built until in 1913. Though Basini warns against reading the monument and

the festival which surround its unveiling in a purely fascist light in her excellent article on

the topic, she notes many of the ways in which the monument intertwines with proto-

fascism.47 As she notes, the festival, while lacking overt political perspectives, was “a

site for the manipulation of culture, and an example of a kind of cultural display that

would henceforth be increasingly inflected by political agendas.”48

This festival, staged at the centennial of Verdi's birth, coincided with a number of

important memorials, many of which had far reaching political implications. In the

festival's host city, celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy were

46
Sachs, Music in Fascist Italy, 91-94.
47
Basini, “Cult of Sacred Memory: Parma and the Verdi Centennial Celebrations of 1913,” 160.
48
Ibid., 152.
 21

49
delayed to overlap with the Verdi festival. Fascist images mentioned above, such as

wheat and battle abounded throughout the agricultural displays, and the long procession

that marched to the monument for its unveiling featured veterans and the Minister of War,

accompanied by the triumphal march from Aida.50 The monument itself was also heavily

invested with pre-fascist symbols. The work is dominated by fascist nostalgia, and as

Basini notes, Verdi is depicted in isolation from the contemporary world in a pose

evocative of Rodin's The Thinker and swathed in classical robes. Even the militaristic

aspects of Verdi's works were centralized, and text from his “Hymn to War” ('Suona la

tromba') was printed on one of the inner pillars.51

Afterward

Remaining central throughout an era in which many tried to cast Verdi out of the

limelight, the composer took on new meaning as a symbol of Fascist Italy. While it may

seem a great misreading on the part of the Fascists to use Verdi thusly, the fact remains

that his works and legacy typified many of the aesthetic and political debates of the era.

As Verdi's usage by the fascists shows, there is something operatic about fascism,

something fascist about opera, and something of both in the Modern era.

49
Ibid., 156.
50
Ibid.
51
Ibid., 154
 22

Works Cited

Adamson, Walter L. “Modernism and Fascism: The Politics of Culture in Italy, 1903-
1922.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 2 (Apr., 1990): 359-390.

Alloway, Lawrence. The Venice Biennale 1895-1968: From Salon to Goldfish Bowl.
Greenwich: New York Graphic Society LTD., 1968.

Antliff, Mark. “Fascism, Modernism, and Modernity.” The Art Bulletin, Vol. 84, No. 1
(Mar., 2002): 148-169.

Basini, Laura. “Cults of Sacred Memory: Parma and the Verdi Centennial Celebrations of
1913.” Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jul., 2001): 141-161.

Beard, Harry. “The State Patronage of Music in Italy.” The Musical Times, Vol. 78, No.
1137 (Nov., 1937): 949-950.

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”

Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 2007.

Cole, Taylor. “The Italian Ministry of Popular Culture.” The Public Opinion Quarterly,
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Dell'Antonio, Andrew. “Il divino Claudio: Monteverdi and Lyric Nostalgia in Fascist
Italy.” Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Nov., 1996): 271-284.

Gatti, Guido M. and John C.G. Waterhouse. "Pizzetti, Ildebrando." Grove Music Online.
Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.libproxy.temple.edu/subscriber/article/grove/
music/21881 (accessed May 2, 2010).

Giazotto, Remo. “Popolo e valutazione artistica: L'arte di Verdi in clima fascista.”

Musica d'oggi XXII 8-9 (Aug.-Sept. 1940): 233-235.

Maier, Charles S. and Karen Painter. “'Songs of a Prisoner': Luigi Dallapiccola and the
Politics of Voice under Fascism.” Italian Music During the Fascist Period. Ed.
Roberto Illiano. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004. 567-588.

Sachs, Harvey. Music in Fascist Italy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Limited, 1987.

Sciannameo, Franco. “Mussolini, and the Second String Quartet: Aspects of Alfano.”
The Musical Times, Vol. 143, No. 1881 (Winter, 2002): 27-41.
 23

Steinberg, Michael P., and Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg. “Fascism and the Operatic
Unconscious.” Opera and Society in Italy and France from Monteverdi to
Bourdieu. Ed. Victoria Johnson, Jane F. Fulcher, and Thomas Ertman.
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Tambling, Jeremy. Opera and the Culture of Fascism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

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