It was, perhaps, Verdi’s dissatisfaction with the last of these (he enlisted another writer, Francesco Maffei, to revise parts of the text) that made him commission, in 1850, a Re Lear from Salvadore Cammarano, another regular collaborator of his.Īfter Cammarano’s untimely death in 1852, Verdi approached Antonio Somma. Verdi successively approached three potential librettists for Lear: in 1845 he first mentioned the play to Francesco Maria Piave, the librettist of his Ernani, I Due Foscari and Macbeth. Numero unico pubblicato dalla Illustrazione Italiana (Milan, ) 1872.c.15 Of these unwritten operas, however, it was King Lear that held the greatest significance for Verdi and came closest to creation. Although he did complete three operas based on Shakespeare plays, several others – Hamlet, Cymbeline, Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest and Romeo and Juliet – were discussed at various times but never materialised. Among them were several plays by Shakespeare, one of his favourite writers.
In a composing career spanning more than five decades, Giuseppe Verdi considered more than 100 works, including novels and plays by French, Italian, Spanish and German writers, as sources for potential operatic projects.
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