Bertelsmann : RAI Remembers Verdi – And Films In The Ricordi Archive

News | Milan, 01/26/2021

RAI Remembers Verdi - And Films In The Ricordi Archive

January 27th marks the 120th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi's death. The Italian TV channel RAI is planning a report on the occasion. One of its filming locations was Bertelsmann's Archivio Storico Ricordi in the heart of Milan. Some of Verdi's greatest legacies are stored there: letters, scores, and libretti.

In Italy in particular, he was already a legend during his lifetime. His death throes kept his hometown of Milan in suspense for days until he died on January 27, 1901: Giuseppe Verdi. And just as thousands of mourners paid their last respects to him back then, Italy wants to commemorate the genius composer once again this year to mark the 120th anniversary of his death. The television channel RAI, for example, is planning an extensive TV report that will be broadcast tomorrow. A few days ago, the camera crew and researchers also visited Bertelsmann's Archivio Storico Ricordi, where the greatest treasures from the composer's legacy are kept, under observance of strict coronavirus restrictions.

Verdi, the music publisher Ricordi, and its unique archive form an indissoluble unity. The publisher and composer collaborated very closely. Today, Verdi's libretti, scores, and correspondence are among the archive's most valuable holdings. Verdi's life and work can best be explored using these sources. They were displayed to opera lovers from all over the world to mark the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth in 2013, and in subsequent years as part of Bertelsmann's 'The Enterprise of Opera' exhibition in several European cities and in New York. The archive, which has been part of Bertelsmann since 1994, contains 7,800 original scores of more than 600 operas as well as around 10,000 libretti, around 6,000 historical photographs and the entire business correspondence of the legendary music publisher Ricordi from 1888 to 1962.

This was also a rich source of material for the RAI TV crew: Among other things, they filmed Verdi's death mask, a photo of him lying in state in Room 105 of the Grand Hotel et de Milan, where he spent the last years of his life and died, as well as photos of his funeral, and a manuscript of Verdi's Requiem from 1874. These and the other Archivio Storico Ricordi holdings are stored at the Braidense National Library in the Pinacoteca di Brera. It is only a stone's throw away from the place where Verdi was mostly enthusiastically celebrated, but occasionally also booed mercilessly: La Scala in Milan.

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