List of Giuseppe Verdi Operas

Reference
Updated June 9, 2017 154.6K views28 items

List of popular Giuseppe Verdi operas, listed alphabetically with photos when available. This Giuseppe Verdi operas list includes the names of all Giuseppe Verdi operas, so if you're an opera lover you might recognize many of these historic operas. This famous Giuseppe Verdi operas list contains various bits of information, such as what language they were composed in and what genre the popular Giuseppe Verdi opera falls under. There are a lot of well-known Giuseppe Verdi operas out there so this list is a great way to learn about the ones you haven't heard of before.

List features composers like La traviata, Rigoletto and more!

This list answers the question, "Which operas did Giuseppe Verdi write?"

If you're writing a research paper about historic Giuseppe Verdi operas then this is the perfect jumping off point to find out which famous operas were composed by Giuseppe Verdi.

  • Aida

    Aida, sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario often attributed to French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, although Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz has argued that the scenario was actually written by Temistocle Solera. Aida was first performed at the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo on 24 December 1871, conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.

  • Alzira

    Alzira is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Alzire, ou les Américains by Voltaire. The first performance was at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 12 August 1845. The contemporary reviews were mixed, and the first run of the opera received only four further performances.

  • Aroldo

    Aroldo is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on and adapted from their earlier 1850 collaboration, Stiffelio. The first performance was given in the Teatro Nuovo Comunale in Rimini on 16 August 1857.

  • Attila

    Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the 1809 play Attila, König der Hunnen by Zacharias Werner. The opera received its first performance at La Fenice in Venice on 17 March 1846. Ezio's act 2 aria of heroic resolution È gettata la mia sorte is a fine example of a characteristic Verdian genre, and it achieved fame in its own time with audiences in the context of the adoption of a liberal constitution by Ferdinand II. Other contemporary comment praised the work as suitable for the "political education of the people", while, in contrast, others criticised the opera as "Teutonic" in nature.

  • Don Carlos

    Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, it has been noted by David Kimball that the Fontainebleau scene and auto da fé "were the most substantial of several incidents borrowed from a contemporary play on Philip II by Eugène Cormon". Given its premiere at the Salle Le Peletier on 11 March 1867, the opera's story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias, after his betrothed Elisabeth of Valois was married instead to his father Philip II of Spain as part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–1559 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra. When performed in one of its several Italian versions, the opera is generally called Don Carlo. The first Italian version given in Italy was in Bologna in March 1867. Revised again by Verdi, it was given in Naples in November/December 1872. Finally, two other versions were prepared: the first was seen in Milan in January 1884.

  • Ernani

    Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. Verdi was commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice to write an opera, but finding the right subject took some time, and the composer worked with the inexperienced Piave in shaping first one and then another drama by Hugo into an acceptable libretto. As musicologist Roger Parker notes, the composer "intervened on several important points, insisting for example that the role of Ernani be sung by a tenor. Ernani was first performed on 9 March 1844 and it was "immensely popular, and was revived countless times during its early years". It became Verdi's most popular opera until it was superseded by Il trovatore after 1853. In 1904 it became the first opera to be recorded completely.