Giuseppe Verdi was born near the end of the Napoleonic wars. Indeed, he was born only days before the “Battle of the Nations” near Leipzig in October 1813. This mattered to Verdi because though he was born on the Italian peninsula, near Busseto; his birth was registered in the Département Taro,... More information part of the French Empire. Both the Italians and the French have claimed him ever since. Verdi’s operas are at the core of the canon of Great Works performed in opera houses around the world today. Among them: Rigoletto; Il Trovatore; La Traviata; Un Ballo in Maschera; Aida; and Don Carlos. According to biographer Frederick Crowest, Verdi excelled at “portraying human passions at their strongest pitch – in their noblest and sometimes their basest moods.” Less information