ABOUT VIVA VERDI!

VIVA VERDI! – Giuseppe Verdi, the most influential Italian Opera composer of the 19th century, willed his vast fortune to build a retirement home in Milan, Italy for ageing opera singers and musicians, and the young music students who are mentored by and live among them. Many of the residents are living legends, who, because of Verdi, are living the third act of their lives with passion, dignity and purpose. This documentary uncovers the incredible stories of these living treasures found at Casa Verdi today.

Entering Casa Verdi in Milan, Italy, is like walking into a living masterpiece. The neo-Gothic style of the mansion is elegant and regal, austere yet sumptuous. The air is thick with sounds of music. So thick in fact, it’s almost as if you can see it in the form of rich colors floating in and out of the dozens of rooms, back and forth through the large windows and then down the long, tapestry covered corridors until it finally arrives to your listening ear. Your heart warms as the music slowly envelopes you, subtly inviting you deeper into this house filled with living legends. Your curiosity sparks, the pull is undeniable—you must discover the treasures of Casa Verdi for yourself, because there is quite frankly, no other place like it in the world.

VIVA VERDI! – Purpose

Shortly after Verdi’s death, the doors of Casa Verdi opened to its first nine guests on October 10, 1902, which just happened to be “The Maestro’s” birthday. Over dozens of decades, through world wars and momentous changes in human history, thousands of Verdi’s “dear companions,” have called this extraordinary place home during their own third act.

Casa Verdi represents the world. The residents are international, from as far away as South America and Japan, each with very diverse life experiences ready to share with those who are willing to listen, ready to teach those who want to learn, and a new cycle of life and love can start all over again.To live here, residents must have “exercised the art of music as a profession.”

Singers, composers, conductors, musicians, music teachers and dancers, many of whom were staples in the grand halls around the world including nearby La Scala or The Royal Opera House or The Metropolitan Opera, pay whatever they can afford. But if they have nothing, yet still meet the requirements of being able-bodied dedicated artists, they may live out the rest of their days here for free.

A brief walk through the expansive corridors of Casa Verdi reveals that age has not dulled the performers love for music and their compulsion to create. This is fertile emotional territory—there is romance, regret, remembrances, all rife with metaphors about the relationship between art and life. Some of the residents often burst into song when they can’t remember their words during a conversation and others sing simply for the joy of it. Many long to share their newspaper clippings with their reviews or play an album of their recorded music to any interested party.

But their inherent glory is perhaps most evident during the daily music classes that are offered at Casa Verdi, when the glow of their former days is reignited. They are on stage again, seemingly in front of hundreds of adoring fans, free to express themselves creatively, emotionally and physically. Singing or dancing or playing the violin is to these precious souls, as natural as breathing.
Mentoring young music students has always been an important aspect of Casa Verdi’s history. The film shines a light on the daily music lessons that are taught to blossoming young artists from around the world who study and live among these masters. At present, 16 gifted international music students live here, mentored by Casa Verdi’s world-class residents. The cross-generational mixing of young and old, held together by an implacable commitment and relentless passion for music, creates a highly charged atmosphere where the human spirit transcends both time and space.

This “living spirit” is a manifestation of its founder and namesake Giuseppe Verdi who lived for 88 productive years, and by the time of his death in 1901, had changed the face of opera forever.

With “little altars” to Verdi in every corner, and music and memories in every room at Casa Verdi, it’s easy to see in the film how Verdi’s vision is not only alive and well today, but thriving — a life-affirming reminder of how music moves us at a fundamental level, and how nurturing artistic expression creates a joyful ambience that defies ageing.