The places of the Maestro
In the Bassa Parmense, the flat land near the Po, among fields, poplars and morning fog, lies the land of Giuseppe Verdi, the greatest Italian opera composer. Verdi was born in 1813 in the hamlet of Roncole, now Roncole Verdi, in a modest house, the Casa natale, where his father ran an inn and grocery shop, which can be visited. The small town of Busseto, a few kilometres away, where he studied music and spent his youth, preserves many places linked to his life: the Casa Barezzi, the home of the merchant Antonio Barezzi, his patron and future father-in-law, who welcomed him as a son and where the young Verdi played the piano, now a museum; and the Teatro Verdi, a jewel of a theatre with about 300 seats, built in 1868 in the Rocca, which Verdi did not want, considering it too expensive, and where he never set foot.
In the beautiful sixteenth century Villa Pallavicino, on the edge of town, the Museo Nazionale Giuseppe Verdi tells the story of his 27 operas, from Nabucco to Falstaff, room by room, with sets, costumes and music. A few kilometres away, in the hamlet of Sant'Agata di Villanova sull'Arda, is the Villa Verdi, the country house where the composer lived with Giuseppina Strepponi and wrote many of his masterpieces; its opening to the public depends on the situation of the property. Every October, the Festival Verdi brings the operas of the Maestro to Parma and Busseto. The area is also the land of culatello di Zibello, the finest Italian cured meat, aged in the damp cellars of the Bassa.
Tip: check if Villa Verdi is open before you go; combine the visit with a tasting of culatello in a trattoria near the Po.
Where it is
More things to see in Emilia-Romagna
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