VERDI GAME is a “participatory” theatrical performance combining spoken drama and opera: a game, a narrative about the life and works of the composer who is almost certainly the most famous in the world, Giuseppe Verdi.

The artist, the man of culture, and the public figure—his extraordinary music, the most significant events of his life, and his creations—will be told through actors, singers, live music, life stories, and stories from his operas. It is an interwoven performance in which audiences of all ages are involved “live,” as if the great Verdi were still among us, delighting us with his immense personality and his frenetic musical mind. The result is an original and passionate portrait—at times also a painful one—of a musician who left us some of the most beautiful operas of all time.

In contrast to Verdi’s imposing figure, we also encounter the wonderful Shakespearean character Falstaff, the protagonist of the last opera by the Maestro from Busseto. With a brilliant final twist, after a lifetime spent writing dramas, Verdi bids farewell to the world with a comic opera. That old, clumsy, boastful trickster Falstaff offers a new way of looking at life: laughter is good for the heart and the mind, and it helps us put into perspective the small and great disappointments we face every day, while also highlighting how fragile and flawed human nature can be.

His adventures, along with those of the Merry Wives of Windsor, will entertain the audience in a bittersweet atmosphere and affirm the simplest and truest moral: “Tutto nel mondo è burla!”

A performance by Venti Lucenti.
Staged by the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in co-production with Venti Lucenti. In collaboration with the Maggio Musicale Academy.

Maggio Metropolitano is a project of the Fondazione Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino funded by the Metropolitan City of Florence.

Project financed by