VERDI DIARY OF PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY - Michele Nitti

VERDI DIARY OF PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY

Michele Nitti: Green Party, Diary of Parliamentary Activity

Turin. On a chilly December morning in 1861, G. Verdi went to Cavour's home, determined to refuse the invitation to run for the first National Parliament: his sense of inadequacy for the role was too great, his intolerance for the length of parliamentary sessions too great. Yet, within those walls, his decision changed: the Maestro accepted the candidacy and was elected deputy. As time passed and his tenure in the institutions, Verdi reconsidered his position on Garibaldi and definitively rejected any party affiliation. The sudden death of Cavour, the man who had most strongly urged his candidacy, profoundly shook the composer and became a watershed moment in his political career, marking his slow and progressive detachment. Faced with the explosion of the social question, Verdi recognized the limits of political action, and not even his appointment as Senator in 1874 succeeded in rekindling his former enthusiasm. Thus, he personally attempts to counter the worsening conditions of the most vulnerable classes with philanthropic and socially committed actions; but all of this will take place far from the palaces, in a liberating and definitive state of estrangement from party and institutional dynamics.

250 pages

Format A5

FEBRUARY 2022

MICHELE NITTI is a conductor and a Member of Parliament of the Italian Republic, chairing the VII Commission for Culture, Science, and Education at the Chamber of Deputies. He is a guest conductor at major concert venues and holds the chair of Orchestral Practice at the Lecce Conservatory of Music.

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