Fing, a lean, chiseled, impeccable gentleman of the old school who was once mistaken on the street for Sir Cedric Hardwicke, is responsible for the rediscovery of Verdi's earliest, most raucous opera, Nabisco, a sumptuous bout-de-souffle with a haunting leitmotiv that struck me as being highly reminiscent of the Mudugno version of `` Volare ''.

However, her contract was cancelled shortly thereafter when she refused to sing Violetta from Verdi's La Traviata on moral grounds.

The day after that ( Tuesday ), Verdi's father took his newborn the three miles to Busseto, where the baby was recorded as Joseph Fortunin François ; the clerk wrote in French.

When he was still a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school.

It was while he was working on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife died.

Legend ( and Verdi's own " An Autobiographical Sketch " of 1879 ) has it that it was the words of the famous Va pensiero chorus of the Hebrew slaves that inspired him to write music again.

There followed the second and third of the three major operas of Verdi's " middle period ": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and La traviata in Venice.

The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils ' play The Lady of the Camellias, and became the most popular of all Verdi's operas, placing first in the Operabase list of most performed operas worldwide.

The requiem was compiled and completed, but it was cancelled at the last minute ( and was not performed in Verdi's lifetime ).

Verdi's grand opera, Aida, is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but, according to one major critic, Verdi turned down the Khedive's invitation to write an " ode " for the new opera house he was planning to inaugurate as part of the canal opening festivities.

Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation.

It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.

On the other hand, during rehearsals, workmen in the theater stopped what they were doing during Va, pensiero and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting melody while the growth of the " identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics " is judged to have begun in the summer 1846 in relation to a chorus from Ernani in which the name of one of its characters, " Carlo ", was changed to " Pio ", a reference to Pope Pius IX's grant of an amnesty to political prisoners.

After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi's early operas were re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that probably had not been intended by either the composer or librettist.

Although respectful of Gounod, Verdi was careful not to learn anything from the Frenchman whom many of Verdi's contemporaries regarded as the greatest living composer.

Furthermore, she was able to cope with such dramatic roles as " Azucena " and " Ulrica " in Verdi's Il trovatore and Un ballo in maschera, and even with the baritone role of " Don Carlo " in Ernani ( London, 1847 ).

In between the bass and the tenor is the baritone, which also varies in weight from say, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte to Posa in Verdi's Don Carlos ; the actual designation " baritone " was not used until the mid-19th century.

It was also the third of Verdi's operas to be based on a Shakespearean play, following his earlier Macbeth and Otello.

Contrary to popular belief, the opera was not written to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, nor that of the Khedivial Opera House ( which opened with Verdi's Rigoletto ) in the same year.

That girl last night, what was her name??

At last, when I put it to him directly, the clerk was forced to admit that the delay in my case was unusual.

She regarded them as signs that she was nearing the glen she sought, and she was glad to at last be doing something positive in her unenunciated, undefined struggle with the mountain and its darkling inhabitants.

Now, he could only play the last card in what was probably the world's coldest deck.

It was practically the last move that McBride made of his own volition.

Stevens was grunting over the last empty pocket when Russ abruptly rose and lunged toward Carmer's hat, which had tumbled half-a-dozen feet away when he first fell.

Greg's mission was the last to leave, and as he circled the ships off Tacloban he saw the clouds were dropping down again.

My last impression as they led him off to a stockade was of his pale face

Satisfied at last, and after a few amorous gambits on her part which convinced Delphine that Dandy was capable of learning new arts, she opened the window and called to her liveried driver.

Their writings assume more than dramatic or patriotic interest because of their conviction that the struggle in which they were involved was neither selfish nor parochial but, rather, as Washington in his last wartime circular reminded his fellow countrymen, that `` with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved ''.

The difference came down to this: The Southern States insisted that the United States was, in last analysis, what its name implied -- a Union of States.

The Rooseveltian America was a haven of liberalism and progress and seemed to him to constitute the last best hope for civilization.

It was symbolized ( at least for those of us who recognized ourselves in the image ) by that self-consuming, elegiac candle of Edna St. Vincent Millay's, that candle which from the quatrain where she ensconced it became a beacon to us, but which in point of fact would have had to be as tall as a funeral taper to last even the evening, let alone the night.

Incidentally, there was an Atlas firing last night.

Fortunately the hole was found at last and plugged.

At last they concluded that the heavy, full feeling in their stomachs was due to lack of exercise.

The last point was soon to be included in the `` seditious '' remarks used against him in Parliament.

It was her job to stand at the foot of the stairs, and, just as the First Lady stepped off the last tread, Mama would straighten out her long train before she marched to the Blue Room to greet her guests with the President.

Trevelyan's Manin And The Venetian Revolution Of 1848, his last major volume on an Italian theme, was written in a minor key.

He had braved the elements and the enemy, but the strain, aided by the winter, was catching up with him at last.

`` This whole Washington venture was my last gesture, and it has failed.

Lewis was spending his mornings, with the help of two secretaries, on the galleys of that long novel, making considerable revisions, and the combination of hard work and hard frivolity exhausted him once more, so that he was compelled to spend three days in the Harbor Sanatorium in the last week of January.