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An English National Opera production of Verdi’s La Traviata at the London Coliseum.
An English National Opera production of Verdi’s La Traviata at the London Coliseum. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
An English National Opera production of Verdi’s La Traviata at the London Coliseum. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Life for retired opera singers in the house that Verdi built

This article is more than 4 years old

Old and young alike are now benefiting from the composer’s home for retired musicians

Renato Franco Perversi and Irena Domowicz are squabbling over who does the better rendition of the Neapolitan classic, O Sole Mio. Perversi, 87, sings deep, while Domowicz, who says you must never ask a woman her age, immediately replicates the kind of performance she might have given during her career as a mezzo-soprano.

“There is more theatre in here sometimes than in the outside world,” she joked.

Mezzo-soprano Irena Domowicz.

Hardly surprising. The pair are among the 60 retired opera stars playing out their days in an elegant mansion in Milan founded by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi, famous for compositions including La Traviata, Aida and Otello, was in his 80s when he conceived the idea of a refuge for musicians who, he said, “are not favoured by fortune, or who, when they were young, did not possess the virtue of saving”.

He did not want to be thanked for his generosity, and so stipulated that the home be opened after his death. The composer died in 1901, and the first nine guests moved into Casa Verdi a year later. For the next few decades, royalties from Verdi’s 27 works paid for the residents’ keep, including medical costs, and the building’s maintenance.

Today most of the costs are covered by investments made by the Giuseppe Verdi Foundation, with residents paying according to their means.

“The motives for which Giuseppe Verdi chose to build this house are still valid,” said Roberto Ruozi, president of the Giuseppe Verdi Foundation. “In the sense that there are numerous personalities who have dedicated their lives to music, who need to enter into a retirement home as they no longer have the economic means to sustain themselves, or who have complicated family lives.”

Over the last 117 years, Casa Verdi has hosted 1,500 guests from across the musical spectrum, some of them famous, others less so. Perversi played the violin at La Scala for 10 years, while Domowicz toured with philharmonic orchestras across the globe. Another resident is 94-year-old Bissy Roman, a musicologist who was teaching well into her 70s.

“Music is my life and I am very lucky to be here with other musicians,” said Roman.

Casa Verdi in Milan with the composer’s statue outside. Photograph: Casa Verdi

Casa Verdi is not so much of a “rest home” in the traditional sense. The sound of music is everywhere. On the morning the Guardian visited, guests were wrapping up a singing session around the piano. Instruments fill the rooms, including a wooden spinet gifted to Verdi to practise on as a child, while concerts are a regular occurrence.

The home is also a museum to Verdi, containing items of his clothing, letters and paintings he commissioned from poor artists. The composer is nearby, having been laid to rest in Casa Verdi’s courtyard alongside his wife, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi.

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When the sculptor and politician, Giulio Monteverde, wrote in a letter to Verdi: “Tell me the truth. What is your favourite work?”, the maestro replied: “The home I built in Milan for retired musicians.”

The only big alteration to Casa Verdi came in 1999, when it was opened up to 20 music students, an initiative aimed at assisting young people as well as bringing the generations together. The two groups mix and the older musicians give the young people invaluable guidance.

“For the elderly people, the youngsters are injections of life and vice-versa, for the young people, the elderly are their teachers,” said Ruozi.

Roman said that one of the best things about living in Casa Verdi was the students. Among her favourites is Corrado Neri, a 25-year-old singer and composer from Sicily.

Bissy Roman. Photograph: Angela Giuffrida/The Guardian

“When I first came to Milan I really struggled to find a place to stay and study,” said Neri, who through Roman’s connections has been collaborating with a music company in New York. “I had applied to Casa Verdi and two years later they called to say there was a place. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. These people are my family and best supporters, I have learned so much from them.”

Perversi has been a resident since early 2016. “There are no words to describe Verdi’s generosity … we still feel him around us,” he said. “It’s an extraordinary place to live, and yes, even though these are our final days, Verdi has given us the possibility to live well.”

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