Verdi Or Wagner: Who’s Better?
As Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner both celebrate bicentenaries in 2013, Ivan Hewett asks opera experts from around the world who the better composer is. Hewett writes: ‘It’s apt that Wagner and Verdi were born in the same year. They are romantic opera’s two great antipodes, united in stature, but divided in almost everything else. They embody two completely different outlooks on life and art, which are rooted in the cultures of their respective nations. That’s why every German city has a Wagnerstrasse, and every Italian one a Corso Giuseppe Verdi.’
