Francesco Maria Piave
Francesco Maria Piave (
18 May 1810 –
5 March 1876) was an
Italian librettist who was
Verdi's life-long friend and collaborator. Like Verdi, Piave was an ardant Italian patriot, and in
1848, during
Milan's
"Cinque Giornate," when Radetsky's
Austrian troops retreated from the city, Verdi's letter to Piave in
Venice was addressed to "Citizen Piave."
Piave was born in Murano in the lagoon of
Venice, during the brief Napoleonic
Kingdom of Italy. He followed
Salvatore Cammarano as Verdi's main mid-career librettist, writing the librettos for Verdi's
operas
Ernani (
1844),
I due Foscari (
1844),
Attila (
1846),
Macbeth (
1847),
Il Corsaro (
1848),
Stiffelio (Verdi,
1850),
Rigoletto (
1851),
La traviata (
1853)
Simon Boccanegra (
1857), and
La forza del destino (
1862). Piave would have also prepared the libretto for
Aida, the commission for which Verdi accepted in
1870, had he not suffered a disabling
stroke.
Less memorably, Piave also supplied librettos for
Giovanni Pacini,
Saverio Mercadante,
Federico Ricci, even one for
Michael Balfe.
Piave died in Milan in
1876 at age 65 and was interred there in the
Cimitero Monumentale.
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Complete List of Piave's librettos
