MILAN, Italy (AP) — Opera marked the centennial of the death of its most popular composer Saturday, with solemn notes of Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem sounding out in music halls from Milan to Munich to New York's Carnegie Hall.
In Milan, scattered straw muted the clatter of traffic outside the city's Grand Hotel, as it did when Verdi lay dying inside 100 years ago Saturday. Notices posted outside re-created the scribbled medical bulletins that had brought despair to thousands: "For some hours, the Maestro's condition leaves no more room for hope."
A century after Verdi's death, the legacy of the composer of "Aida," "Il Trovatore," and "Rigoletto" — his pounding Anvil Chorus and boisterous "La donna e mobile" recognizable even to the operatically immune — is still ringing strong.
"He had a vision that transcended that of man," said Riccardo Muti, conductor at Milan's venerable La Scala opera house and leader of one of many commemorative performances worldwide.
Verdi died at 87, succumbing to a stroke that had kept admirers between hope and fear for six days. A 300,000-strong procession accompanied his coffin through the streets of Milan, many mourners singing "Va pensiero" — the soaring tune many Italians today still want as the national anthem.
"Verdi always closed his works with a voice of salvation, of forgiveness, of pardon," Muti, one of the world's foremost conductors, wrote in Saturday's Avvenire magazine. "In Verdi, the chord of hope always rings."
Music lovers consider the slight, bandy-legged composer unique in his ability to combine drama, great music and great theater. Pope John Paul II joined those paying tribute Saturday, calling Verdi among "the great composers."
At Milan's Cova cafe, where Verdi liked to relax over coffee and a cigar, patrons nibbled commemorative cakes with the composer's bearded likeness on top.
Suite No. 105 at the Grand, where Verdi drew his last breath at 2:50 a.m. on Jan. 27, 1901, was going for what rumor put at thousands of dollars a night.
Hotel administrators refused to say.
Milan's Fruili orchestra performed his works overnight, finishing the last piece at 2:50 a.m. Saturday. Thousands gathered overnight outside the Grand, many holding candles.
Outside La Scala, postal workers were giving away free stamps and postcards with Verdi's image.
A Milan movie house showed rare footage of Verdi's funeral at the spired Duomo cathedral.
The funeral procession ended at Milan's Casa di Riposo, where Verdi was buried. Saturday, his portrait stared out from each room from a nearby retirement home for needy opera singers, built and still funded by proceeds from Verdi's works.
The Metropolitan Opera in New York was commemorating the anniversary with a performance of "Aida" with tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Placido Domingo was conducting a performance of the Requiem in Washington on Saturday night, and Vincent La Selva was conducting the piece at New York's Carnegie Hall.