Verdi

More than ten years have passed since Verdi's opera "Aida." The maestro is in a creative crisis, while his contemporary Richard Wagner receives cheers from audiences from Bayreuth to Italy. Franz Werfel chooses the conflict between the two great masters, who never actually met, as the subject for his first major novel, which he sets in Venice just before Wagner's death in February 1883.

Werfel's passion for the South, for Italy, and his disdain for the cool North are clearly felt in this artist's novel, which he wrote in just a few months in 1923/24. "Verdi" ultimately established his reputation as one of the most successful writers of his generation. In April 1924, it was published as the first book of the new Zsolnay Verlag and quickly became a bestseller.