In first half of his career, Verdi was forced to alter the settings of politically sensitive subjects to get them past the censors. The womanizing tenor in Rigoletto (1851) that we now know as the Duke of Mantua was originally François I of France. King Gustavus of Sweden, whose assassination is the subject of Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball, 1859), became Riccardo, the Governor of colonial Boston. But when setting a French adaptation of Schiller's play Don Carlos in 1867, he was able to remain relatively true both to the original and to history. The action is set against the background of the quest for independence in the Spanish Netherlands; an auto-da-fé of the Spanish Inquisition is displayed onstage; and King Philip II is shown in private anguish, musing on kingship and mortality.

Giuseppe Verdi, 1813–1901. Italian composer.   The composer of 27 operas from Oberto (1835) through Falstaff (1893), Verdi became the premier opera composer in Italy and, with his exact contemporary but very differently-thinking Richard Wagner, in the world. His reputation rests mainly on the astonishing trio of operas that launched his middle period—Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore, and La Traviata (both 1853)—and by his three final works: Aida (1871), Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893).