Four Last Songs ─ Aging and Creativity in Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten

Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties at a time when their audience’s expectations of their talents are at a peak. InFour Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue through close looks at those who created some of the world’s most important and influential operas.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908–92), and Benjamin Britten (1913–76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal radically individual responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi’sFalstaff, his only comedic success, combated the influence of Richard Wagner by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive Capriccio, a “life review” of opera and his own musical legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen at the age of seventy-five finished his first and only opera,Saint Francois d’Assise, which marked the religious and aesthetic pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffered from heart problems toward the end of his life and raced against time, refusing to undergo surgery until he had completed his masterpiece,Death in Venice. For all four composers, age, far from sapping the power of creativity, provided impetus for some of their most impressive accomplishments.

The diverse stories presented here provide unique insight into the attitudes and cultural discourse surrounding creativity, aging, and late style. With its deft treatment of these composers’ final years and works,Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges—and opportunities—that present themselves as artists grow older.

Linda Hutcheon is university professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto and the author of many books on contemporary culture and theory.Michael Hutcheon is a pulmonologist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. Together they have written several books on opera and medical culture, most recentlyOpera: The Art of Dying.