Tale of two epoch-defining classical music titans born in the same year

Operatic face-off shows that in Milan at least, Verdi v Wagner is still more of a cultural draw than Strictly v The X FactorIt's the ultimate operatic face-off. In the blue corner is Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian humanist and hero of the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy. In the red corner is Richard Wagner, creator of gigantic Gesamtkunstwerken (total works of art) and classical music's greatest myth-maker, both in his lifetime and in his sometimes baleful influence from beyond the gra...

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