Feathers in the Wind with Verdi's La donna è mobile
The Backstory

Small-Town Gossip in Busseto

Back in 1850, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice asked me for a new opera, which eventually became Rigoletto. I was writing the music in my hometown of Busseto, living at the Palazzo Orlandi with my partner, the retired soprano Giuseppina Strepponi. Because we were living together without being married, our neighbors treated us like we had robbed the town bank. The cold shoulders got so tiring that by May 1851 we packed our bags and moved out to my country estate at Sant'Agata, Villa Verdi, just to get some peace and quiet.

Borrowing from a Troublemaker

To build the story for Rigoletto, my librettist Francesco Maria Piave and I turned to Victor Hugo's 1832 play Le roi s'amuse. It was a controversial piece of theatre, which naturally made me want to set it to music right away. For the start of the third act, we needed a carefree song for the Duke of Mantua, a ruler who changes his affections as often as his shirts. That song became La donna è mobile, and it sits right at the opening of the final act to show just how little the man cares about anyone else.

Royal Graffiti on the Window

The title is simply the opening line of the Italian lyrics, which translates to Woman is fickle. Piave adapted those words from a French couplet in Hugo's play that begins with Souvent femme varie. The story goes that King Francis I of France once scratched those very lines onto a windowpane at the Château de Chambord, though nobody knows for sure if he actually did it. Even if a king never ruined a good window, the words suited my shameless Duke down to the ground.

A Wolf in Cheerful Clothing

What always amuses me is how many people hear this tune and assume it is a sweet declaration of love. In reality, the Duke is complaining about how untrustworthy women are right before he tries to seduce another one. I gave him a bright B major key and a lively Allegretto pace so he would sound completely pleased with himself. The gentle triple meter gives the song a casual swing, as if he is just tossing the words over his shoulder while ordering a glass of wine.

Guarding the Golden Tune

As the premiere in Venice drew near, I knew I had written a melody that would stick to anyone's ears like fresh glue. If the rehearsals leaked out into the city, every gondolier would be singing my tune before the curtain even went up. So I kept the sheet music locked away until the very last moment, guarding it like a family recipe. When I finally handed the pages to my tenor, Raffaele Mirate, I made him promise not to hum or whistle a single note outside the theatre.

Whistling Along the Canals

Mirate kept his word, and on 11 March 1851 he stepped onto the stage at La Fenice with Gaetano Mares conducting the orchestra. The moment he sang those two verses, the Venetian crowd knew they were hearing something special. The premiere was a huge triumph, and my little precaution proved completely right the very next morning. As I walked out the day after the show, I heard people singing and whistling the melody all along the streets and canals of Venice.

The Tenor's Final Show-Off

Of course, once tenors get their hands on a popular song, they cannot resist adding a little extra sparkle at the end. When you hear the piece today, the singer almost always finishes the final cadenza by holding a ringing high B4 for as long as his lungs allow. People assume I wrote that note, when in truth the highest pitch in my score is an A-sharp 4. Some enterprising tenor decided to climb one step higher to show off, and the habit stuck so firmly that audiences now feel cheated without it.

No Need for Secret Codes

If you ever go looking for my original manuscript to check that note yourself, Casa Ricordi in Milan keeps it safe in their archives after publishing the first edition. You will also notice that my works do not have those long catalogue numbers that scholars love to attach to other composers. I never bothered with a universal numbering system, because a title and an act number were always plenty for a working theatre. Depending on which score you open, you will simply find the song listed as Act 3, No. 11 in the Ricordi vocal score or No. 17 in the full score.

From the Opera House to the Snack Bowl

Over the years, my little tune has wandered into places I never could have pictured while sitting at my desk in Busseto. It has popped up in films and video games, and television advertisers love using it to sell everything including Doritos during the Super Bowl. English football fans even borrowed the melody for their stadium chants, shouting new words from the stands every weekend. Not bad for a secretive song that my poor tenor was not even allowed to whistle on his walk home from rehearsal.