They did not sing “Happy Birthday.” At least, not at first.
Instead, they celebrated Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday last month with a rendition of “Va Pensiero,” a chorus from his opera “Nabucco.” The song is so beloved that there have been proposals to make it Italy’s national anthem.
The choir consisted of men from all walks of life — bankers, a surgeon, a lawyer, a neuroscientist, a vegetable vendor — and with one burning passion in common: adoration for the 19th-century composer.
They are all members of Club dei 27, an exclusive club based in Parma, not far from Verdi’s birthplace, whose members take the name of a Verdi opera when they join.
How exclusive is Club dei 27? Men (yes, only men) can join, and only when a member dies or retires.
Naturally, there is a waiting list. “When we get a new request, we touch wood,” as a way to ward off any premature deaths, said Enzo Petrolini, the president of the club, half joking.
Club dei 27 is not to be confused with the 27 Club, which refers to a number of famous musicians — Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and others — who died at age 27. For these Italian opera lovers, longevity is key.
“For the 211th time, happy birthday to Maestro Verdi,” Mr. Petrolini said on Oct. 10 by way of a toast at this year’s birthday celebration. His words were greeted with cheers of “Viva Verdi.”
Though Verdi was one the most famous composers of the 19th century, he spent most of his life in this agricultural area of Italy, once famously saying, “I have been, I am and always will be a villager from Roncole.” He wrote at least 26 operas, including “La Traviata” and “Aida,” as well as the famed “Requiem Mass.”
To celebrate his life, and his music, the members of Club dei 27 gather every Oct. 10 and drink spumante from ceramic mugs they use on that day only, each one individually labeled with their Verdi-opera aliases. Mr. Petrolini’s is “Un Giorno di Regno,” or “King for a Day,” an early opera that was an ego-deflating fiasco when it debuted in 1840. (“It’s no ‘Rigoletto,’” Mr. Petrolini, 75, said diplomatically.)
They have a dress code for special occasions: a navy blazer, gray trousers and matching ties with the club’s logo.
From its roots in 1958, when a bunch of Verdi groupies met in a modest panino shop, the club has grown into an established fraternity that hobnobs with A-list conductors and opera singers. The group also hands out its own knighthoods and runs fund-raisers and educational programs for schoolchildren. About Verdi, of course.
The exclusivity of the fraternity has created an aura of mystery around Club dei 27, feeding theories about membership prerequisites, like the ability to sing all of Verdi’s operas by heart, or at least the opera for whom a member is named. One rumor said that members had to know obscure bits of trivia, like how much the opera diva Maria Callas weighed at birth.
“All urban legends,” Mr. Petrolini said, adding that the only requirement was “a passion for Verdi.”
And patience.
Demetrio Ravasio, 58, a.k.a. “Don Carlo,” said he joined two years ago after the previous “Don Carlo” died at 91 after setting a record as the club’s longest-running member. Mr. Ravasio’s desire to join began about 30 years ago. He was so excited when he was finally inducted that he got a tattoo with his opera’s name. “I’m not attached to Verdi, it’s much more,” he said. “It’s visceral.”
If you ask, the members can tell you about the first opera they ever saw.
For Fernando Zaccarini, a.k.a. “Giovanna D’Arco,” 83, it was “Rigoletto.” For Paolo Zoppi, 75, it was “La Forza del Destino,” which he saw in 1968.
Now, 1,218 operas later (seen in theaters around the world), Mr. Zoppi said he was experiencing a bit of “an overdose.” Even so, each year on behalf of the 27, he organizes a benefit gala at the Teatro Regio, the city’s opera house, that is part of the Verdi fall festival season.
They know “how important and right it is for people who live here to know who Verdi is,” said Paolo Maier, the Regio’s spokesman.
A 2017 film — part fiction, part documentary — chronicles the story of a young boy from Parma, Giacomo Anelli, who aspires to join Club dei 27. During a dream sequence, he imagines killing off a member to gain his position and doing so in a regionally apropos way — by dropping a wheel of Parmesan cheese on his head. Mr. Petrolini said that these days, Giacomo, now a teenager, has other things on his mind. At least for now.
Club wannabes have to be sponsored by an existing member who can attest to their passion for Verdi, said Stefano Bianchi, 60. The oldest member is 85.
The process to select new members is not dissimilar to a papal conclave, he said, when cardinals gather in a closely guarded meeting to select a new pope. The Verdi lovers close themselves into their clubhouse and vote in secret, though there is no white smoke as there is when a new pope is chosen, Mr. Bianchi noted with a laugh.
Those are not the only things the club has in common with the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. Both are also all-male clubs.
Mr. Petrolini contends that this is not a problem because, he said, women were not clamoring to join.
But that is not entirely true, according to Luciana Dallari, a Verdi aficionado from Parma, who started a women-only fan club in 2008.
“I always thought it wasn’t right that there were only men in the Club dei 27,” she said, noting that some of Verdi’s operas were, after all, named for women.
Members of her group take the names of female characters from Verdi’s operas.
The group is called Verdissime.com, and its motto, “sempre libera,” which means “always free,” the title of a duet from Verdi’s “La Traviata,” is a reference to the group’s less regimented approach to membership than the men’s club. As in, no one has to die for someone new to join.
They also eschew the commemorations that the men’s group is big on. “As women,” Ms. Dallari said, “we don’t have much free time because of balancing work and families.”
For Club dei 27, Verdi’s birthday is a particularly busy day.
This year, it began with a pilgrimage to the composer’s birthplace, Roncole Verdi. Club members gathered in a room where he is said to have been born in 1813, above the tavern his father ran. The building is now a museum.
After laying a bouquet of roses on the bed, the men launched into a rousing version of “Va Pensiero.” Mr. Petrolini noted that their voices were much improved since they began taking singing lessons.
A wreath-laying ceremony at the Verdi monument in downtown Parma followed, which ended with a chorus of, yes, “Va Pensiero,” by two choirs.
It was only after a lunch of horse meat tartare, in a clubhouse surrounded by opera paraphernalia, that they finally sang “Happy Birthday.” Not to Verdi, but to Mr. Bianchi, or “Aida,” who happens to share a birthday with the maestro.
His family was not opera loving, he said, but that has not stopped him from pursuing his passion. He said his life changed in middle school when a teacher introduced him to the beauty of opera and assigned him to learn an aria from “Rigoletto” by heart.
“Something clicked then,” he said, “and it never stopped.”
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