La forza del destino

Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La Forza del destino offers a prime example of the unpredictable workings of fate. Verdi composed a short and striking motif to represent this theme in the opera, which runs through the entire work from the overture to the finale like a red thread – or perhaps more appropriately – a thread of fate. This repeatedly recurring motif, which is particularly arresting in the brief prelude to the opera, symbolises the inevitability of all that human beings are subjected to throughout their lives.