Selby Gardens has announced its 11^th annual Jean & Alfred Goldstein Exhibition: Verdi: Composer & Farmer, a collaboration with former Sarasota Opera artistic director Victor DeRenzi, the only person to have produced and conducted all of Italian composer Guiseppe Verdi’s works. 

Verdi: Composer & Farmer will celebrate Verdi's life and legacy, but also explore his lesser-known love of nature through his activities as a gardener and farmer. It will combine a display of objects and images in the Richard and Ellen Sandor Museum of Botany & the Arts with horticultural vignettes in the Display Conservatory and throughout the gardens that will draw inspiration and feature selections of music from Verdi’s operas. A special performance series will also accompany the exhibition.

"This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to explore the relationship between creativity and the natural world while experiencing Verdi’s legacy in an entirely new context," Jennifer O. Rominiecki, Selby Gardens' president and CEO, said in a press release. 

“Verdi has been an extraordinary presence in my life, and I have always been fascinated not only by his genius as a composer, but by the man behind the music," DeRenzi added in the release. "His deep connection to the land, agriculture, and nature offers a compelling way to understand the source of his creativity.”

Verdi: Composer & Farmer will be on view Feb. 7, 2027, through May 30, 2027, at Selby Gardens' downtown Sarasota campus. For more information, click here.