In another instance, Un ballo in maschera, based on the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, was unacceptable in its presentation of regicide, so the King eventually became the governor of Massachusetts instead (one of the more bizarre plot changes in the history of opera).Īfter La traviata, Verdi became very selective in his commissions. In Rigoletto, which is based on a famous play by Victor Hugo, Le Roi s’amuse (the King amuses himself), Verdi had to demote the libertine King to the level of Duke. Verdi also had to deal with the problems of censorship. Certain factors suggest that a child born-and immediately abandoned-a month after Rigoletto’s premiere was Verdi’s illegitimate daughter.

To make matters worse, Strepponi may have been pregnant at the time. Verdi was living with retired prima donna Giuseppina Strepponi (whom he later married) and was in the process of an ugly formal separation (that he initiated) from his parents. The first of these was written at a time of intense personal stress. The works that are best known to opera lovers today begin with the amazing trio of Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and La traviata (1853). Of this batch, the most successful are I Lombardi (1843), Ernani (1844), Macbeth (1847), and Luisa Miller (1849). Fortunately any such renunciation was temporary, and the success of his next composition, Nabucco (1842), sparked a period of intense productivity, with thirteen operas appearing in several countries over the next eight years.

This, combined with the death of his wife and children, led him to renounce composition (or so he claimed later in life). The success of the first opera generated a contract for further works, but Verdi’s following piece, the last comic opera he was to write until Falstaff, failed. Here he served as town music director and wrote his first opera, moving back to Milan to prepare for the work’s premiere at La Scala in 1839. After being rejected by the conservatory there (the assistant to the head of the conservatory predicted “that he will turn out to be a mediocrity” ), he studied privately for several years before returning to Busseto. Local funding enabled him to travel to Milan to study composition when he was 18. Verdi rapidly exhausted the musical resources of the small village where he was born and moved to nearby Busseto at the age of 10.

Verdi opera with desdemona