| Giuseppe Verdi | Frontispiece |
| Antonio Barezzi | Facing Page 14 |
| Margherita Barezzi | Facing Page 40 |
| Giovanni Provesi | Facing Page 160 |
| Giulio Ricordi | Facing Page 216 |
This work is an attempt to tell, in a popular key, the story of Verdi's remarkable career. A connected chronological account of this composer's life is needed; and a plain unvarnished narrative will best coincide with the temperament and habit of one who, throughout a long life, has been singularly abhorrent of pomp and vanity.
In the literature concerning Verdi, the great man's English experiences have been studiously neglected. We learn about Verdi in Italy, also in France; but scarcely anything is recorded respecting Verdi in England—the land which, more than any other country, served to make and enrich Verdi. It is to show more of the English side of the famous maestro's career that the present book is written. It may, probably will be, long years ere Italy will have another such son to worship. A tone-worker like Verdi is rare. Then, few great composers who have appealed to the English public have lived to see their works received and appreciated to the extent that Verdi has; and it is unparalleled in the history of musical art, to find a musician, when a septuagenarian and octogenarian, giving to the world compositions which, for conception and freshness, far surpass the scores written by him in the vigour of middle age.
It would be ungracious indeed were I to neglect to express the very deep obligation which I am under to the illustrious maestro for the handsome and specially signed portrait which adorns this volume. Not less am I indebted to the Messrs. Ricordi for all the kind assistance and encouragement which they have afforded me during the preparation of this work.
F.J.C.
London, June 1897.
Verdi's birth and birth-place—Dispute as to his township—Baptismal certificate—His parentage—The parents' circumstances—The osteria kept by them—A regular market-man—A mixed business—Verdi's early surroundings and influences—Verdi not a musical wonder or show-child—His natural child-life—Enchanted with street organ—Quiet manner as a child—Acolyte at Roncole Church—Enraptured with the organ music—Is bought a spinet—Practises incessantly—Gratuitous spinet repairs—To school at Busseto—Slender board and curriculum—First musical instruction—An apt pupil.
Verdi was born at Roncole, an unpretentious settlement, sparsely inhabited, hard by Busseto, which, in its turn, is at the foot of the Appenine range, and some seventeen miles north-west of Parma, in Italy. The red-letter day, since such it deservedly is, on which this universal melodist first saw the light was the 10th October 1813. Terrible events shadowed his infancy. In 1814 the village was sacked by the invading allies. Then the frightened women took refuge in the church—safe, as they believed, near the image of the Virgin—until the soldiers forced the doors, and slew women and children till the floor reeked with blood. One woman, with infant at breast, flew to the belfry and hid there, thus saving herself and her child. The child was the infant Verdi!
Whenever a son of man is born into the world who, in the mysterious course of events, turns out to be what mankind calls "great," there is inevitably a community jealous to claim ownership of the illustrious one, alive or dead. The subject may have lingered through troublous long seasons, craving vainly for the stimulus of even scanty recognition. He has only to become "great" to find hosts of persevering friends. Verdi having risen to great eminence, more than one locality has claimed him. He has been styled "il cigno di Busseto,"[1] and "il maestro Parmigiano"; but he was neither the swan of Busseto nor the master of the town of cheeses. Roncole alone is entitled to the sonship of Verdi; and as both Parma and her smaller sister town, Busseto, have disputed his parentage, the point of interest has been very properly investigated. The result is that the question has been decided once and for all. A certificate written in Latin has been traced, which establishes beyond dispute both the time and place of Verdi's birth. The following is the text of the original document:—
"Anno Dom. 1813 die 11 Octobris—Ego Carolus Montanari Praepositus Runcularum baptizavi Infantem hodie vespere hora sexta natum ex Carolo Verdi qm Josepho et ex Aloisia Utini filia Caroli, hujus parocciae jugalibus, cui nomina imposui—Fortuninus Joseph, Franciscus—Patrini fuere Dominus Petrus Casali qd Felicis et Barbara Bersani filia Angioli, ambo hujus parocciae."
This dog Latin, translated into English, runs as follows:—"In the year of our Lord 1813, on the 11th day of October, I, Charles Montanari, placed in charge of Roncole, did at the sixth hour of this evening baptize the infant son of Charles Verdi and Louisa Utini, daughter of Charles, married in this parish, under the name of Fortuninus Joseph Franciscus. The sponsors were Father Peter Casali qd Felicis and Barbara Bersani, daughter of Angiolus, both of this parish."[2]
The abode in which the infant Verdi first opened his eyes was one of the best known and most frequented among a cluster of cottages inhabited by labouring folk who found work and small wage in the immediate neighbourhood of Roncole, a three miles' stretch from Busseto. It was a tumble-down stone-and-mortar-mixture building of low pitch.
Padre Carlo Verdi and his good wife Luigia Utini were the licensed keepers of this small osteria, whereat wine, spirits, and malt, with their close relations pipes and tobacco, were matters of trade between Boniface or la signora and the frugal contadini who lived in and about Roncole. Wine and music! Another illustration of the curious union between harmony and alcohol—a connection which harmless as it really is, has been discouraged and taken fearfully to heart by a sensitive sort of people, but which has never yet been satisfactorily disproved or accounted for by all the Good Templar philosophy. Bacchanalian aids were not the only commodities dealt in by the honest, though illiterate Carlo Verdi and his brave wife. The inn stood also as the local dépôt for such unromantic necessaries of existence as sugar, coffee, matches, oil, cheese, and sausage—all indispensable items in housekeeping, even in Italy.
The business air pervading the home of Verdi's childhood seems not to have affected his young mind, and, pecuniarily profitable as such an establishment for the sale of the liquids and solids of life may have been, the future musician does not appear to have shown any disposition towards becoming a vendor of unromantic necessaries or alcoholic unnecessaries of life. Happily, the fire of genius—the feu sacré—was in Verdi.
Verdi maggiore was distinctly a retail trader, running, with great good-nature, what are vulgarly known as "ticks" with the Roncolese. He went to market once a week, to buy in wholesale quantities grocery of one Antonio Barezzi, storekeeper, distiller, etc., who, as circumstances proved, was to figure prominently in the Verdi dénouement.
It is a sorry reflection that several of our greatest musicians have had poverty and untoward circumstances as a "set off," as it would seem to be, for their bounteous musical gifts. A study of the lives of the great tone poets will reveal the saddening but not astonishing truth that, while the world's fairest minstrels have been shaping melodies and harmonies to gladden hearts and brighten homes for all ages, they themselves have frequently been enduring lives of misery, and sometimes want. Verdi at no part of his career has ever been in abject poverty, but his was by no means a luxurious early life, nor was his home particularly predisposed towards music. At first, there was not a pianoforte in it, nor can it be said that Verdi passed his childhood amongst surroundings to favour the muse, such as the paint pots, canvases, and stage lights upon which Weber's young imagination fed. The social and physical conditions in and around Busseto were ill calculated to inspire the mind with anything approaching the sublime or the ideal, the poetic or the beautiful; and there seemed to be insuperable difficulties in the way of the son of the chandler's shopkeeper ever becoming a musician of any importance. But many most surprising episodes were to unfold themselves. This unpretentious spot of Italian soil was to prove the cradle of the revolutioniser of Italy's national music-drama. To-day it is incontrovertible that in Verdi's music, especially in his later writings, there is far more than could ever have been expected of any Italian master. His melody is the pure chastened current of the sunny South, and no one of his countrymen has written loftier operatic music than that in Aïda and Falstaff. Much of the flow and beauty throughout his compositions must, of course, be accounted for by the inability of any Italian son of art to compose else but luscious melody, while the life and gaiety, together with that irresistible "go" which so distinguish Verdi's tunes and colourings, may have borrowed their genesis out of the lively times and good humour that prevailed at that earliest home—the inn.
The unsophisticated Italian loves music much as a lark loves liberty, and it is not in Italy, as it used to be here, regarded as degrading to aspire to being a virtuoso. No other occupation is so natural to the son of the South as music, and although Italians are keen business people when they once taste commercial success—even if it be of ice-cream born—yet they make better musicians. Verdi senior did not press his son into the service of Orpheus, and no steps appear to have been taken towards forcing the offspring into becoming a manipulator of chords and cadences. Young Verdi enjoyed a perfectly natural child-life, playing with children indoors and out of doors until he was old enough to be sent to school. He was no forced exotic.
There is a feature sometimes attaching to the lives of great musicians which, happily, in the case of Verdi does not require to be put forward. He proved no wonder-child or prodigy who—adroitly boomed—made the round of Europe with advantage financially and corresponding disadvantage musically. From the outset his career has been perfectly legitimate, and free from episodes or situations partaking of the supernatural—no circumstances presenting themselves to impede his quiet progress along the artistic way which he seems to have been content to travel.
What will he become? This is the question, pregnant with blissful uncertainty, which nearly every decent parent has to ask himself of a young hopeful. Doubtless Verdi senior applied the interrogatory to himself respecting Giuseppe, but it has not transpired that the subject of the inquiry furnished much solution to the problem, beyond the fact that he was always overcome when he heard street-organ music. No sooner did an organ-grinder appear in Roncole, with his instrument, than young Verdi became an attentive auditor, following the itinerant musician from door to door until fetched away. This was the first hint he gave of musical aptitude, and probably no one would have predicted that he would one day furnish melodies, almost without end, for these instruments of torture in each quarter of the globe. One particular favourite with little Verdi was a tottering violinist known as Bagasset, who used to play the fiddle much to the little fellow's delight. This obscure musician urged the osteria-keeper to make a musician of his son, and is said to have received many favours from the son since he became famous. The old itinerant, very grateful, used to exclaim, "Ah! maestro, I saw you when you were very little; but now——!"
The Verdi who was to create such streams of sparkling melody, and need an Act of Parliament[3] to stop them, was a quiet thoughtful little fellow as a child, possessing none of that boisterous element common to boys. That serious expression seen in the composer's face, the first impression that a glance at any of his present-day portraits would convey, was there when a child. Intelligent, reserved, and quiet, everybody loved him.
Perhaps it was this good and melancholy temperament that attracted the attention of the parish priest, and which led to Verdi's receiving the appointment of acolyte at the village church of Le Roncole. He was now seven years old, and it was in connection with his office as "server" that we are introduced to the first episode, a really dramatic one, in his career. One day the ecclesiastic was celebrating the Mass with young Verdi as his assistant, but the boy, instead of following the service attentively with the priest, which no acolyte ever does, got so carried away by the music that flowed from the organ that he forgot all else. "Water," whispered the priest to the acolyte, who did not respond; and, concluding that his request was not heard, the celebrant repeated the word "water." Still there was no response, when, turning round, he found the server gazing in wonderment at the organ! "Water," demanded the priest for the third time, at the same moment accompanying the order with such a violent and well-directed movement of the foot, that little Verdi was pitched headlong down the altar steps. In falling he struck his head, and had to be carried in an unconscious state to the vestry. A somewhat forcible music lesson!
Possibly it was this incident, and the child's unbounded delight at the organ music which he heard in the street, that set the father thinking of his son's musical possibilities, for at about this time, 1820, the innkeeper of Roncole added a spinet or pianoforte to his worldly possessions. This indispensable item of household belongings was purchased for the especial benefit of the boy-child, thus pointing to some indications of budding musical aptness on his part. More soon followed! Young Verdi went to the instrument at all hours, early and late, playing scales and discovering chords and harmonious combinations. Sometimes he would forget or lose one of his favourite chords, and then there was an outburst of genuine native passion that stood in strange contrast to his usual quiet demeanour. A story goes that once, when he was labouring under one of these fits of temper, he seized a hammer and commenced belabouring the keyboard. The noise attracted the attention of his father, who stemmed his son's impetuosity with a sound box on the ears, which stopped the craze for pianoforte butchering. On the whole, however, every one was pleased with the little fellow's devotion to the instrument, and one friend went so far even as to repair it for him gratuitously, when it wanted new jacks, leathers, and pedals, which it soon did, owing to the boy's phenomenal wear and tear of the instrument. This spinet remained one of Verdi's most treasured possessions. It was stored at the villa at St. Agata, and no doubt has often recalled to the veteran's mind moments and feelings of his childhood. Inside it is an inscription, a testimonial creditable alike to the application of the little musician as also to the goodness of the generous local tradesman, who, conscious, perhaps, of a future greatness for the child, had become one of his admirers. It runs: "I, Stephen Cavaletti, added these hammers (or jacks) anew, supplied them with leather, and fitted the pedals. These, together with the hammers, I give as a present for the industry which the boy Giuseppe Verdi evinces for learning to play the instrument; this is of itself reward enough to me for my trouble. Anno Domini 1821."
It was when he was about eight years of age that little Verdi's education became a subject for active consideration. His parents' deliberations ended in the resolve to send him to a school in Busseto. By virtue of an acquaintance with one Pugnatta, a cobbler, the future composer of the Trovatore and Falstaff was boarded, lodged, and tutored at the principal academical institution in Busseto, all at the not extravagant charge of threepence per diem! How this was managed history relateth not. Young Verdi's receptive faculties did not need to be severely extended, therefore, to spell "quits" to padre Verdi's generosity in the matter of letters and "keep" for Giuseppe. After events abundantly prove that the little harmonist was not slothful in grappling the mysteries of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Whether, added to a fair knowledge of the three Rs, he, like most boys, made an acquaintance with another R, of pliable and impressive properties, is not known.
Concurrently with the scholastic training, Verdi's father provided some regular musical instruction for his son. The local organist of, and the greatest authority upon music in, Roncole was one Baistrocchi, and to him young Verdi was entrusted for the first training in music that he received. The terms for the music lessons were not extravagant, and were requited by a system of Dr. and Cr. account at the inn. Nevertheless, the instruction imparted was sound and solid, young Verdi proving smart at music. The measure of the musical merits of Baistrocchi has not transpired, and the world is uninformed as to whether he knew much, or little, musically; but whatever store of harmonious erudition was possessed by him he poured into his young charge. At the end of twelve months Baistrocchi felt bound to confess that Verdi knew all that he had to teach him. Thus, either the teacher had an unusually small store of information to impart, or the student possessed an abnormal appetite for musical learning.
[1] Rossini used to be styled the "Swan of Pesaro," but in his old age he laughed at this compliment, and endorsed a Mass which he had composed as the work of "the old Ape of Pesaro," thus parodying the "swan" or cigno sobriquet which had been given him.
[2] There is in existence another Certificate of this musician's birth. This is in the Registry of the État Civile of the Commune of Busseto for the year 1813, and is written in French, Italy being at the time under French rule.
[3] Mr. Michael T. Bass, M.P., "Bill for the Better Regulation of Street Music in the Metropolitan Police District."
Verdi goes into the world—Office-boy in Barezzi's establishment—Congenial surroundings—An exceptional employer—Verdi becomes a pupil of Provesi—A painstaking copyist—Verdi wanted for a priest—Latin elements—Appointed organist of Roncole—A record salary—Barezzi's encouragement of Verdi's tastes—Father Seletti and Verdi's organ-playing—Provesi's status and friendship towards Verdi—Milan training for Verdi—Refused at the Conservatoire—Experience and training needed—Study under Vincenzo Lavigna of La Scala—Death of Provesi, and assumption of his Busseto duties by Verdi.
When ten years of age, Verdi went into the world. Could the parent have foreseen the future that lay in store for his boy, he might have given him a little more learning, and have risked being a little the poorer. He saw nothing, however. His child had been to school, and could read, write, and add figures—an ample education for the son of a poor locandiere! Beside which the parents at no time entertained any greater musical ambition than that their boy might, one day, become organist of the village church!
When the industrious parent used to trudge from Roncole to Busseto to replenish the "general" department of his business, it was to purchase from the wholesale grocer's store which, as we have seen, was presided over by Antonio Barezzi. It was a flourishing concern, and its owner was a fairly rich man. What was worth more than his money, however, was a good disposition and kindliness which endeared him to his traders. Verdi senior was an especially welcome visitor. With him the storekeeper gossiped, the conversation turning betimes upon the little fellow at home and his budding musical tendencies. Music and culture, it should be stated, were dear to Barezzi, and had placed him at the head of everything musical in Busseto. Thus he was President of the local Philharmonic Society, for which he held open house for rehearsals and meetings. Barezzi's instrumental ability was considerable, and he could perform on the flute, clarionet, French horn, and ophicleide.
As luck would have it, young Verdi was to be thrown into the service of this Barezzi. In the course of their gossipings, innkeeper had hinted to merchant that the son would have to be bestirring himself; and Barezzi, having a vacancy for an office-boy, offered to try Giuseppe. The matter was speedily arranged, and the boy soon proved that he could make himself useful to Barezzi—merchant in spirits, drugs, drysaltery, and spices.
The average business man views a predilection for music, or indeed for any art study, as fatal to duty and discipline. Not so Barezzi. He encouraged the musical proclivities of the office-boy, and, as we shall discover, most generously and materially assisted him towards an inevitable artist career. In time he began to regard Verdi as one of his family, and allowed him the use of the pianoforte.
Let us see what happened. Without neglecting his daily duties in the office, young Verdi availed himself of every moment of spare time to add to his musical knowledge and practice. He seldom missed an opportunity of attending the rehearsals held in Barezzi's house, or the public concerts given by the Philharmonic Society under the conductorship of Giovanni Provesi, organist and bandmaster of the duomo of Busseto. In return Verdi copied the instrumental parts for the various performers, working at "string" and "brass" parts with a neatness and accuracy that quite won the hearts of those who had to play therefrom. Some people would declare such copying to be inconceivable drudgery, but young Verdi relished the excellent insight into orchestration which such practice afforded him. Provesi, on his part, was so pleased that he gave the lad some gratuitous instruction, of which Verdi took such advantage that at the end of two or three years the master frankly owned, like Baistrocchi, that the pupil knew as much as he himself did.
No wonder that Provesi, struck with the lad's musical promise, one day advised him to think of music as a profession. It so happened, however, that the lad just then was dangerously near to becoming a knight of the cowl instead of the bâton. The priests had got hold of him, and one ecclesiastic, Seletti by name, had commenced to teach him the Latin tongue, with the view, some day, of making a priest of him! Thus Verdi might have been for ever meditating in the cloister, instead of ministering to great demands, choreographic and otherwise, of a modern lyric drama stage! "What do you want to study music for?" said the priest, at the same time backing up the query with the not very comforting nor accurately prophetic warning that he would "never become organist of Busseto"—a position which he did subsequently fill. "You have a gift for Latin, and must be a priest," was the confessor's parting shot.
Now the organist of Roncole died, creating a vacancy. Officialism and bumbledom, usually connected with organ elections, did not operate here. All concerned were agreed that, although young, the son of townsman Verdi was musically and morally fitted for the post, and he was thereto appointed. The salary was not overpowering, the exact payment being £1:12s. yearly! Thus the parents' wish was gratified, for their little son was duly appointed in Baistrocchi's stead, and from his eleventh to his eighteenth year Verdi performed his duties in the dusty old organ-loft at Roncole, supplementing his salary with small fees for such additional services as baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Every Sunday and Feast-day he trudged on foot from Busseto to Roncole to perform his duties. Sometimes it was scarcely daybreak, and on one of these excursions he fell into a ditch, and would assuredly have been drowned, or frozen to death, save for the timely aid of a peasant woman, who had heard his groans.
How long Verdi remained in the employ of Barezzi has not transpired, but important subsequent events prove that he retained the friendship and esteem of the merchant long after being released of the tedium of bills and quantities calculations. He continued to receive musical training from Provesi until he was sixteen years of age, and it is not improbable that his generous employer, observing the musical inclinations of his clerk, allowed him to drift naturally into a harmonious haven. A story told of the young musician this while is ominous. It came to pass that Father Seletti, who would have the born-opera-composer a monk, was officiating at mass on an occasion when Verdi happened to be deputizing at the Busseto organ. Struck with the unusually beautiful organ music, the priest at the close of the service expressed a desire to see the organist. Behold his amazement on discovering his scholar whom he had been seeking to estrange from harmony to theology! "Whose music were you playing?" inquired Seletti. "It was beautiful." Verdi, feeling shy, informed the priest that he had brought no music with him, and had been improvising. "So I played as I felt," he added. "Ah!" exclaimed Seletti, "I advised you wrongly. You must be no priest, but a musician."
Provesi had an extensive musical practice in and around Busseto, to which he gradually introduced Verdi. More and more frequently he deputized for Provesi, and the sight must have been worth seeing, of the diminutive organist, fifteen years old, on the high seat in the great organ-loft in the dim cathedral of Busseto—all unconscious, as every one else was, of the great future before him. When, from advancing years, Provesi resigned the conductorship of the Philharmonic Society of the town, Verdi was unanimously selected for the vacancy. His chief delight was to compose pieces for the Society and to perform them. These early compositions are preserved among the archives of Busseto.
The master musician is not an easily moulded quantity. He has first to traverse the whole surface of musical science; even then, Nature may have denied to him those gifts of colour and glow which are the wings of music, and lacking which, he may remain for ever a mathematical musical machine, too many of whom, loaded with academical degrees and distinctions, and the consequent array of scholastic millinery, have been given to the world.
Verdi's ambition was to become a successful opera composer, but ere he could succeed, there were branches of study which could only be mastered in an establishment such as the Conservatoire at Milan. To it Verdi's friends, notably Provesi (who prophesied that one day Verdi would become a great master), urged him to go. There was one undeniable obstacle—the money! This difficulty was, however, eventually overcome. One of the Busseto institutions was the "Monte de Pieta," which granted premiums to assist promising students in prosecuting their studies. Verdi's petition was sent up, and with the wheels of benevolent machinery turning, as usual, slowly, the decision was long delayed. At this crisis stepped in Barezzi, grocer and gentleman, as he proved, who agreed to advance the money, pending the decision of the institution. This enabled Verdi to turn his face towards Milan. He did not forget the kindness, but returned Barezzi the money, in full, from the first savings he was able to make from his art.
It is a grim commentary upon the usual way of managing the things of this life, to witness a man who has made melody for the whole world for now over half a century being refused an entrance scholarship at the training institution of his own land! It is a fact, nevertheless, that Verdi was actually denied admittance to the Conservatoire di Musica of Milan, on the ground of his showing no special aptitude for music! Yet the world goes on, gaping and wondering at its monotonous mediocrity, while seven-eighths of its energy is being exhausted in repairing the consequences of the genius of its blunderers, who somehow are generally and everywhere in power, and rampant. Chiefly from shame, the rejection of Verdi at the Conservatoire has been industriously excused, but the mistake shall always stand to the discredit of Francesco Basili, the then Principal. Men like Verdi—men of metal—may be hindered, but are rarely defeated by obstacles, or long-refused justice. Verdi had fixed his heart and eyes on a mark which he has never left, and in this respect, if in no other, he is a model for every earnest struggling student.
Verdi had now to look elsewhere for that training which he had hoped to obtain at Milan. "Think no more about the Conservatoire," said his friend Rolla to him. "Choose a master in the town; I recommend Lavigna."
Vincenzo Lavigna was an excellent musician, and conductor at the theatre of La Scala. To him, accordingly, Verdi went for practical stage experience and familiarity with dramatic art principles. This was in 1831, when the pupil was eighteen years old. Lavigna could not have desired a more exemplary pupil than Verdi was, and the master lost no time before taking his charge into the broad expanse of practical theatre work. All the drudgery of harmony, counterpoint and composition generally, had been learned and committed to heart long before; it was practice and experience in the higher grades of planning and spacing libretti, and the scoring of scenas and concerted numbers for operas, that Verdi needed. This Lavigna could and did give him. Verdi, on his part, showed such aptitude for dramatic composition that Lavigna was greatly pleased. "He is a fine fellow," said Lavigna to Signor Barezzi, who had called to inquire as to the progress of his protégé; "Giuseppe is prudent, studious, and intelligent, and some day will do honour to myself and to our country."
The death, in 1833, of Provesi, the guiding musical spirit of Busseto, meant another episode in Verdi's career. By the conditions of the loan from the trustees of the "Monte di Pieta" of Busseto, he was to return home from Milan to take up Provesi's duties. Such a heritage of work, including the post of organist at the duomo, the conductorship of the Musical Society of Busseto, much private teaching, etc., kept Verdi well employed; but it did not deter him from a regular and assiduous prosecution of his operatic studies. He worked with an almost unbounded will and pride in Busseto. Why? Because there was present there a power which fired him with enthusiasm and ambition; otherwise the call from Milan might have been a difficult step for him to take; one word, however, will explain all—Verdi was in love!
Verdi is engaged to Margarita Barezzi—His marriage—Seeks a wider field in Milan—An emergency conductor—Conductor of the Milan Philharmonic Society—His first opera, Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio—Terms for production—Its success—A triple commission—A woman's sacrifice—Clouds—Death of his wife and children—Un Giorno di Regno produced—A failure—Verdi disgusted with music—Destroys Merelli contract—The Nabucco libretto forced on Verdi—Induced to set the book—Production of Nabucco with success—Opposition from the critics—Mr. Lumley gives Nabucco in London—Its performance and reception.
When Verdi took the office stool in Barezzi's counting-house, there was little reason to suppose that he would get much beyond it; but he was to become something more than an employé. He was often invited to join the family circle, and so became acquainted with the eldest daughter, Margarita—a girl of beautiful disposition, with whom Verdi fell violently in love. The young lady returned his affection, and Signor Barezzi, with his usual kindly feeling towards Verdi, not opposing the engagement—albeit Verdi was extremely poor—the young people were married in 1836. Upon this occasion all Busseto turned out en fête.
Now had Verdi every incentive to work, for his young wife bore him a son and a daughter within two years of their marriage, and he longed for an operatic success that would add to his slender income. The prospect of a large family, and no means to support it with, was a painful piece of mathematics, the solution of which depended entirely upon himself. Alas! could he but have foreseen his almost immediate release from such love chains!
While thus musing, the fire kindled. Verdi made up his mind to relinquish working in Busseto and try his fortune in Milan. Accordingly, in 1838, he, with his wife and children, set out for that musical centre, carrying their belongings with them, and with his stock-in-trade—a score of a musical melodrama entitled Oberto, Conte di S. Bonifacio—under his arm. This composition was his first attempt at a complete opera. Every pain had been taken with the score; and not only was each note Verdi's own, but the full score, and all the vocal and instrumental parts, had been copied out with his own hand. What labour! and yet the hard (we might say thick) headed man rejoices in the belief that musicians, big and little, are a lazy lot!
None too speedily, an opening presented itself at the Milan Philharmonic Society. Haydn's Creation was to be given, and the conductor had failed to put in an appearance. Suddenly Verdi was espied, whereupon Masini, a director, approached and begged him to take the conductorship that evening. In those days conducting was managed, not with a bâton and a rostrum, but from the pianoforte in the orchestra, and Masini considerately informed Verdi that if he would play the bass part merely, even that would be sufficient! Verdi acquiesced, and, amid starings and titterings, made for the conductor's seat and score. "I shall never forget," Verdi has said, "the sort of sarcastic approval that crossed the faces of the knowing ones. My young, thin, and shabbily-attired person was little calculated, perhaps, to inspire confidence." Yet Verdi astonished everybody. He gave not only the bass line, but the whole of the pianoforte part, bringing the performance to a successful termination. Not from that night need he have been without an appointment as a musical conductor; indeed, it was shortly afterwards that the conductorship of the Milan Philharmonic Society was offered to, and accepted by Verdi.
Possessed almost by the demon of the stage, Verdi sorely wanted a trial for his opera. To obtain a first hearing then, however, meant the surmounting of considerable obstacles. The avenues of art were not open as they now are—when a season is made up almost wholly of "first nights," and when wealthy or well-backed aspirants can have, not only their own theatres, but their own critics, and even their own newspapers and audiences. Such is money! Eventually Verdi got what he wanted. Oberto, Conte di S. Bonifacio was to be produced at La Scala theatre in the spring of 1839; but even this arrangement was put off because a singer fell ill. Sick at heart, Verdi was retreating to Busseto, when the impresario of La Scala sent for him unexpectedly. Signor Bartolomeo Merelli had heard from the singers who had been studying ObertoimpresariiTempora mutantur.Oberto