Oberto Conte Di San Bonifacio

Abstract A certain air of mystery surrounds Verdi’s first published opera. It is the only one whose literary source cannot be traced; and recent scholars have been in some doubt as to whether or not it is remodelled from an earlier one. In the biographical summary that he gave to Giulio Ricardi in 1879 Verdi is quite explicit. During his student days at Milan he had been introduced by his teacher Lavigna to the Philharmonic Society, one of those associations of aristo cratic dilettanti that formed the chief basis of concert life throughout Austria during the years that spanned the decline of the private musical establishment and the rise of the professional orchestra. At the time they were rehearsing Haydn’s Creation. One day, in the absence of one of their regular maestri, the director, Pietro Massini, asked Verdi to accompany from the piano, feeling unequal to the task himself.