Verdi’s Galley years came to a close with three masterpieces in quick succession Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata (premiering in March 1853). Verdi was assisted financially by the publisher Giovanni Ricordi, who championed him from the off (buying the rights to Oberto for the significant sum of 1,600 lire), and then maintained an almost exclusive contract with Verdi for the rest of his life (Giovanni would die in 1853 with first his son and then grandson taking over the business).
Their return to Busseto in 1849 caused something of a scandal as he and Strepponi were not married (and she had several illegitimate children including one by Merelli!). In 1847 he finally embarked on significant foreign travel, making his way to London and then Paris where he lived with Strepponi for two years. Though his enormous workload resulted in variable health, his success opened the door to Milanese society and he took up with the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who became his lifelong companion (if not for some time his wife.). This period was also a better one for Verdi personally. He began to break new ground however, both in narrative structure: Macbeth for example lacking a major love story, and in his musical forms: introducing elements of French opera. Over the next decade he would write some 16 operas, largely following the Italian model of opera laid out by Donizetti and Rossini before him. It was a colossal success when it opened in 1842 and thus began an absurdly productive period for Verdi, what is now known as his “Galley Years”. One day, one line one day, another now one note, then a phrase. I went back home with Nabucco in my pocket. Bartolomeo Merelli, the impresario of La Scala who had championed Verdi’s work, wasn’t taking no for an answer however, and pushed Verdi to write what was to become the great Nabucco. Verdi was crushed and had no will to work and for two years he didn’t get much done, assisting on a few revivals of Oberto about the extent of it.
He turned out his second opera in 1840, a comic opera, which flopped so badly he didn’t tackle another comedy until near the end of his life. Virginia died in 1838, his new son Icilio died in 1939 and though Oberto was a success at La Scala in November 1939 (a remarkable feat for a first time composer), Verdi would fall ill in 1840 and lose Margherita by June of that year (She was only 26 taken by encephalitis).
Verdi worked on his first Opera, Oberto, but life quickly took a considerable turn for the worse. He married the daughter of one of his earlier benefactors, Margherita Barezzi, and they soon had their first child Virginia. Verdi returned to Busseto in 1835, replacing his old master Provesi who had recently died. From this point onwards Verdi’s life would enter the realm of extreme success and tragedy that would itself make a perfectly decent operatic plot.
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