VERDI.

Giuseppi Verdi was born at Roncale, Italy, Oct. 9, 1813.  He displayed his musical talent at a very early age; indeed, in his tenth year he was appointed organist in his native town.  He then studied for a time at Busseto, and afterwards, by the help of a patron, M. Barezzi, went to Milan.  Curiously enough he was refused a scholarship on the ground that he displayed no aptitude for music.  Nothing daunted, he studied privately with the composer Lavigne, and five years afterwards commenced his career as an operatic writer.  His first opera, “Oberto,” was given at La Scala, Milan, with indifferent success.  He was not fairly recognized until his opera “I Lombardi” was performed.  In 1844 “Ernani” was received with great enthusiasm.  “Attila” (1846) was his next great triumph; and then followed in rapid succession a large number of operas, among them:  “I Masnadieri” (1847), written for the English stage, with Jenny Lind, Lablache, and Gardoni in the cast; “Luisa Miller” (1849); “Stifellio” (1851); “Rigoletto” (1851); “Il Trovatore,” Rome (1853); “La Traviata,” Venice (1853); “I Vespri Siciliani,” Paris (1855); “Simon Boccanegra,” Venice (1857); “Un Ballo in Maschera,” Rome (1858); “La Forza del Destino,” St. Petersburg (1862); “Don Carlos,” Paris (1867), and “Aida,” his last opera, Cairo (1871).  Since that time Verdi has produced nothing but a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria (1880), and the “Requiem,” composed in memory of the patriot Manzoni, and produced at Milan in 1874, on the occasion of the anniversary of his death.  It has been reported that he is at work upon a new opera, “Othello,” the words by Arrigo Boito, the composer of “Mephistopheles;” but nothing more than the report has been heard from it during the past three or four years.  The great melodist now spends a very quiet life as a country gentleman upon his estates near Busseto.

ERNANI.

“Ernani,” a tragic opera in four acts, words by F.M.  Piave, the subject taken from Victor Hugo’s tragedy of “Hernani,” was first produced at Venice, March 9, 1844.  The earlier performances of the opera gave the composer much trouble.  Before the first production the police interfered, refusing to allow the representation of a conspiracy on the stage, so that many parts of the libretto, as well as much of the music, had to be changed.  The blowing of Don Silva’s horn in the last act was also objected to by one Count Mocenigo, upon the singular ground that it was disgraceful.  The Count, however, was silenced more easily than the police.  The chorus “Si ridesti il Leon di Castiglia” also aroused a political manifestation by the Venetians.  The opera was given in Paris, Jan. 6, 1846, and there it encountered the hostility of Victor Hugo, who demanded that the libretto should be changed.  To accommodate the irate poet, the words were altered, the characters were changed to Italians, and the new title of “II Proscritto” was given to the work.