7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7Early Career
Verdi overcame his despair by composing Nabucodonoser
(composed 1841, first performed 1842; known as Nabucco),
based on the biblical Nebuchadnezzar (Nebuchadrezzar
II). Nabucco succeeded sensationally, and Verdi at age 28
became the new hero of Italian music. The work sped
across Italy and the whole world of opera; within a decade
it had reached as far as St. Petersburg and Buenos Aires,
Argentina.
There followed a period (1843–49) during which Verdi
drove himself to produce nearly two operas a year. His aim
was to make enough money for early retirement as a gentle-
man farmer at Sant’Agata, close to Roncole, where his
forebears had settled. To “produce” an opera meant, at
that time, to negotiate with an impresario, secure and
edit (often heavily) a libretto, find or approve the singers,
compose the music, supervise rehearsals, conduct the
first three performances, deal with publishers, and more—
all this while shuttling from one end of Italy to the other
in the days before railroads.
Though masterpieces were unlikely to emerge from a
schedule like this, Verdi’s next two operas were wildly
successful: I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843; The Lombards
on the First Crusade) and Ernani (1844). The latter became
the only work of this period to gain a steady place in the
opera repertory worldwide. His other operas had varying
receptions. Verdi drew on a wide range of literature for his
works of the 1840s, including Victor Hugo for Ernani,
Lord Byron for I due Foscari (1844; The Two Foscari) and
Il corsaro (1848; The Corsair), Friedrich von Schiller for
Giovanna d ’Arco (1845; Joan of Arc), I masnadieri (1847; The
Bandits), and Luisa Miller (1849), Voltaire for Alzira (1845),
and Zacharias Werner for Attila (1846). Only with
Macbeth (1847), however, was Verdi inspired to fashion an