FOOTNOTES:
[120] The Monte di Pietà e d’Abbondanza di Busseto is an institution founded primarily for the relief of the poor and secondarily to help poor children of promise to develop their talent for the sciences or fine arts.
[121] This does not sound like extravagant generosity on Merelli’s part, but it must be remembered that in those days it was customary for an unknown composer to bear the expense of having his operas produced. The score of Oberto was purchased by Giovanni Ricordi, founder of the publishing house of that name, for two thousand Austrian liri (about three hundred and fifty dollars).
[122] Nabucco is a common Italian abbreviation of Nabucodonosor.
[123] The part of Abigail in Nabucco was taken by Giuseppina Strepponi, one of the finest lyric tragédiennes of her day, who afterward became Verdi’s wife.
[124] The opera d’obbligo is the new work which an impresario is pledged to produce each season by virtue of his agreement with the municipality as lessee of a theatre.
[125] This ludicrous concession to archiepiscopal scruples recalls the production of Nabucco in London, where the title was changed to Nino, Rè d’Assyria, in deference to public sentiment—because, forsooth, Nabucco was a Biblical personage. One can fancy how the British public of that day would have received Salomé!
[126] Attila in its entirety was never given in Paris.
[127] For the sake of completeness we may mention here as the chronologically appropriate place Verdi’s L’Inno delle Nazione, written for the London International Exhibition of 1862 as part of an international musical patch-work in which Auber, Meyerbeer, and Sterndale Bennett also participated. L’Inno delle Nazione may be forgotten without damage to Verdi’s reputation.
[128] Contrary to a widespread impression Aïda was not written for the opening of the Khedival Opera House, that event having taken place in 1869. It may also be observed that the story of Aïda has no historical foundation, though it was written with an expert eye to historical and archæological verisimilitude.