Editing Ernani (section)

==Verdi and theatre==
[[File:Ernani (tenore), figurino di Alfredo Edel per Ernani (1881) - Archivio Storico Ricordi ICON001147.jpg|thumb|Ernani, costume design for Ernani, act 3 (1881)]]
Budden notes the following in regard to the specific relationship between this opera and the work of Victor Hugo:

<blockquote>...from the first the spirit of Hugo is there. Verdi [ten years younger than the playwright] was part of that youthful audience to which the play ''Hernani'' is addressed. The bounding energy of Hugo's [[alexandrine]]s is reflected in the spirit of Verdi's music, which is far more forceful than anything he had written so far. Victor Hugo, one might say, was good for Verdi; and it significant that both the operas that he based on Hugo's plays (the other was of course ''[[Rigoletto]]'') were landmarks in his career.</blockquote>

But it is the composer himself who, in a letter to Brenna, the La Fenice secretary and a friend of Piave's, sums up his own sense of theatre, of what works and what does not. This was written at a time when Piave was unhappy about the shift from his original libretto to the one for what became ''Ernani''. With this shift came many changes of direction as issues such as casting came into consideration, and Verdi asks Brenna to communicate his feelings to the librettist:

<blockquote>However little experience I may have had, I do go to the theatre [Verdi is referring to the opera house] all the year round and I pay the most careful attention to what I see and hear. I've been able to put my finger on so many works which wouldn't have failed if the pieces had been better laid out, the effects better calculated, the musical forms clearer, etc... in a word, if either the composer or the poet had been more experienced.<ref>Verdi to Brenna, 15 November 1843, in Budden (1984), p. 145</ref></blockquote>

In effect, Verdi is taking control over all aspects of the piece, which includes the condensation of the sprawling play into his four acts. (The first two acts of Hugo's play become act 1 of the opera). Rather than allow the librettist a free hand in composing his verses, "this would have perpetuated in a diminished form the word-music division that Verdi precisely wanted to get away from. The composer's desire to take charge of every aspect of an opera implied that he had the power to decide what weight to give the text and the music, respectively, depending upon the "moment" of the action.<ref>De Van (1998), p. 77</ref>