Editing Giuseppe Verdi (section)

===1849–1853: Fame===
[[File:Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata-1859-65.jpg|thumb|Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata, as it looked between 1859 and 1865]]Verdi was committed to the publisher [[Giovanni Ricordi]] for an opera—which became ''[[Stiffelio]]''—for Trieste in the Spring of 1850; and, subsequently, following negotiations with La Fenice, developed a libretto with Piave and wrote the music for ''[[Rigoletto]]'' (based on [[Victor Hugo]]'s ''[[Le roi s'amuse]]'') for Venice in March 1851. This was the first of a sequence of three operas (followed by ''[[Il trovatore]]'' and ''[[La traviata]]'') which were to cement his fame as a master of opera.{{sfn|Newark|2004|p=198}}

The failure of ''Stiffelio'' (attributable not least to the censors of the time taking offence at the taboo subject of the supposed adultery of a clergyman's wife and interfering with the text and roles) incited Verdi to take pains to rework it, although even in the completely recycled version of ''[[Aroldo]]'' (1857) it still failed to please.{{sfn|Rosselli|2000|p=90–91}} ''Rigoletto'', with its intended murder of royalty, and its sordid attributes, also upset the censors. Verdi would not compromise: <blockquote>What does the sack matter to the police? Are they worried about the effect it will produce?...Do they think they know better than I?...I see the hero has been made no longer ugly and hunchbacked!! Why? A singing hunchback...why not?...I think it splendid to show this character as outwardly deformed and ridiculous, and inwardly passionate and full of love. I chose the subject for these very qualities...if they are removed I can no longer set it to music.{{sfn|Rosselli|2000|pp=92–93}}
</blockquote>

{{Listen|image=none|help=no|type=music|filename=La Donna E Mobile Rigoletto.ogg|title="La donna è mobile"|description=[[Enrico Caruso]] performs "La donna e mobile" from Rigoletto}}Verdi substituted a Duke for the King, and the public response and subsequent success of the opera all over Italy and Europe fully vindicated the composer.{{sfn|Rosselli|2000|p=101}} Aware that the melody of the Duke's song "[[La donna è mobile]]" ("Woman is fickle") would become a popular hit, Verdi excluded it from orchestral rehearsals for the opera, and rehearsed the tenor separately.{{sfn|Taruskin|2010|p=585}}{{efn|1=[[Richard Taruskin|Taruskin]] comments: "Its eventual success was almost ''too'' great, since many...ascribe...to [the opera] or even to Verdi the song's trivial gaiety without realizing that its brashness was a calculated ironic foil."{{sfn|Taruskin|2010|p=586}}}}
[[File:Karoly Gyurkovich - Giuseppina Strepponi.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Giuseppina Strepponi, c. 1850s]]
For several months Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These stemmed from the way in which the citizens of Busseto were treating Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he was living openly in an unmarried relationship. She was shunned in the town and at church, and while Verdi appeared indifferent, she was certainly not.{{sfn|Walker|1962|pp=197–198}} Furthermore, Verdi was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant'Agata.{{sfn|Phillips-Matz|1993|p=287}} A growing estrangement between Verdi and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi{{sfn|Phillips-Matz|1993|p=290}} (the suggestion that this situation was sparked by the birth of a child to Verdi and Strepponi which was given away as a foundling{{sfn|Phillips-Matz|1993|pp=289–}} lacks any firm evidence). In January 1851, Verdi broke off relations with his parents, and in April they were ordered to leave Sant'Agata; Verdi found new premises for them and helped them financially to settle into their new home. It may not be coincidental that all six Verdi operas written in the period 1849–1853 (''La battaglia, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore'' and ''La traviata''), have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman's words, "women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived". Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi.{{sfn|Kerman|2006|pp=22–23}}

Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant'Agata on 1 May 1851.{{sfn|Walker|1962|p=199}} May also brought an offer for a new opera from La Fenice, which Verdi eventually realised as ''La traviata''. That was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera Company to present ''Il trovatore'' for January 1853.{{sfn|Budden|1984b|p=63}} Verdi now had sufficient earnings to retire, had he wished to.{{sfn|Budden|1993|p=54}} He had reached a stage where he could develop his operas as he wished, rather than be dependent on commissions from third parties. ''Il trovatore'' was in fact the first opera he wrote without a specific commission (apart from ''Oberto'').{{sfn|Chusid|1997|p=3}} At around the same time he began to consider creating an opera from Shakespeare's ''[[King Lear]]''. After first (1850) seeking a libretto from Cammarano (which never appeared), Verdi later (1857) commissioned one from [[Antonio Somma]], but this proved intractable, and no music was ever written.{{sfn|Budden|1993|pp=70–71}}{{efn|1=After ''Falstaff'', Boito commented to Verdi "Now, maestro, we must set to work on ''King Lear''" (for which Boito had prepared a draft), but Giuseppina was horrified at this prospect: "For heaven's sake, Boito, Verdi is too old, too tired"{{sfn|Budden|1993|p=138}} In 1896, Verdi offered his Lear materials to [[Pietro Mascagni]] who asked "Maestro, why didn't you put it into music?" According to Mascagni, "softly and slowly he replied, 'the scene in which King Lear finds himself on the heath scared me'".{{sfn|Mendelsohn|1979|p=223}}}} Verdi began work on ''Il trovatore'' after the death of his mother in June 1851. The fact that this is "the one opera of Verdi's which focuses on a mother rather than a father" is perhaps related to her death.{{sfn|Mendelsohn|1979|p=226}}

In the winter of 1851–52, Verdi decided to go to Paris with Strepponi, where he concluded an agreement with the Opéra to write what became ''[[Les vêpres siciliennes]]'', his first original work in the style of [[grand opera]]. In February 1852, the couple attended a performance of [[Alexandre Dumas, fils|Alexander Dumas]] ''fils''{{'}}s play ''[[The Lady of the Camellias]]''; Verdi immediately began to compose music for what would later become ''La traviata''.{{sfn|Phillips-Matz|1993|p=303}}

After his visit to Rome for ''Il trovatore'' in January 1853, Verdi worked on completing ''La traviata'', but with little hope of its success, due to his lack of confidence in any of the singers engaged for the season.{{sfn|Walker|1962|p=212}} Furthermore, the management insisted that the opera be given a historical, not a contemporary setting. The premiere in March 1853 was indeed a failure: Verdi wrote: "Was the fault mine or the singers'? Time will tell."{{sfn|Budden|1993|pp=62–63}} Subsequent productions (following some rewriting) throughout Europe over the following two years fully vindicated the composer; Roger Parker has written "''Il trovatore'' consistently remains one of the three or four most popular operas in the Verdian repertoire: but it has never pleased the critics".{{sfn|Parker|1982|p=155}}