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Updated: May 28, 2025
Then he said quickly, "Merelli knew my mother; my mother who was at service with Signor Mequinez. He alone could tell me where she is. I have come to America to find my mother. Merelli sent her our letters. I must find my mother." "Poor boy!" said the woman; "I don't know. I can ask the boy in the courtyard. He knew the young man who did Merelli's errands. He may be able to tell us something."
The cause of this united rebellion was the rhythm of a quartet in the third act by far the best concerted piece in the opera in which the two high voices sang four eighth notes against triplets in the base. This passage had, up till now, been held in abeyance by Merelli, who had foreseen difficulty. And, now that it was reached, it proved a reef indeed.
But, as a lover forces himself to feign indifference to his coquettish innamorata, so he, disregarding his inclinations, returned the manuscript to Merelli that same day. "Well?" said Merelli, inquiringly. "Musicabilissimo!" he replied; "full of dramatic power and telling situations!" "Take it home with you, then, and write the music for it."
He ran on; he arrived at a little haberdasher's shop. This was it. He stepped up close to it. He saw a woman with gray hair and spectacles. "What do you want, boy?" she asked him in Spanish. "Is not this," said the boy, making an effort to utter a sound, "the shop of Francesco Merelli?" "Francesco Merelli is dead," replied the woman in Italian.
Well, I'm convinced that it is as well as we can do for you the first time. So you'd better sign it now using us for witnesses and I'll carry 'em back to Merelli myself, to-morrow." So Ivan, lips twitching, hands trembling very much, put a shaky signature in each space indicated below Merelli's sprawling Italian dashes, while Nicholas and little Laroche looked on with shining eyes.
Then Merelli laid the other manuscript before Verdi. "Look, here is Solera's libretto; such a beautiful subject! Take it home and read it over." But Verdi refused. "No, no, I am in no humor to read librettos." "It won't hurt you to look at it," urged Merelli, and thrust it into the coat pocket of the reluctant composer.
"It is useless to relate here how it came about that Merelli, without any fault on his part, did not advance me the fifty ecus in question. Nevertheless, I was much distressed at letting the rent day of the lodgings go by.
Little wonder that the wit oozed out of the occasion, and the performance proved a failure. The despondent Verdi resolved to give up his career altogether, and only by the insistence of the manager, Merelli, was he finally persuaded to resume his occupation. In later life he married again, passing a placid existence on his extensive estates.
He succeeded in arranging for the production of this work, "L'Oberto, Conte de San Bonifacio," at La Scala, Milan; but it excited little comment and was soon forgotten, like the scores of other shallow or immature compositions so prolifically produced in Italy. The impresario, Merelli, believed in the young composer though, for he thought he discovered signs of genius.
Next morning, at ten o'clock, Ivan heard his quartet sung with a strictness of tempo, rhythm, and expression, far surpassing anything yet accomplished by any of the principals of the company. Ivan's friends were in a state of high excitement at a prospective success of which Merelli seemed very sure.
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