After the success of the operas Nabucco and The Lombards, Verdi's career took off.
He is already a well-known composer and is preferred by the directors of the most famous theaters in Italy and by the most renowned publishing houses. In 1843, Count Carlo Mochenigo, director of the La Fenice Theater in Venice, invited him to write a new opera for the end of the 1844 carnival.
The composer accepts and transfers many poetic and theatrical masterpieces to select a plot for his new opera. So
Mochinigo himself suggests who could write the libretto - Francesco Maria Piave, whom Verdi does not yet know. At that time the poet was a young opera director in Venice. Later Piave will became a permanent creative companion of Verdi and will work together for the next 20 years on his masterpieces: "The Two Foscari", "Macbeth", "The Corsair", "Stifelio", "Rigoletto", "La Traviata", "Simone Bocanegra" and "The Force". of destiny ”.
Hernani bears the deep imprint of Verdi's creative nature. Passion flows wildly from the beginning to the end of the score, softened here and there by a touching melancholy. Verdi did not pave a new path for Italian opera with Hernani. The maestro sows the furrow plowed by Yugo.
Both have the same tendency to contrast, the antithesis of thought and the feeling of expanding aspects of situations and characters. Hugo waved the battle flag and caused a revolution in art, leading the struggle against classicism in the name of romanticism. And this romanticism is, according to Hugo himself, "essentially liberalism in literature."
Verdi is one of the most ardent supporters of the romantic movement. He is a romantic at heart: passionate, melancholic, closed, secretive, lonely, dissatisfied with himself and everyone because of the unsatisfied desire for good. The premiere of "Hernani" took place on March 9, 1844 in "La Fenice" - Venice, exactly two years after the triumph of "Nabucco" in La Scala. The Venetians are a very picky audience. They like music very much, but the art of singers does not always satisfy them. For the next month, the opera will be staged at the San Benedetto Theater (Venice) and the audience, tired of listening to "Hernani", will once again crowd for tickets. Following are invitations for small and large theaters in Italy and abroad. Over twenty Italian theaters want to stage the opera immediately!
