was finished, they broke out into the noisiest applause I have ever heard, crying 'Bravo, bravo, viva il maestro!' and beating on the woodwork with their tools. Then I knew what the future had in store for me."[4]

Some idea of the novel character of the Nabucco music may be gathered from the discovery that the usual chorus of La Scala was adjudged too small to give effect to it. Merelli, apprised of this, would not hear of increasing the staff because of the expense. Then a friend volunteered the extra cost. "No, no!" thundered in Verdi. "The chorus must be increased. It is indispensable. I will pay the extra singers myself." And he did! The success of Nabucco was remarkable. No such "first night" had marked La Scala for many years, the occupants of the stalls and pit rising to their feet out of sheer enthusiasm when they first heard the music. "I hoped for a success," said Verdi; "but such a success—never!"

The next day all Italy talked of Verdi. Donizetti, whose melodious wealth had swayed the Italians, as it subsequently did the English, was among the astonished ones. He had deferred a journey in order to hear Nabucco, and was so impressed by it, that nought but the expressions; "It's fine! Uncommonly fine!" could be heard escaping his lips. With Nabucco the impressionable Italians were agreeably warned that a master-mind was amongst them.

Verdi sold the score of Nabucco to Ricordi for 3000 Austrian liri, or £102, of which, by the terms of the contract, Merelli the impresario was to share one half. He generously returned Verdi 1000 liri.

In the year 1846 Nabucco was brought to London. Mr. Benjamin Lumley elected to open the season with it. Her Majesty's theatre had been newly painted and embellished, and all London was on the tiptoe of excitement at the prospect of the inauguration of the new salle. No more striking novelty than Nabucco could have been selected, perhaps, since the work had already become popular on the Continent, and had in some places created a furore. The English public, it should be stated, already knew Verdi through Ernani, which opera, as the reader will learn later on, had been performed in London the previous year, and had startled the susceptibilities of our critics. The object in presenting this Nabucco by Verdi was to afford the public an opportunity of a further judgment upon the ear-arresting composer of Ernani. In obedience to a prevalent sentiment precluding the slightest connection of a Biblical subject with stage representation, Nabucco had to be rechristened. It received the alias "Nino, Re d'Assyria," and was brought forward.