The allowance thus obtained with some assistance from Barezzi enabled the ambitious young musician to go to Milan, carrying with him some of his compositions.  When he presented himself for examination at the conservatory, he was made to play on the piano, and his compositions examined.  The result fell on his hopes like a thunder-bolt.  The pedantic and narrow-minded examiners not only scoffed at the state of his musical knowledge, but told him he was incapable of becoming a musician.  To weaker souls this would have been a terrible discouragement, but to his ardor and self-confidence it was only a challenge.  Barezzi had equal confidence in the abilities of his protege, and warmly encouraged him to work and hope.  Verdi engaged an excellent private teacher and pursued his studies with unflagging energy, denying himself all but the barest necessities, and going sometimes without sufficient food.

A stroke of fortune now fell in his way; the place of organist fell vacant at the Busseto church, and Verdi was appointed to fill it.  He returned home, and was soon afterward married to the daughter of the benefactor to whom he owed so much.  He continued to apply himself with great diligence to the study of his art, and completed an opera early in 1839.  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.  So he gave him a contract to write three operas, one of which was to be an opera buffa, and to be ready in the following autumn.  With hopeful spirits Verdi set to work on the opera, but that year of 1840 was to be one of great trouble and trial.  Hardly had he set to work all afire with eagerness and hope, when he was seized with severe illness.  His recovery was followed by the successive sickening of his two children, who died, a terrible blow to the father’s fond heart.  Fate had the crowning stroke though still to give, for the young mother, agonized by this loss, was seized with a fatal inflammation of the brain.  Thus within a brief period Verdi was bereft of all the sweet consolations of home, and his life became a burden to him.  Under these conditions he was to write a comic opera, full of sparkle, gayety, and humor.  Can we wonder that his work was a failure?  The public came to be amused by bright, joyous music, for it was nothing to them that the composer’s heart was dead with grief at his afflictions.  The audience hissed “Un Giorno di Regno,” for it proved a funereal attempt at mirth.  So Verdi sought to annul the contract.  To this the impresario replied:  “So be it, if you wish; but, whenever you want to write again on the same terms, you will find me ready.”