Trying my hand, these days, at short stories, humor pieces, memoirs, even a little stage play. Obviously, I’m no Mozart, no Rossini, hot out of the gate with remarkable compositions, but I’ll keep trying. What would help is to see the beginner efforts of my heroes, and to perceive that even these guys improved as they kept trying, and persevered.

So I had a few reasons to be curious about Oberto, a very early effort by G Verdi.  Is he going to encourage me by revealing imperfections at the start, or is Verdi’s first opera a hidden blockbuster, with the full artistry of Rigoletto?

Verdi first composed an opera when he was 26 – not a teenage wonder, but young. His first shot was Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, and it’s great!  This story moves faster than Boccanegra, Trovatore, Don Carlos, and Forza, and (for a tragedy) it has a surprising amount of completely enjoyable and upbeat music.

More than in these later works, Verdi’s using the chorus to fill in the story – this crowd of acquaintances is almost always there, singing about what a hero Oberto is, what a great ogre the mean count Riccardo has become, and how sad everything is for both Cuniza and Leonora, both of whom almost marry Riccardo.

(Careful, there, Giuseppe; try not to go overboard with the Leonoras. Beethoven used it already. When you come to Trovatore and Forza del Destino, maybe toss in a Dorliska or a Brunnhilde. Idea.)

I myself can’t see anything significant to criticize here, so to me it’s a terrific start to a fabled career. Amusingly, one of the original critics in Milan is supposed to have whined that Oberto had “perhaps a too abundant wealth of melody”, so who knows what they were expecting?  Strauss, perhaps.

My main problem was that it took me more than 30 minutes to figure out who the main characters were and what was their conflict. Which one’s Oberto? Why do they hate Riccardo? Why is Leonora unhappy? Not clear! Certainly not as opaque as Mitridate (which completely baffled me until I did some background reading), but I was starting to feel like maybe I’d missed the entire first act.

I also thought that the orchestra was under-used, sounding rather thin, or just too few musicians. Certainly in all the later operas, Verdi comes through with more from the pit.

I did detect some weak aspects of this particular performance, and that’s too bad, because Oberto is not performed very often, and there aren’t many options on video. But if you subscribe to CueTV online, you can see a 2007 production by Opera de Bilbao (Spain).

Why do they pause so long between musical pieces? Why so much darned makeup, for the soprano? And is it just me, or everyone think this king looks young enough to be the grandson of the woman he’s about to marry?

No big deal. Oberto has some truly lovely tenor and soprano arias, some duets, and quartets, along with the delightfully ever-present chorus. Nice work! 

But not so perfect as to discourage another beginner.  My takeaway: Keep trying!  And don’t worry if you find yourself with an Alzira on your hands now and then!