Вердидің алғашқы операсы «Оберто, Сан-Бонифичо графы» тарихы

Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio is an opera in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an existing libretto by Antonio Piazza (giornalista) probably called Rocester. It was Verdi's first opera, written over a period of four years, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 17 November 1839. The La Scala production enjoyed "a fair success" and the theatre's impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, commissioned two further operas from the young composer. 1836 saw his involvement in an April concert celebrating Emperor Ferdinand's birthday; for this he wrote a cantata in the Emperor's honour which received some praise. But it was after his return to his hometown of Busseto in 1835 to become director of the music school with a three year contract that Verdi took advantage of the connection he had made to the Filarmonica's director, Pietro Massini. In a series of letters from 1835 to 1837 he informed him about the progress towards writing his first opera using a libretto supplied by Massini which had been written by Antonio Piazza, a Milanese "journalist and man of letters". By then it had been given the title of Rocester and the young composer expressed hopes of a production in Parma. However, Parma was not interested in new works and so approaches were made to Milan. Whether Rocester actually became the basis for Oberto when Verdi was able to return to Milan in February 1839 after fulfilling two and a half years of his contract in Busseto is subject to some disagreement amongst scholars. How much of Rocester remained visible in Oberto is discussed by Roger Parker, who does suggest that "in this shape shifting tendency, the opera was, of course, very much of its time." In his recollections in 1881 (quoted in Budden) following his return to Milan from Busseto in 1838, Verdi describes how he was invited to meet the La Scala impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, who had heard a conversation about the music of the opera between soprano Giuseppina Strepponi and Giorgio Ronconi in which she praised it. Merelli then offered to put on Oberto during the 1839 season and, after its premiere, Oberto was given a respectable 13 additional performances.

As noted by Roger Parker, the opera, while having a somewhat limited success at La Scala, did receive revivals over the following three years, during which Verdi took the opportunity to compose new numbers or supply new or revised music to fit particular voices. It appeared in Turin and Milan in 1840, the latter in the autumn after the failure of Verdi's second opera, Un giorno di regno; again, it was seen in Naples and Genoa (both in 1841), and in Barcelona in 1842. but it is only occasionally performed today. The British premiere did not take place until 8 April 1965, and then only in a concert version at St Pancras Town Hall. It is also claimed that Vincent La Selva (of the New York Grand Opera) gave the first New York presentation of the opera as part of the company's comprehensive and chronological "Viva Verdi" series which began in 1994 and which launched performances of all Verdi's operas. Opera North presented the opera during their 1994–5 season with John Tomlinson both directing and performing the title role. The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, gave a concert performance in June 1997 with Denyce Graves as Cuniza. Three opera companies, which plan to present all of Verdi's operas, have given this opera recently. Companies which intend to present all of the composer's works have included Oberto in their schedules in recent years. These are Sarasota Opera which staged it in 2001 as part of their "Verdi Cycle"; the ABAO in Bilbao, Spain, gave performances in January 2007, as part of their "Tutto Verdi" series; and the Teatro Regio di Parma gave it in October 2007 as part of their on going "Festival Verdi". In 2010 the Berliner Operngruppe under Felix Krieger presented the work in a concert performance in Berlin. In celebration of the Verdi bicentennial, it was staged by La Scala in April/May 2013.

Given the need at the time for composers to take into account singers' strengths and weaknesses, Verdi's writing for the four principals (rather than the more conventional three of that era) who became the cast for the premiere of Oberto well accommodated the limitations of Mary Shaw's voice and played to the strengths of Antonietta Rainieri Marini's in the lower register. Ignazio Marini, the bass who sang the title role, was "a performer of impressive vocal and dramatic range, for whom Verdi would later write the title role of Attila, notes Parker.