the one who determined "that drama essentially consisted of the arrangement of pieces and the clarity of the musical forms..[so that]..he began to become aware of the structure and architecture of musical composition, something which was not even clearly hinted at during the period with Solera. The composer began to control the overall dramatic arc of the drama and no longer would he "suffer under" such librettists as Temistocle Solera, who wrote the libretti for five Verdi operas beginning with Oberto and up to Attila in 1846. An example of the pressure which Verdi exerted on Piave was in the struggle to have the Venetian censors approve Rigoletto: "Turn Venice upside down to make the censors permit this subject" he demanded, following that up with the admonition not to allow the matter to drag on: "If I were the poet I would be very, very concerned, all the more because you would be greatly responsible if by chance (may the Devil not make it happen) they should not allow this drama [to be staged]" Nonetheless, another Verdi scholar notes that "Verdi always harried him unmercifully, often having his work revised by others [as in the case of Simon Boccanegra] [but] Piave rewarded him with doglike devotion, and the two remained on terms of sincere friendship." Piave became "someone Verdi loved". In following Salvadore Cammarano as Verdi's main mid-career librettist, Piave firstly wrote Ernani in 1844, and then I due Foscari (1844), Attila (1846), Macbeth (the 1847 first version), Il Corsaro (1848), Stiffelio (1850), Rigoletto (1851), La traviata (1853), Simon Boccanegra (the 1857 first version), Aroldo (1857), La forza del destino (the 1862 first version), and Macbeth (the 1865 second version). Librettos by Piave Filmography , directed by Vincenzo Sorelli (1938) , directed by Carmine Gallone (1946) , directed by Carmine Gallone (1947) The Force of Destiny, directed by Carmine Gallone (1950) Rigoletto e la sua tragedia, directed by Flavio Calzavara (1956) , directed by Mario Lanfranchi (1968) Rigoletto, directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle (1982) La Traviata, directed by Franco Zeffirelli (1983) Macbeth, directed by Claude d'Anna (1987) Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto Story, directed by Gianfranco Fozzi (2005) References Notes Sources Baldini, Gabriele (1970), (trans. Roger Parker, 1980), The Story of Giuseppe Verdi: Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera. Cambridge, et al: Cambridge University Press. Black, John (1998), "Piave, Francesco Maria" in Stanley Sadie, (Ed.), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Vol. Three,