became a comprimario role, one to be sung by a second-rung singer in the company. But, as Budden notes, Verdi's "difficulties with singers were not yet over". The season opened with I Lombardi in December 1843. It was a disaster, with terrible singing from the tenor Domenico Conti. Two other operas early in the 1843/44 season were equally poorly received. Having heard one other potential tenor, Vitali, as a possible replacement, the composer presented an ultimatum: either be released from his contract or the company would engage Carlo Guasco in the role of Ernani. With a premiere set for March, two final glitches were overcome: the bass Rosi had disappeared from consideration as de Silva but was replaced by Meini, who then withdrew because he found the part too low. Verdi then engaged a member of the chorus, the bass Antonio Selva who went on to a distinguished career. And, in spite of complaints from the soprano, Sophie Löwe, that she was not to be front and centre for the finale, she became part of the final trio. Verdi and theatre Budden notes the following in regard to the specific relationship between this opera and the work of Victor Hugo: ...from the first the spirit of Hugo is there. Verdi [ten years younger than the playwright] was part of that youthful audience to which the play Hernani is addressed. The bounding energy of Hugo's alexandrines is reflected in the spirit of Verdi's music, which is far more forceful than anything he had written so far. Victor Hugo, one might say, was good for Verdi; and it significant that both the operas that he based on Hugo's plays (the other was of course Rigoletto) were landmarks in his career. But it is the composer himself who, in a letter to Brenna, the La Fenice secretary and a friend of Piave's, sums up his own sense of theatre, of what works and what doesn't. This was written at a time when Piave was unhappy about the shift from his original libretto to the one for what became Ernani. With this shift came many changes of direction as issues such as casting came into consideration, and Verdi asks Brenna to communicate his feelings to the librettist: However little experience I may have had, I do go to the theatre [Verdi is referring to the opera house] all the year round and I pay