for no other reason that it would give the composer a base from which to work and teach and not be continually exhausting himself with travel between cities. But in a letter to Vasselli, he adamantly refused. When Donizetti went to Bologna for the Stabat Mater, Rossini attended the third performance, and the two men—each former students of the Bologna Conservatory—met for the first time, with Rossini declaring that Donizetti was "the only maestro in Italy capable of conducting my Stabat as I would have it". Arriving in Vienna in the Spring of 1842 with a letter of recommendation from Rossini, Donizetti became involved in rehearsals for Linda di Chamounix which was given its premiere in May and which was a huge success. In addition, he was appointed kapellmeister to the chapel of the royal court, the same post which had been held by Mozart. He left Vienna on 1 July 1842 after the Spring Italian season, travelling to Milan, Bergamo (in order to see the now-aging Mayr, but where the deterioration of his own health became more apparent), and then on to Naples in August, a city he had not visited since 1838. A contract with the San Carlo remained unresolved. Also, it appears that he wished to sell his Naples house, but could not bring himself to go through with it, such was the sorrow which remained after his wife's death in 1837. However, on 6 September he was on his way back to Genoa from where he would leave for a three-month planned stay in Paris to be followed by time in Vienna once again. He wrote that he would work on translations of Maria Padilla and Linda di Chamounix and "God knows what else I'll do". During the time in Naples, his poor health was again a problem causing him to remain in bed for days at a time. Arriving once again in Paris in late September 1842, he accomplished the revisions to the two Italian operas and he received a suggestion from Jules Janin, the newly appointed director of the Théâtre-Italien, that he might compose a new opera for that house. Janin's idea was that it should be a new opera buffa and tailored to the talents of some major singers including Giulia Grisi, Antonio Tamburini, and Luigi Lablache who had been hired. The result turned out to be the comic opera, Don Pasquale, planned