However, the critics were unanimous in their praise of the promise shown in the young composer and, in the following contemporary accounts, the audience appears to have shown its pleasure at what they had heard.
At La Scala, he conducted the first Italian performance of Aida in 1872[REF] and this was followed by the first performance of Verdi's Otello in 1887,[REF] which starred his long-time lover Romilda Pantaleoni as Desdemona, Francesco Tamagno as Otello and Victor Maurel as Iago.