Méry died, however, and the text was completed by CamilleDu Locle. The French text to Don Carlos was written by Joseph Méry,who wrote La bataille de Toulouse, the subject of Verdi’s early opera Labattaglia di Legnano. He was strongly affected by the sight of the King’s barelyfurnished little room where he had also died. Another reason for Verdi’s increased interest inSchiller’s drama was his visit to Spain in 1862 and to King Philip’s palace atthe Escorial. His daughter, son and first wife had died after fouryears of marriage and he deeply regretted not having children with his secondwife Giuseppina Strepponi.
Verdi had had a bad relationship with his father, who died duringthe Don Carlos rehearsals. Verdi became reallyinterested in the latter since Don Carlos was yet another drama on thecomplicated relationship between father and child, a subject to which hereturned in Luisa Miller, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, Aida, I due Foscari andDon Carlos. Perrin quickly sent Escudier to Sant’Agata with two texts,Cleopatra and a scenario on Schiller’s Don Carlos. In the summerof 1865 he wrote to his French publisher Escudier that he was surprised at theoffer from the Opéra because of the earlier débâcle, but that he would like towrite an opera, if he could find a libretto. He wasnow working hard at his Italian farm Sant’Agata, with building projects,hydraulic machinery, tree-planting, horse-breeding and hunting. Sincethere had almost been a “war” between the composer and the opera orchestraduring the rehearsals of Les vêpres siciliennes, Verdi remained silent. In the summer of 1864 Perrin, the director of the ParisOpéra, contacted Verdi about a new opera for the World Fair of 1867. Other Verdi operas had also beenproduced on the stages of the French capital soon after their premières inItaly. Three of Verdi’s operas had their first performances inParis prior to Don Carlos, Jérusalem in 1847, Les vêpres siciliennes in 1855and a revised version of Macbeth in 1865. At the same time Verdi had himself studied Francesco Maria Piave’slibretto on the same subject for Antonio Buzzolla’s opera Elisabetta di Valois,first given at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, but Verdi was to compose nineother large-scale operas before he took a serious interest in the fate of theSpanish Infante. It was, therefore, not sostrange that the writers of the opera Jérusalem, Gustave Vaëz and AlphonseRoyer, in 1850 suggested Schiller’s 1787 verse drama Don Carlos for their nextproject.
During the 1840s he had composed three operas on plays by Schiller,Giovanna d’Arco (Die Jungfrau von Orléans) in 1844, I masnadieri (Die Räuber)in 1847 and Luisa Miller (Kabale und Liebe) in 1849. Friedrich Schiller was one of Giuseppe Verdi’s favouriteauthors.
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