A few years later he composed music for the amateur orchestra in Busseto. A man called Antonio Barezzi knew many important people and he helped Verdi a lot. Later Verdi married a daughter of a friend. Barezzi sent him to Milan so that he could study, but Verdi had not been taught the piano properly and he did not get a place in the music conservatory. He had some private lessons and learned a lot about opera as well as about literature and politics. In 1839 he composed an opera: "Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio", which was performed in La Scala, the world-famous opera house in Milan. It is not one of his greatest operas, but it helped him to become well-known and he was asked to write three more operas for La Scala. When his next opera was produced it was not a success: the audience did not like it and they hissed and booed. There was also tragedy in his personal life at this time: his two children and his wife all died.