Gustavo III (Verdi) to meet commitments regarding "Lear". Finally, in a letter which he wrote to Torelli in September 1857, Verdi confessed that he had "looked through an infinite number of plays...but not one of them will do for me..." but he then described an existing libretto which interested him, one which was written by the French playwright and librettist Eugene Scribe for Daniel Auber's very successful 1833 opera, "Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué": Verdi turned to the historical subject of King Gustav III of Sweden, who was shot while attending a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792 and died thirteen days
Giuseppe Verdi whether he preferred "Aida" or "Don Carlos", Verdi replied that "Aida" had "more bite and (if you'll forgive the word), more "theatricality"." During the rehearsals for the Naples production of "Aida" Verdi amused himself by writing his only string quartet, a sprightly work which shows in its last movement that he had not lost the skill for fugue-writing that he had learned with Lavigna. Verdi's three last major works continued to show new development in conveying drama and emotion. The first to appear, in 1874 was his Requiem, scored for operatic forces but by no means an "opera in ecclesiastical