After a critically successful (but perhaps not financially successful) season, the opera troupe traveled next to Havana, Cuba. Bagioli stayed in New York City, having apparently fallen in love with Maria, then still an adolescent and Da Ponte's ward. While courting Maria Cooke, Bagioli composed the score for Da Ponte's "Hymn to America" with which he would later always open and close concerts. Sources place their marriage at about 1834. Around then, Baglioli moved into the Da Ponte household and began to establish himself as a voice instructor. Their daughter, Teresa, was born in 1836, when Maria was 17.