Un Giorno di regno

Un giorno di regno, ossia il finto Stanislao (A One-Day Reign, or The Pretend Stanislaus, but often translated into English as King for a Day) is an operatic melodramma giocoso in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on the play Le faux Stanislas by Alexandre Vincent Pineu-Duval. Un giorno di regno was Verdi's first attempt at comic opera.
The first performance was at Teatro alla Scala, Milan on 5 September 1840. The premiere was a failure, and the composer was actually seated in the orchestra pit during the first performance, and thus heard the audience reaction directly. Verdi himself and the critics acknowledged that the failure was partly due to the composer's own personal circumstances, as his two chldren and then his first wife Margherita Barezzi died during its composition between 1838 and 1840. La Scala cancelled the remaining scheduled performances, and did not revive the work until 2001.