 Two years later, Mathilde reluctantly agreed to allow her seventeen-year-old son to continue his studies in Munich, where he had to repeat the first year before he dropped out of school altogether to pursue a short-lived singing career.After fulfilling his military service as a conscript in the Bavarian army, followed by a grave bout of cholera, Panizza returned to his old Gymnasium in Schweinfurt.There he finally received his "Abitur" degree at the advanced age of 24.