Verdis Exceptional Women: Giuseppina Strepponi and Teresa Stolz

This investigation offers new perspectives on Giuseppe Verdis attitudes to women and the functions which they fulfilled for him. The book explores Verdis professional and personal relationship with women who were exceptional within the traditional socio-sexual structure of patria potest , in the context of womens changing status in nineteenth-century Italian society. It focusses on two women; the singers Giuseppina Strepponi, who supported and enhanced Verdis creativity at the beginning of his professional life and Teresa Stolz, who sustained his sense of self-worth at its end. Each was an essential emotional benefactor without whom Verdis career would not have been the same. The subject of the Strepponi-Verdi marriage and the impact of Strepponis past deserve further detailed and nuanced discussion. This book demonstrates Verdis shifting power-balance with Strepponi as she sought to retain intellectual self-respect while his success and control increased. The negative stereotypes concerning operatic divas do not withstand scrutiny when applied either to Strepponi or to Stolz. This book presents a revisionist appraisal of Stolz through close examination of her letters. Revealing Stolzs value to Verdi, they also provide contemporary operatic criticism and behind-the-scenes comment, some excerpts of which are published here in English for the first time.