Clelia Maria Giuseppa (Giuseppina) Strepponi (Lodi, 8 September 1815 – Villanova sull'Arda, 14 November 1897) was a nineteenth-century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi.
She is often credited with having contributed to Verdi's first successes, starring in a number of his early operas, including the role of Abigaille in the world premiere of Nabucco in 1842. A highly gifted singer, Strepponi excelled in the bel canto repertoire and spent much of her career portraying roles in operas by Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, often sharing the stage with tenor Napoleone Moriani and baritone Giorgio Ronconi. Donizetti wrote the title role of his opera Adelia specifically for Strepponi. She was described as possessing a "limpid, penetrating, smooth voice, seemly action, a lovely figure; and to Nature's liberal endowments she adds an excellent technique"; her "deep inner feeling" was also lauded.
Both her personal and professional life were complicated by overwork, by at least three known pregnancies, and by her vocal deterioration which caused her to retire from the stage by the age of 31, in 1846 when she moved to Paris to become a singing teacher. While it is known that she had a professional relationship with Verdi from the time of his first opera, Oberto in 1839, they became a couple by 1847 when they lived together in Paris, then moved to Busseto in 1849, married in 1859, and remained together until the end of her life.
Strepponi was born in the city of Lodi in the Lombard region of Italy. She was the oldest child of Rosa Cornalba and Feliciano Strepponi (1797–1832), who was the organist at Monza Cathedral and a moderately successful opera composer, his works having been performed in theatres in Milan, Turin and Trieste. Her first music lessons were with her father who focused mainly on teaching her to play the piano, but in 1830 she was enrolled in the Milan Conservatory although just over the age of 15. After her father's death at the age of 35 in 1832 of encephalitis, she was able to continue studying singing and the piano as a non-paying pupil at the Conservatory where she notably won first prize for bel canto during her final year in 1834. Her performance of the cavatina from Beatrice di Tenda and for her parts in both a duet and a trio brought mention in the Gazzetta privilegiata di Milano of 29 September 1834, where it was noted that her vocal qualities, "will be a fine acquisition, when the time comes, for the Italian stage".
Strepponi made her professional opera début in December 1834 as Adria in Luigi Ricci's Chiara di Rosembergh at the Teatro Orfeo. She had her first major success during the following spring at the Teatro Grande in Trieste singing the title role in Rossini's Matilde di Shabran.
This success quickly led to numerous engagements at major opera houses throughout Italy and Giuseppina soon became her family's major breadwinner. In the summer of 1835, she went to Austria to sing Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma and Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna where she was praised highly by audiences and critics. Although she was highly talented, she never sang outside Italy after 1835.
Strepponi became a celebrity among opera singers during the late 1830s, arousing fanatical enthusiasm in performances throughout Italy. In 1836 she sang the roles of Ninetta in Rossini's La gazza ladra, Elvira in Bellini's I puritani, and the title role in Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.
In Spring 1837, she went under contract with Alessandro Lanari of Florence, then known as "the king of impresarios", who was able to secure important engagements for her in the years following. However, within a very short time, she found herself pregnant and had to sing through three pregnancies during the time with Lanari.
That same year she reprised the role of Elvira and portrayed the roles of Elena in Donizetti's Marino Faliero and the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. In 1838 she sang the title roles in Donizetti's Maria di Rudenz, Bellini's Beatrice di Tenda, and Carlo Coccia's Caterina di Guisa at the Imperial Regio Teatro degli Avvalorati in Livorno. She made her La Scala debut in 1839, replacing Antonietta Marini-Rainieri, who was found unsuitable in the work's premiere performance, as Leonora in the first production of Giuseppe Verdi's first opera Oberto. Strepponi's performance was considered one of the strongest aspects of this production and one of the main reasons that the work was received well.
Other notable roles for Strepponi during the late 1830s include Elaisa in Saverio Mercadante's Il giuramento, Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore and Sandrina in Luigi Ricci's Un'avventura di Scaramuccia. However, the record of constant performances over several years has invited speculation about what that might have done to the quality of her voice in later years.
Returning to Milan for rehearsals of Nabucco, she claimed that illness would prevent future performances in Vienna and asked to be relieved of that obligation. Lanari ordered a complete medical examination which concluded that she had "reached the limits of her endurance" and that she would be obliged to give up her career or else she would become a consumptive. She persisted with Nabucco, singing all eight performances of Verdi's opera: in her words to Lanari, "I dragged myself to the end of the performances" and then told him that she had the possibility of an offer of marriage from a man who would only do so if she were free from contractual obligations. The doctors' conclusions would allow her to do that, but it took her more than a year to recover.
Strepponi continued to remain a highly popular singer during the early 1840s. She notably sang the title role in Donizetti's Adelia in 1841 at the Teatro Apollo in Rome, a role written specifically for her by the composer. This was followed by a critically acclaimed portrayal as Abigaille in the world premiere of Verdi's Nabucco at La Scala in 1842. She reprised the role of Abigaille in several opera houses throughout Italy the following year, including the Teatro Regio di Parma and the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, which considerably aided the work's popularity. Also in 1843, she sang the roles of Elisabetta in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Imogene in Bellini's Il pirata in Bologna.
Other notable roles for Strepponi during the early 1840s included the title role in Bellini's Norma, the Marchesa del Poggio in Verdi's Un giorno di regno, and the title role in Giovanni Pacini's Saffo.
Around 1844, Strepponi began to experience significant vocal problems, most likely brought on by her relentless performing schedule, which culminated in a disastrous season in Palermo in 1845, where she was booed by audiences. Her voice never recovered and she thereafter appeared only sporadically in operas until her retirement in February 1846. Most of her last performances were in operas by Verdi, including performances of Elvira in Ernani and Lucrezia Contarini in I due Foscari.
Camillo Cirelli (whom Verdi had met while a student of Lavigna's some years before) was one of a group of three theatrical agents under Lanari who took responsibility for Strepponi from Milan after the early months of 1837. He also engaged her for the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice, but it was not uncommon for her to work under other impresarios. However, she became pregnant around March/April 1837 and she stopped singing only about a month before her first child, Camillo Luigi Antonio, was born in Turin in January 1838 and baptised as "Sterponi" (sic). From her performance records of these two years, Frank Walker corroborates the fact that she was absent from the stage for about three months, and then began another hectic round of performances under an exclusive contract with Lanari announced in February 1838. Cirelli believed that he was the father, although Frank Walker states that he proved to be a very good friend and that "it is possible that he had been Camillino's godfather, and given him his Christian name".