Viva Violetta & Verdi
By Howard Jay Smith
Publication Date: January 28th, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 256 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
A Love Affair Inspiring the World's Most Unforgettable Operas:
Experience the intense, lifelong love affair between Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, the brilliant and seductive soprano who shaped his legacy. As his muse, lover, and wife, Strepponi was the inspiration behind Verdi's most iconic works, including La Traviata and Aida. Her influence was pivotal, as she became the architect of his creative triumphs and the heart of his operatic genius.
Set against the backdrop of Italy's Risorgimento, this sweeping novel intertwines their turbulent relationship with the nation's fierce struggle for independence. Through the heartbreak of three brutal wars, Verdi and Strepponi's passion, betrayal, and artistic ambition come alive, mirroring the era's fiery spirit.
Rich with themes of love, power, food, wine, and unrelenting passion, Viva Violetta & Verdi is an unforgettable exploration of art, resilience, and the enduring bond that transformed both an artist and a nation.
Praise for Violetta & Verdi:
"A stunning, significant book...that is rich, lush and drenched in knowledge. It is nothing less than a gift." - Sheila Weller
"Smith's historic drama embraces universal themes of class and religious persecution, and weaves gorgeous language with an intimate knowledge of Italian food, music, and political hypocrisy that contemporary readers will find irresistible." - Jessica Keener
"Viva Violetta & Verdi is a well-researched love letter to Verdi; fans are sure to love." - Leslie Zemeckis
"Perfection. You are right there, inhaling and breathing in the words, the smell, and each piece of music. Bravo. It is both a love song and a love letter to the irrefutable power of Verdi's muse, Violetta." - Amy Ferris
Excerpt
Violetta
Eventually we reached Turin, the capital of Savoy. With the future King of Italy, Victor Emanuel II, in the audience, Strepponi took to the stage of Teatro Regio to perform as the young ingénue of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. But a problem arose for which there was no simple solution. No matter how the costume mistress dressed Signorina Strepponi, there was, unfortunately, no way to hide the fact that our diva was at least seven months pregnant.
Who was the father?
In her rise to stardom Strepponi’s social whirl had spun ever faster. Like a queen bee anointed in honey perfume, she found suitors swarming around her. And most were rich. Most were aristocrats. And most were already married. But they all wanted to bed her, this impassioned diva, whose voice intoxicated them. Or so these lotharios all would claim. But Strepponi was no innocent fool. In fact, I still regard her as one of the smartest, most well-studied people I have ever known. Her intellect was right up there with Verdi himself. In addition to her native Italian, she could banter with the best in fluent French and Spanish and she even had a rudimentary knowledge of English, sufficient enough to read Shakespeare’s plays while we were traveling. This wise woman saw no reason not to take advantage of these affairs and relationship and use them to benefit her career. If the men of the opera world could do that, so, she determined, could she.
And though Strepponi confided that she did her best to take precautions, the inevitable happened. The father? Strepponi acknowledged that it could have been Lanari, Donizetti, her Vienna violinist or anyone of the leading men she had an affair within in the recent the course of our travels. In the end, it turned out to be an associate of Lanari, Camillo Cirelli, a minor impresario more than twice her age who had occasionally joined us on tour. Cirelli took some responsibility for the child, but in the end, not enough. After all, he too was already married and not about to divorce a wife of many decades.
Despite her noticeable pregnancy, Strepponi performed right up until her January delivery date. She had a boy, who was quickly given up for adoption.
But there were consequences.
In the rarified world of Italian society, it was one thing to be a goddess desired and taken by men, but another to advertise those affairs by becoming pregnant. On one side of the scale, the scandal was great for the box office as her bookings continued at a frenetic pace. The downside was that invitations to high society salons fell off ever more rapidly. In each city we toured, the diva had suddenly become a social pariah. Among the aristocracy, wives were scandalized, but their husbands, well, they kept calling. Of course, they did.
Never more than a thin whisp of a girl, the constant touring, the non-stop performances, the demands upon her voice, were often too much of a demand upon Strepponi’s stamina and her overall constitution. I urged her to slow down, but she would not listen. The pregnancy and her rush to get back on stage as soon as possible, added to the negative impact on her health. Though she was only twenty-three – yes, only twenty-three - there many were nights when she simply could not go on stage. She began to miss and cancel performances, which raised ever more concerns among the managers that ran the opera houses in each city we toured.
Strepponi was a realist. She tried to continue on as if nothing had happened but in her heart of hearts, she knew the world around her had begun to change, both brutally and permanently. In the self-righteous, male dominated society of the 1800’s she had become “the fallen woman,” “the one who has gone astray,” or as they say in the Milanese dialect, “La Traviata.”
This pained her but such was the way of the world back then. Of course, none of her male lovers suffered any consequences. Call it unfair – it was – or consider it one sided – it was – but such was life for a woman in the theater back then. Ironically, this new and undeserved reputation as a fallen woman, a woman little better than a courtesan, now made Strepponi even more attractive to lovers who sought her out in private.
And so, her tour continued so she could continue to fill up that pot of gold. And, yes, the affairs continued. A year later she was pregnant again. And the father this time? Chi lo sa? Who knows? Once more, there were too many suspects. She performed right up until the day she delivered. After she gave birth, I was the one tasked with bringing the poor infant – in secret - to the foundling orphanage, the Ospedale degli Innocenti, in Florence. I placed the baby in the little revolving door outside the orphanage and when it closed, that child entered another world, one none of us would ever know or experience. The impression that experience left upon me was as deep as witnessing poor Piero Lusardi being shot down by the Austrians in cold blood. I never wanted to be in that position again.
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Howard Jay Smith
VIVA VIOLETTA & VERDI, is his third novel in his series on great composers, including BEETHOVEN IN LOVE; OPUS 139 and MEETING MOZART: FROM THE SECRET DIARIES OF LORENZO DA PONTE.
His other books include OPENING THE DOORS TO HOLLYWOOD (Random House) and JOHN GARDNER: AN INTERVIEW (New London Press). He was recently awarded a Profant Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for Excellence in Writing.
Smith is a former two-time Bread Loaf Scholar and three-time Washington, D.C. Commission for the Arts Fellow, who taught for many years in the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program and has lectured nationally. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, American Heritage Magazine, the Beethoven Journal, Horizon Magazine, Fig Tree Press, the Journal of the Writers Guild of America, the Ojai Quarterly, and numerous trade publications. While an executive at the ABC Television, Embassy TV, and Academy Home Entertainment he worked on numerous film, television, radio and commercial projects.
He serves on the board of directors of the Santa Barbara Symphony and is a member of the American Beethoven Society.
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