Viva Violetta & Verdi by Howard Jay Smith Read an Excerpt

Publication Date: January 28th, 2025
Publisher: Historium Press
Pages: 256
Genre: Historical Fiction

Book Description

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.

Excerpt

Viva Violetta & Verdi:

Vienna

Eventually we arrived in Vienna, the capital of the Hapsburg Empire, where Strepponi was to sing at both the Kärntnertor Theater and the Theater an der Wein. Our stage coach delivered us to the depot and livery stable on Kärtnerstrasse, mere blocks from the theaters. Upstairs was the Wilden Mann Gasthaus, where we took several rooms for our entourage. The Gasthaus was the very same hostel that my cousin, Lorenzo Da Ponte, had stayed at some fifty years earlier. Downstairs, occupying one half of the ground floor, was the Café Venezia where Da Ponte had met his future wife, Celestina, who was also its owner. Da Ponte often took his meals there with Mozart when they were writing The Marriage of Figaro. What could be more inspiring than to dine in their shadows in the very café where the music for that first shot of the revolution was composed? And although that might have seemed like ancient history, it was only a decade before we arrived, that Beethoven, yes, the immortal Beethoven himself premiered one of his very last works, his Opus 132 String Quartet in the Café Venezia. Strepponi and I made a point to dine there with her staff as often as possible during our stay, if only to soak in the history and the food – which was nearly as good as that back home at Ca’ Dario. I also made a pilgrimage to the Theater an der Wein where Beethoven lived while composing his only opera Fidelio – one of the few existing operas until Verdi’s that actually spoke of freedom, democracy and of overthrowing corrupted oppressive regimes. For those of us in Giovine Italy, and for Verdi, the politics of Fidelio was a guide star, a precursor to our own uprising.

Though I had obviously never been to Vienna before, I had read Da Ponte’s secret diaries over and over many times before delivering them to Ceneda. The diaries not only described his decade worth of adventures in the city, they also painted in vivid and at times gory details, a picture of about how horribly Jews were treated and abused under the Austrians. They were our oppressors and would remain so until we broke the harness these aristocrats used to constrain us all.

As a city, and the capital of a vast empire, Vienna was a wonderfully beautiful and fascinating place. Nonetheless, I could never feel comfortable there. That discomfort helped me understand why my cousin had used his identity as Catholic priest, as a costume to hide the fact that he was a Hebrew. To do otherwise simply did not feel safe. If you had read Da Ponte’s accounts of how he, along with Mozart and Baron Wetzler, another Converso, visited the underground site of the Vienna Gesera massacre below the modern city’s Judenplatz where in 1421, fourteen hundred Jews were burnt alive, you would understand why this city of smiling, pleasant Austrians terrified me.

Before Strepponi and I began our run of performances in Vienna, I sought out Bartolomeo Merelli at his offices at the Kärntnertor Theater, only to discover that he had returned to Milan weeks earlier. Any thought of having him read through Verdi’s score for Oberto had vanished.

On the other hand, Strepponi once more wooed both the musicians and aristocrats of the capital. At one point she dated the concertmaster of the opera orchestra and then later, Donizetti himself when she did a reprise of her role in his Anna Bolena. On more than one evening I dined alone with our staff while Strepponi was out and about.

There were other times Strepponi would encourage me to date one of her lady friends, typically other singers or chorus members she thought would match up well with me. I’d go out with them, but much like my experiences in America, I considered such affairs a distraction from my goal of finding a true partner to love, marry and have a family with. I appreciated Strepponi looking out for me, but what can I say, these assignations always felt empty.

We performed several operas in Vienna over the next month and though I had great opportunities covering a number of major roles, I was never so glad to leave a city and get back on the road. And so, after Strepponi’s triumph there, our tour resumed at the same breakneck pace across the northern Italian cities.

Praise for Viva 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

Where to Purchase

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Meet the Author

Howard Jay Smith is an award-winning writer from Santa Barbara, California. 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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Tour Schedule

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