Teresa Stolz was a Bohemia

Bohemia

Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

n soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, long resident in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, who was associated with significant premieres of the works of Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

, and may have been his mistress. She has been described as "the Verdian dramatic soprano par excellence, powerful, passionate in utterance, but dignified in manner and secure in tone and control".

Biography

Teresa Stolz was born Tereza Stolzová (Tereza is sometimes seen in diminutive versions such as Teresina, Teresie or Terezie) in Kostelec nad Labem

Kostelec nad Labem

Kostelec nad Labem is a town in Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has cca 3,000 inhabitants. Its a member of Mikroregion Povodí Mratínského potoka.-External links:*...

 in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1834. This is now in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

. She studied under Josef Neruda

Josef Neruda

Josef Neruda was a Moravian organist and music teacher.-Life:Josef Neruda learned basics of organ playing in Rajhrad monastery. In his youth, he was a teacher assistant in Náměšť nad Oslavou, besides his job he played in Haugwitz chapel and he also taught piano in Olomouc...

 then at the Prague Conservatoire under Giovanni Battista Gardigiani. She was expelled from the Conservatoire in October 1851 but continued her study with Vojtěch Čaboun. She moved to Trieste

Trieste

Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...

 to be with her brother, and where she studied with Luigi Ricci (who had conducted the 1848 premiere of Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Il corsaro

Il corsaro

Il corsaro is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, from a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Lord Byron's poem The Corsair...

and later became her brother-in-law). She made her debut in Tiflis

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

 in 1857 and also appeared in Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

, Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

, Nice

Nice

Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...

, Granada

Granada

Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...

 and other places. In 1864 she went to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, where was a pupil of Francesco Lamperti

Francesco Lamperti

Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...

 in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

. She made her European debut in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 in 1864. She appeared regularly at La Scala

La Scala

La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...

, Milan, between 1865 and 1877.

Teresa Stolz created the role of Leonora in the revised version of Verdi's La forza del destino

La forza del destino

La forza del destino is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino , by Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's Wallensteins Lager. It was first performed...

in Milan on 27 February 1869. She sang in the premiere of the revised version of his Don Carlo

Don Carlos

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...

.
She was the first to sing the title role of Aida

Aida

Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

in Italy (La Scala, 8 February 1872; also its European premiere). Verdi did not attend the world premiere in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 the previous December, and considered the Milan performance, in which he was heavily involved at every stage, to be its real premiere.

Stolz was also the soprano soloist at the premiere of Verdi's Requiem

Requiem (Verdi)

The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...

on 22 May 1874. She also appeared in the Requiem under Verdi's direction at the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1875. She reprised Aida under Verdi in Vienna in 1875 and in Paris in 1876.

Her other roles included the title roles in Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

's Lucrezia Borgia

Lucrezia Borgia (opera)

Lucrezia Borgia is a melodramma, or opera, in a prologue and two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after the play by Victor Hugo, in its turn after the legend of Lucrezia Borgia. Lucrezia Borgia was first performed on 26 December 1833 at La Scala, Milan with...

, Bellini

Vincenzo Bellini

Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

's Norma

Norma (opera)

Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...

, and Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco

Giovanna d'Arco

Giovanna d'Arco is an operatic dramma lirico with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera....

; Mathilde in Rossini's Guillaume Tell

William Tell (opera)

Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...

, Alice in Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...

's Robert le diable

Robert le diable (opera)

Robert le diable is an opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer, often regarded as the first grand opera. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and Casimir Delavigne and has little connection to the medieval legend of Robert the Devil. Originally planned as a three-act opéra comique, "Meyerbeer persuaded...

, Amelia in Un ballo in maschera

Un ballo in maschera

Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...

, Gilda in Rigoletto

Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...

and Desdemona in Otello

Otello

Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....

.

Her career took her to such places such as Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, St Petersburg, Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

, Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

Private life

She was the mistress and later the fiancée of the conductor and composer Angelo Mariani

Angelo Mariani (conductor)

Angelo Mariani was an Italian opera conductor and composer. His work as a conductor drew praise from Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini and Richard Wagner, and he was a longtime personal friend of Verdi's, although they became estranged towards the end of Mariani's life...

. That relationship ended around 1871 but there were a number of complicating factors that led up to it. Mariani had formerly been a good friend of Verdi's, but they parted company in 1871 after Mariani's indecision when he was asked by Verdi to conduct the premiere of Aida

Aida

Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

in Cairo. Stolz was accused of having an affair with Verdi, but whether this charge is true cannot be said with certainty (Grove says "There is no evidence at all that there was an affair between Verdi and the singer"). Verdi did spend an unusual amount of time working with her leading up to the Milan premiere of Aida in 1872. Mariani died of cancer in 1873. On 4 September 1875, a Florence newspaper, the Rivista independente, published the first of five articles with intimate details of her private life, and accused her of immoral relations with both the late Mariani and with Verdi. What can be said with confidence is that Stolz's break with Mariani came with the encouragement of both Verdi and his second wife Giuseppina Strepponi

Giuseppina Strepponi

Clelia Maria Josepha Strepponi was a nineteenth century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi...

, the supposedly wronged party, who had herself previously referred in her letters to the "continual deception" of Stolz. It was a very complicated affair, made even more complicated by the publication of supposed letters by Strepponi in which she refers to "my dear friend Teresina ... who has always behaved as a faithful friend should". These letters are now known to be forgeries; and the exact truth of the matter has been debated ever since. Stolz became Verdi's companion after Strepponi's death in 1897, but whether this was platonic or romantic is not known.

She died in Milan in 1902, the year after Verdi, and is buried there.

She had identical twin elder sisters, Francesca (Fanny) and Ludmila (Lidia), both singers. They both lived openly with her former teacher, the conductor and composer Luigi Ricci, who married Ludmila, but maintained a relationship with Francesca. By Ludmila, Ricci had a daughter Adelaide (Lella) Ricci

Lella Ricci

Lella Ricci was an Italian opera singer.She was born in Italy as Adelaide Ricci to composer Luigi Ricci and opera singer Ludmila Stolz . She inherited musical talent and enjoyed a great success in the Theatre Principe Umberto in Florence...

, who was also a singer. Lella (Teresa's niece) became pregnant (possibly to Bedřich Smetana

Bedrich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...

), but had an abortion and died as a result of complications, aged 21.

By Francesca, Luigi Ricci had a son, also Luigi Ricci

Luigi Ricci-Stolz

Luigi Ricci-Stolz was an Italian musician and composer.He was born as Luigino Ricci in Trieste to composer Luigi Ricci and opera singer Francesca Stolz , the elder sister of Teresa Stolz. At the time Luigi Ricci was married to Ludmila Stolz , the identical twin sister of Francesca...

 (Teresa's nephew), who was a conductor and composer. He inherited Teresa Stolz's estate, and changed his name to Luigi Ricci-Stolz.

Her grand-nephew through a different part of the Stolz line was the composer Robert Stolz

Robert Stolz

Robert Elisabeth Stolz was an Austrian songwriter and conductor as well as a composer of operettas and film music.- Biography :...

.

Sources

• Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., 1954