Feliciano Cristoforo Bartolomeo Strepponi (26 October 1793 – 13 January 1832) was an Italian composer and conductor. He was born in Lodi and died in Trieste at the age of 38. Amongst his compositions were seven operas which had a modest success in their day. The last one, L'Ullà di Bassora, premiered at La Scala in 1831. He was the father and first teacher of the opera singer Giuseppina Strepponi who later became the second wife of Giuseppe Verdi.
Life
Strepponi was born in the northern Italian city of Lodi to Maria (née Destefani) and Giuseppe Strepponi. Although some older sources give his birth year as 1797, research published in 2006 by Lodi historian Maria Moretti gives his birth date as 26 October 1793. He was baptised the following day with the name Feliciano Cristoforo Bartolomeo. The Strepponi family were intellectuals and liberal-minded supporters of Napoleon Bonaparte. They also had a strong interest in music with several members of the family having attended the Milan Conservatory. Strepponi's older brother Francesco became the maestro di cappella at the Church of the Beata Vergine Incoronata in Lodi. His sister Giovanna was a schoolmistress in the city.
Strepponi showed a precocious talent for music. In 1812 (aged 19), he conducted the Te Deum at the Lodi Cathedral celebrating the return of Napoleon Bonaparte. That year he met Rosa Cornalba (1793–1870), a native of Lodi who came from a family of modest shopkeepers and artisans distantly related to the noble Barberini family. They married on 3 November 1814 to an organ accompaniment composed by Strepponi's brother Francesco. Giuseppina, the first of their six children (four of whom survived to adulthood), was born on 9 September 1815. In 1820 Strepponi received his diploma from the Milan Conservatory winning a special prize in composition. His first opera, Amore e fedeltà alla prova premiered at the theatre in Lodi that same year.
Upon completion of his music studies in Milan, Strepponi was appointed maestro di cappella at Monza Cathedral on the recommendation of his former teacher Vincenzo Federici. For the next few years he travelled between Lodi, Monza, Milan, and Turin, while his wife and children remained in Lodi. Three more of his operas were produced, two of which had librettos by Felice Romani with whom he would form a close friendship. Both were members of the Carbonari, a secret revolutionary society founded in the early 19th-century which played an active role in opposing Austrian rule of northern Italy. In 1828, he was dismissed from his post at Monza Catherdral, partly because of his frequent absences and partly because of his suspected revolutionary tendencies. However, he had an offer from the Teatro Grande in Trieste to serve as the assistant conductor to Giuseppe Farinelli and to compose two new operas.
With his new appointment, the entire Strepponi family moved to Trieste where they had an apartment facing the Piazza Piccola. Considered an excellent opera conductor, Strepponi soon attracted prominent singers to the Teatro Grande, including Giuditta Grisi and Caroline Ungher. The premiere of his opera Gli Illinesi there in 1829 was a breakthrough for him as a composer and would ultimately lead to a commission from La Scala. In the meantime, his fifteen-year-old daughter Giuseppina whom he trained in both piano and singing was showing considerable promise as a musician. In November 1830, he brought her to the Milan Conservatory where she was accepted as a pupil despite being slightly over the age limit for entry. His opera L' Ullà di Bassora premiered at La Scala in September of the following year to some success and had a further fifteen performances there. However, with a family to support and Giuseppina's fees at the conservatory to be paid, Strepponi had embarked on a brief but frenetic career as an impresario, leaving his post in Trieste, where his wife and three other children remained while he travelled throughout Italy.