Giuseppina Grassini

Giuseppina Maria Camilla (also Josephina) Grassini (April 18, 1773 in Varese, Italy – January 3, 1850 in Milan) was a noted Italian contralto, and a singing teacher. She was also a lover (at different times) of both Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.

After growing up under the musical guidance of her mother, an amateur violinist, and Domenico Zucchinetti in Varese, and Antonio Secchi in Milan, Grassini made her stage début in 1789 in Parma singing in Guglielmi’s La pastorella nobile, and the following year at Milan’s La Scala in three opere buffe among which included Guglielmi’s La bella pescatrice. These first comic performances were not a great success, and Grassini was driven to resume the study of singing and to turn to drama.

From 1792 she returned fully to the stage in the theatres of Vicenza, Venice, Milan again, Naples and Ferrara. She sang (among others) in the first Scala performance of Zingarelli’s Artaserse (1793), in the première of Portugal’s Demofoonte (1794), in Bertoni’s Orfeo ed Euridice (Euridice), in Mayr’s Telemaco nell’isola di Calipso (première, 1797), in Cimarosa’s Artemisia regina di Caria (première, 1797) and in the first Fenice performance of Nasolini’s La morte di Semiramide (1798, title role). Her year of glory, however, was 1796, when she created two roles which remained in the repertoire for some decades and are now famous, in both appearing beside the soprano castrato Girolamo Crescentini, who was also Grassini's master and whose teachings she followed faithfully throughout her life. Nicola Zingarelli wrote the part of Giulietta for her in his opera Giulietta e Romeo, staged at Milan’s La Scala on January 30, while Domenico Cimarosa composed the role of Horatia (Orazia) in Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, staged instead in northern Italy’s second most important theatre, Venice’s La Fenice, on December 26. In that same year Grassini took part moreover in a third première of Gaetano Marinelli's Issipile, which was by no means as successful as the others.

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