Giulia Grisi
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Giulia Grisi (1811–November 29, 1869), was an Italian opera singer. Born in Milan, she was the daughter of one of Napoleon Bonaparte's Italian officers.
She came from a musically gifted family, her maternal aunt Giuseppina Grassini (1773–1850) being a favourite opera-singer both on the continent and in London; her mother had also been a singer, and her elder sister Guiditta and her cousin Carlotta were both exceedingly talented.
Giulia was trained to a musical career, and made her stage debut as Emma in Rossini's Zelmira in Bologna in 1828. Rossini and Bellini both took an interest in her, and at Milan she was the first to play the part of Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma, in which Giuditta Pasta took the title role. Grisi appeared in Paris in 1832, as Semiramide in Rossini's opera, and had a great success; and in 1834 she appeared in London, making her debut as Ninetta in La gazza ladra.
Her voice was a brilliant dramatic soprano, and her established position as a prima donna continued for thirty years. She was a particularly fine actress, and in London opera her association with such singers as Luigi Lablache, Giovanni Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Giovanni Matteo Mario was long remembered as the palmy days of Italian opera.
In 1854 she toured with Mario in America. She had married Count Gérard de Melcy in 1836, but he refused her a divorce; and she was unable to marry Mario, although they lived together. She died in Berlin in 1869.
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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
