▶ Giuseppe Verdi (1886). Pastel on cardboard by Giovanni Boldini. From the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome.

On View May 24 – October 13, 2025

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) remains one of the most celebrated opera composers in the genre. Throughout his life, he composed twenty-six operas, many of which are still produced by opera companies around the world. From this prolific output, soprano Marcella Sembrich found herself a champion of three during her career – Rigoletto, Ernani, and La Traviata.

“Viva Verdi” explores these three Verdi roles and uncovers little known connections between the revered composer and Mme. Sembrich. Featured in this exhibition are artifacts from Sembrich’s portrayals of three of Verdi’s operatic heroines, including the couture silk gown designed for the role of Violetta, the tragic Lady of the Camellias, from La Traviata.

The text below is an abridged version of the complete exhibition. Some items, including the gown from La Traviata, are currently only available to view in person. Plan your visit to The Sembrich to see the complete exhibition.

The Sembrich-Verdi Connection

Anna Schoen-René (1864–1942)

The pivotal connection between Giuseppe Verdi and Marcella Sembrich has only recently been rediscovered in the book “America’s Musical Inheritance – Memoirs and Recollections” by soprano Anna Eugénie Schoen-René (1864–1943), a lifelong friend and esteemed colleague of Mme. Sembrich. In her memoir, Mme. Schoen-René dedicated an entire chapter to Sembrich and shed light on the earliest years of Mme. Sembrich’s career. These details were recounted to Schoen-René by Sembrich herself.

While we know that Sembrich’s rise to fame was meteoric, it was not instantaneous. There were several years of struggle and hard work that preceded her rapid ascent into the annals of operatic history. In the year following her 1877 operatic debut in Athens, Sembrich sent letters seeking guidance and opportunities from prominent musical figures, including Giuseppe Verdi. According to Mme. Schoen-René: “Verdi was aware that Italy at that time was not the place for her. Musical conditions there were deplorable, since there were no first-class opera houses outside of Milan.”

While Verdi discouraged Sembrich from seeking opportunities in Italy, he advised her to go to Paris and gave her a letter of introduction to mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, suggesting that she could guide Sembrich in her future career. Viardot was a piano student of Franz Lizst, a member of one of the most prominent musical families of the 19th century, a gifted teacher, and a key figure in the European cultural world.

Recognizing the young singer’s musical gifts, Viardot often presented the 19-year-old Sembrich at her musical salons at her home on the fashionable Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then in 1878, Viardot wrote a letter of introduction to her friend who was an influential director at the Royal Opera in Dresden and persuaded Sembrich to begin her career there. This move did indeed prove to be the perfect option as it was the beginning of Sembrich’s rise to operatic fame.

Pauline Garcia Viardot (1821-1910)

Ernani is Verdi’s fifth operatic work. It was his first commission from Venice’s Teatro La Fenice and also his first collaboration with librettist Francesco Maria Piave. Like his later opera Rigoletto, the opera is based on a play by French playwright Victor Hugo.

For this new opera, Verdi selected the play Hernani, stating that Hugo had already written the action and drama into the play. In order to pass censorship, small changes were made to the plot. This included changing the entrance of the King, which originally depicted him hiding in a cupboard, an activity unseemly for a royal.

Once completed, Verdi had one final hurtle to overcome before the premiere - a terrible tenor who was to sing the title role. Only by threatening to walk away from his contract was Verdi able to secure a suitable tenor before the premiere in March of 1843.

Verdi’s Ernani tells the tale of the Lady Elvira who is torn between three suitors: the bandit Ernani with whom she is in love, the nobleman Don Silva to whom she is betrothed, and the devious King of Spain Don Carlos. All three want her hand in marriage, but she only wants Ernani. Don Carlos kidnaps Elvira to have her for his own. Ernani makes an agreement with Silva to rescue Elvira, with the understanding that his life will be the price of their pact. Elvira is saved from the king and believes that she will soon be wed to her love, but tragedy is all that awaits. Shortly after her rescue, Silva arrives to call in the life debt that Ernani swore. The bandit gives a tearful goodbye to his love and forfeits his life.

Marcella Sembrich as Elvira (1903). Photograph by Aimé Dupont, New York. From The Sembrich Collection.

Marcella Sembrich as Elvira

By the time Sembrich sang the role of Elvira with The Metropolitan Opera in 1903, Ernani was considered old fashioned, having been overshadowed by Verdi’s later operas Il Trovatore and La Traviata. The Metropolitan Opera revived the work specifically for Sembrich to display her mastery of the bel canto style in which the opera was composed. Prior to this revival, Sembrich had not performed the full role, but often sang Elvira’s aria “Ernani Involami” on her recitals, dazzling audiences with her superb vocal abilities. Despite praise for Sembrich’s vocal prowess as Elvira, the Met’s revival received only four performances and stale reviews.

Sembrich was declared the only triumph of the Met’s revival:

“She was in her own domain, her kingdom in which the royal purple of sovereign glory decks her fair shoulders. She reigned right splendidly, and all the others in the cast were but humble followers of her courtly train. She overtopped them all by the supremacy of her beautiful style, the style of the old Italian school which bequeathed to the world operas of the ‘Ernani’ type and the school for singing them.”

While critics praised Sembrich’s success, they also bemoaned the inability of the other singers to perform the work well:

“None of the other singers was heard to great advantage... All of them did entirely too much singing off the key and Mr. de Reszke's ‘Infelice’ was extremely infelicitous.”

The opera received only four performances that season.

Later that year, Sembrich signed a contract with the newly formed Columbia Records for its Grand Opera Series, becoming one of the first commercial recordings artists. One of the initial recordings the company released was a recording of Sembrich singing the aria “Ernani Involami” from Ernani with piano accompaniment. The next year, Sembrich signed a contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company as a Red Seal Artist and re-recorded the work with orchestral accompaniment.

Both of Sembrich’s recordings have been digitized and are available below:

Autographed photo of G. Verdi (1898). From The Sembrich Collection.

Commissioned by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in 1850, Rigoletto is Verdi’s sixteenth opera. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave and based on a controversial 1832 play by Victor Hugo titled Le roi s’amuse (The King Amuses Himself). The play depicts a vain, womanizing king and emphasized the depravity of European nobility. Due to the original play’s critical view of the monarchy it was initially banned in France.

Verdi and Piave’s initial adaptation did not pass the censorship of the Austrian authorities who held power in Venice. The censors deemed it “repugnant” and “obscene.” Verdi and Piave worked to revise the story, changing the setting and the characters’ names and titles. The story was now to be set in the ancient Dutchy of Mantua instead of France, and the main character renamed Rigoletto.

This new version passed censorship and Verdi worked quickly to complete the score. The full work was completed only a month before its premiere in Venice on March 11, 1851.

The opera centers around the hunchback jester Rigoletto who has hidden his daughter from the public to protect her from the lecherous Duke of Mantua. Despite her father’s efforts, Gilda is discovered and brought to the Duke, who seduces her. After the incident, Rigoletto vows revenge and concocts a plot to have the Duke assassinated. To prove to Gilda that the Duke does not love her, Rigoletto leads her to the home of Maddalena, a young prostitute with whom the nobleman is having a tryst. Despite what she sees, Gilda is still convinced that the Duke loves her. She seeks out the assassin and offers her life in exchange. Later, the assassin delivers Rigoletto a corpse wrapped in cloth. Rigoletto is delighted until he hears the voice of the Duke in the distance. Confused, he opens the sack to find the lifeless body of his daughter.

Marcella Sembrich as Gilda (ca. 1883). Photographer Unknown. From The Sembrich Collection.

Marcella Sembrich as Gilda

Marcella Sembrich first performed the role of Gilda during the inaugural season of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. This new role, while sung well, was not as highly praised by the press as others in her repertoire and critics were quick to compare her performance with others. Of her debut in the role on November 16, 1883, The New York Times stated:

“The part of Gilda can hardly be said to wholly suit Mme. Sembrich, although her singing was as nearly perfect as possible from the first air which she sings in her father's garden, to the closing quartet.”

Two weeks later, the press reversed course and stated of her second performance:

“It is sufficient to say now that it lacked last night none of the remarkable brilliancy which has been noticed previously. Her rendering of ‘Caro nome’ was, perhaps, a trifle more dazzling than it was before. The rapid ornamental passages were sung with charming purity and astonishing ease, and, in closing, she soared away to an upper E, which quite carried the audience away.”

In total, Sembrich performed the role with The Metropolitan Opera 28 times. One of her most notable performances in Rigoletto was on the company’s opening night in 1903, when the celebrated tenor Enrico Caruso made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the Duke. From 1903 to 1909, she and Caruso appeared together in almost every performance of Rigoletto at The Metropolitan.

In 1908, Sembrich and Caruso, alongside mezzo-soprano Gina Severina and baritone Antonio Scotti, recorded the famous quartet “Bella figlia dell' amore” from Rigoletto for Victor. The next year, in 1909, Sembrich also recorded Gilda’s duet with Rigoletto “Tutte le feste al tempio,” with baritone Mario Sammarco. Both recordings have been digitized and are available below:

Enrico Caruso as the Duke (1903). Photograph by Aimé Dupont, New York. From The Sembrich Collection.

La Traviata was Verdi’s eighteenth opera and, like Rigoletto and Ernani, was a collaboration with librettist Francesco Maria Piave commissioned by Venice’s Teatro La Fenice.

The opera is an adaptation of La Dame aux Camélias, a play and novel by French writer Alexandre Dumas. Verdi saw the play while visiting Paris in 1852 and, upon his return to Italy, began composing the music for an operatic adaptation.

Much to Verdi’s dismay, in order to pass censorship, the opera was required to be set in the past, eliminating the opera’s connection to the present era.

Verdi’s troubles did not end there. The cast for the premiere fell well below his standards and he had no success in convincing the theater to recast the singers. The premiere in March of 1853 was a disaster. After, Verdi famously wrote to a friend, “La Traviata last night [was] a failure.” Despite its tumultuous premiere, La Traviata became one of the most performed operas during Verdi’s lifetime and remains so today.

La Traviata is the tragic tale of Violetta Valéry, a famous courtesan known for throwing lavish parties at her Paris salon. At one of these parties, she meets and falls in love with Alfredo. The couple live happily in the French countryside until her past as a courtesan forces her to sacrifice her love for Alfredo to protect his family’s reputation in an arrangement made with his father. Alfredo later finds her at a party and an emotional argument ensues, ending with him humiliating Violetta. Months later, Violetta learns that a cough that has been ailing her is tuberculosis and will soon claim her life. Alfredo discovers the arrangement his father made with Violetta and begs forgiveness, but he is too late and she dies in his arms.

Marcella Sembrich as Violetta (ca. 1896). Photograph by A. Pasetti, St. Petersburg. From The Sembrich Collection.

Marcella Sembrich as Violetta

Marcella Sembrich stated that while the operas of Mozart were her favorite to sing, the role of Violetta was her favorite to act. The role was indeed a vehicle for her prowess as a magnificent stage actress as well as an outstanding singer. Verdi himself even saw Sembrich perform his opera in 1897 and praised her portrayal.

Throughout her 40 year career, Sembrich sang the lead role in La Traviata on stages throughout Europe and at The Metropolitan Opera. In 1883, she became the first singer to portray the tragic Lady of the Camellias during The Met’s inaugural season. In total she performed the role with the company 47 times.

Sembrich was absent from the Metropolitan Opera from 1885-1897. During this time critics were never satisfied with the revivals of La Traviata, until Sembrich returned to the Met stage in 1898.

“To the celebrated artist Marcella Sembrich,” from G. Verdi with a quotation from Violetta’s Act III aria. From The Sembrich Collection.

Following a performance of the opera in San Francisco, the press declared: “After hearing the exquisite singing of Madame Sembrich in the Verdi creation, La Traviata, last evening it is no exaggeration to say that the artistic work of the diva stamps her as the greatest singer in the world.”

Sembrich championed this role at the Metropolitan until her retirement in 1909.

Given her abundant success in this role, it is no surprise that Violetta’s aria “Ah! Fors e lui… Sempre Libera” was recorded once for Columbia Records in 1903, and twice for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1904 and 1906. All three recordings have been digitized and are available below:

A review of Sembrich’s farewell performance at the Metropolitan Opera. The Baltimore Sun. February 7, 1909.

Marcella Sembrich’s farewell performance at the Metropolitan Opera was held on the evening of February 6, 1909. The event was one of the most lavish in the company’s history, and indeed included an opera by Verdi. There was such a great demand to see her final appearance in opera that the concert sold out within two hours of its announcement.

The evening featured Sembrich in roles from three of her favorite operas — Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, and Violetta Valéry in Verdi’s La Traviata.

After the three operatic selections ended, Madame Sembrich was brought back to the stage in her Traviata gown and seated upon a dais. Members of the company and other dignitaries then presented Sembrich with gifts and made speeches honoring her innumerable contributions to the opera.

The Metropolitan’s Board of Directors named her the first honorary member of the company, and presented her with a massive ornately decorated silver punch bowl made by Gorham (on display). The gift was so large, it took two people to carry it onto the stage.

Among the many other gifts presented by her colleagues, tenor Enrico Caruso — her esteemed stage partner for many of her appearances in La Traviata, La bohème, and Rigoletto — presented her with a large silver loving cup (on display). Another loving cup was presented by the members of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra.

The final gift presented to Sembrich was a diamond encrusted enamel watch on a chain of diamonds and pearls, a gift purchased with funds collected from more than one thousand admirers.

After all the celebrations had concluded, a shower of rose petals rained on Madame Sembrich as the final curtain fell on her monumental operatic career.

The cast list for Sembrich’s farewell at The Metropolitan Opera. The New York Times. Sunday, February 7, 1909.

The diamond encrusted watch and accompanying string of diamonds and pearls, gifted to Mme. Sembrich by her many admirers, are among the many treasures from her 1909 Met Opera farewell that are preserved within The Sembrich Collection.

In December 1909, while sightseeing in Los Angeles, Sembrich leaned out of her taxicab window for a better view. As she did, her prized watch and chain slipped from her neck. Later that day, when she realized it was missing, she was beside herself and unsuccessfully retraced her steps in an effort to locate it.

Before all hope was lost, it occurred to the driver that the thin watch — only about the size and width of a silver dollar — might have slipped into the door casing. The cab was returned to the garage; as soon as the mechanics removed the door panel, the necklace and watch dropped to the floor.

The Case of the Missing Watch

The diamond and pearl necklace and watch presented to Mme. Sembrich by her admirers at her 1909 farewell appearance in opera. From The Sembrich Collection.

Thank You to our 2025 Exhibition Sponsors!

Viva Verdi, The Sembrich’s 2025 Exhibition, is made possible with support from:

Carol L. Anderson
Stacy & Will Bixby
Dr. Lewis W. Britton IV

The Sembrich's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.