Giuseppe Verdi have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman's words, "women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived". Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi. Verdi and Strepponi moved into Sant'Agata on 1 May 1851. May also brought an offer for a new opera from La Fenice, which Verdi eventually realised as "La traviata". That was followed by an agreement with the Rome Opera company to present "Il trovatore" for January 1853. Verdi now had sufficient earnings to
Giuseppe Verdi and Strepponi left Paris in July 1849, the immediate cause being an outbreak of cholera, and Verdi went directly to Busseto to continue work on completing his latest opera, "Luisa Miller", for a production in Naples later in the year. Verdi was committed to the publisher Giovanni Ricordi for an opera—which became "Stiffelio"—for Trieste in the Spring of 1850; and, subsequently, following negotiations with La Fenice, developed a libretto with Piave and wrote the music for "Rigoletto" (based on Victor Hugo's "Le roi s'amuse") for Venice in March 1851. This was the first of a sequence of three operas (followed