page_title: Elisabetta Gafforini
section_title: Marriage and later years
hierarchical_section_title: Elisabetta Gafforini / Biography / Marriage and later years
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Italian poet, playwright and military officer, Antonio Gasparinetti| (1777–1824) . He was the husband of the opera singer Elisabetta Gafforini.
context_page_description: Elisabetta Gafforini was an Italian opera singer who performed leading contralto and mezzo-soprano roles, primarily in the theatres of Venice and at La Scala in Milan but also in Spain, Portugal, and other Italian cities. During the course of her 25-year career she appeared in numerous world premieres. She possessed a limpid, flexible, and resonant voice with an exceptionally wide range, and according to Stendhal was a consummate and enchanting comic actress. Gafforini was born in Milan and lived there after her definitive retirement from the stage in 1818 until her death at the age of 70.
context_section_description: From late 1811 through early 1812, Gafforini was engaged by the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. She appeared there in Orlandi's  La dama soldato, Portugal's Oro non compra amore, and Mosca's Il salto di Leucade. On her return to Milan, Gafforini and her lover, Antonio Gasparinetti, were married at the Chiesa di San Fedele on 1 April 1812. Their daughter and only child, Eugenia, was born later that year some time after Gafforini's summer appearance at the Teatro Eretenio in Vicenza in La dama soldato. From 1812 Gafforini had effectively retired from the stage although she made a few sporadic appearances between 1815 and 1818. Her brother-in-law, Luigi Zamboni, for whom Rossini wrote the role of Figaro in The Barber of Seville, had urged Rossini and the impresario Francesco Sforza-Cesarini to entice Gafforini out of retirement to sing Rosina at the opera's premiere. However, her fee was too high and in the end they settled on Geltrude Righetti. 
  In 1815 Gafforini sang once again at La Scala in Il mistico omaggio, a cantata by Vincenzo Federici and Ferdinando Orlandi sung in the presence of Archduke John of Austria to mark the return of Milan to Austrian control. Her last known stage appearances were at La Fenice in Venice where she appeared en travesti in the premieres of Mayr's Lanassa as General Montalbano (1817) and Francesco Basili's L'orfana egiziana as Tanizio (1818). 
  Antonio Gasparinetti died in 1824. Elisabetta lived on until 1847. On her death at the age of 70, her daughter erected a large marble memorial to her along the grand staircase of the Ospedale Fatebenefratelli in Milan. The inscription reads:
  To Elisabetta Gafforini, widow of Italian Colonel Antonio Gasparinetti. A most celebrated singer, an affectionate and tender mother. A principled, wise, honest, and intelligent creature. Placed here by her desolate and grieving daughter, Eugenia Gasparinetti Lanfranchi.
caption: Gafforini's husband, Antonio Gasparinetti
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