Background
Henrietta Chalupetzky was the only child of a Viennese goldsmith and studied music in Vienna, adopting her mother"s maiden name, Treffz, for professional purposes.
Henrietta Chalupetzky was the only child of a Viennese goldsmith and studied music in Vienna, adopting her mother"s maiden name, Treffz, for professional purposes.
Her career took her around Austria, as well as Germany and France, but it was in England that she first appeared with Johann Strauss I in concerts that would bring her numerous accolades and felicitations. The Musical World, published in London on 5 May 1849, noted her talents: "mezzo-soprano voice of beautiful quality and remarkable for freshness and equality of tone throughout the register". Between 1841 and 1852, she bore seven illegitimate children, and around 1843, she was the mistress of the wealthy banker Moritz Todesco, with whom she remained for the next eighteen years.
Todesco, a music enthusiast, played host to many private soirées in the salon of his Viennese home where many eminent prominent and influential personalities of art, music and literature were present to grace the functions.
She probably was introduced to Johann Strauss II during the winter of 1861 or 1862, although it was likely that they met sixteen years before at one of the theatre-balls held at the Sträussel-Säle in Josefstadt. Their marriage was not without skepticism.
Perhaps Treffz"s most important contribution to effectively tap Strauss" creative powers was her constant persuasion towards his eventual choice of writing operettas as well as other stage works. Such a product would be the popular operetta Die Fledermaus.
Further, her encouragement for Strauss to apply for the coveted "KK Hofballmusik-direktor" post eventually bore positive results, as he was awarded the honorary position in 1863.
She often spoke of herself as a "poor, old cripple" as well as suffering from painful illnesses in the last years of her life. Strauss himself remarried seven weeks later, to Ernestine Dittrich on 28 May 1878.