on to London to make sure that Jenny Lind, about whom rumours of her reluctance to come to England abounded, was already present and ready to go to work. While Verdi remained in the city, Mary Jane Phillips-Matz in her massive biography of the composer, speculates that Verdi saw her in the three days he was present,. On 27 July 1847, having left London, Verdi returned to Paris. To friends in Italy, he had written from London (or wrote from Paris) about "being able to lead the life I wish" and "intend[ing] to stay a month in Paris, if I liked it". With the exception of a return to Italy after the 18 March 1848 bloody uprising in Milan against the Austrians (when the composer was away from early April to mid-May) and the period of overseeing the rehearsals of La battaglia di Legnano in Rome (from before Christmas 1848 to early February 1849 after its premiere on 27 January 1849), Verdi remained in Paris. However, as far as the relationship with Strepponi proceeded, Phillips-Matz recounts that Verdi was "living in an apartment around the corner from Strepponi's house", that the news of this had reached Italy ("Verdi had been seen chez Strepponi"), and that, in writing the music for Jérusalem, he had received her help to the extent that a handwritten love duet in the composer's autograph score contains alternative lines in her handwriting and in his. This is described by British music critic Andrew Porter as "one of the more romantic discoveries of recent years". Baldini tells us that "at the end of 1847 Verdi rented a little house in Passy, and went to live there with Giuseppina", but Phillips-Matz does not go so far, noting only that "he may have moved into her apartment or a separate apartment in her building", but later does confirm the move to Passy, dating it to June 1848. However, the couple were to remain together for many years, and when the time came to leave Paris, Verdi left in late July and "made straight for Busseto to wait for her there", while it appear that Strepponi visited her family in Florence and Pavia before joining him. Performance history 19th century Given by the Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier, the premiere of the opera took place on 26 November 1847, but even while writing the French version and before its premiere,