1696–1778, Italian Singer Cuzzoni was born and trained in Parma, where she gave her first performance in 1714. She first appeared with Faustina Bordoni in Venice in 1718, and they sang together several times during the early 1720s. Her London debut in Handel’s Ottone (1722) was a sensation. Handel composed notable roles for her including Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare ...
usually revolve around the voices and particular gifts of the singers that were available to him. Giulio Cesare in Egitto was created in 1724 as a vehicle for Senesino and Cuzzoni, although the characteristic trademark of Handel’s best operas is that the emotions and experience of the characters are not sacrificed to the virtuosity of the singers. Although Handel’s arias ...
city until 1725, singing in operas by her teacher Gasparini, as well as Albinoni and Lotti. Between 1726 and 1728, she performed in London alongside Senesino and Cuzzoni in Handel’s ‘Rival Queens’ operas. The legendary enmity between Faustina and Cuzzoni culminated in 1727 when they came to blows on stage in a performance of Bononcini’s Astianatte. Faustina married ...
nothing is known of his private life. The Second Academy The Royal Academy entered a troubled phase in 1726 when its patrons decided to challenge the reigning prima donna Francesca Cuzzoni (c. 1698–1770) with a rival, the Venetian soprano Faustina Bordoni (1700–81). Partisanship surrounding the pair (who eventually came to blows on stage) attracted ridicule, and the reluctance of ...
Music, an aristocratic company that funded performances of Italian opera at the King’s Theatre on the Haymarket. This rivalled any opera house in Europe, starring the famous singers Cuzzoni and Senesino, for whom Handel created Giulio Cesare in Egitto. The following season, the arrival of the tenor Francesco Borosini influenced Tamerlano (1724) and Rodelinda (1725). The addition ...
in London, where the composer enjoyed tremendous popularity for several seasons. His last opera, Astianatte (1727), was blighted by the repercussions of the rivalry between Faustina Bordoni and Cuzzoni, and he did compose for the stage again. Bononcini directed private performances of his own music for the Duchess of Marlborough until 1731, and he was a prominent ...
St Petersburg. Hasse commented that ‘he who has not heard Carestini is not acquainted with the most perfect style of singing’. Introduction | Late Baroque | Opera Personalities | Francesca Cuzzoni | Late Baroque | Opera Houses & Companies | Baroque Opera in Naples | Early & Middle Baroque | Opera ...
times in its first season. The popular perception that The Beggar’s Opera was an attack on Italian opera is untrue. It contains a mocking parody of the rivalry between Faustina and Cuzzoni, but Gay had previously contributed to Handel’s Acis and Galatea, and the success of The Beggar’s Opera cannot be securely attributed to the same audience that supported Italian ...
Handel was required to discipline petulant singers who wanted to sacrifice the drama in order to have something flashier to sing. There is also the apocryphal tale of the soprano Cuzzoni refusing to sing the aria ‘Falsa imagine’ in Ottone (1722), perhaps because she did not care for its simplicity. Handel’s first biographer, John Mainwaring, reports that the outraged ...
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