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A NEST OF NIGHTINGALES: CUZZONI AND SENESINO AT HANDEL'S ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2010

Claudia Rene Wier
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Extract

Italian prima donna Francesca Cuzzoni (ca. 1698–1770) was the first internationally recognized virtuosa to sing high soprano women's roles. Although her work served as a model to the female performers who followed, no in-depth critical study has been written about her groundbreaking career on the opera stage of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was the celebrated prima donna from 1723 to 1728. During her tenure, the Royal Academy became one of the most important opera companies in Europe, rivaling those of the Viennese court, the Paris Opera, and the Italian opera houses of Naples and Venice. Her arrival on the London stage signaled a shift in the ways composers set roles in relationship to vocal categories and gender. In particular, Cuzzoni's superior virtuosic vocal abilities influenced and inspired German George Friedrich Handel's (1685–1759) compositional style and his musical treatment of dramatic elements.

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Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 51 , Special Issue 2: Operatic Intersections , November 2010 , pp. 247 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2010

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References

Endnotes

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58. Ibid. According to Dean and Knapp, 490, “Da tempeste” is the only intact aria from the original; the rest are either replacements or revisions of earlier versions.

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87. LaRue, 150, 154–5; for Tosi, 138.

88. Clément, 22–3, both quotes on 22.

89. Quoted in Wierzbicki, 113; my emphasis.

90. Mist's Weekly Journal, 28 May 1726.

91. London Journal, 30 March 1723.

92. Weekly Journal; or, Saturday's Post (London), 9 March 1723.

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103. Jones, 154.

104. Compare, for example, Somerset-Ward's descriptions of Cuzzoni (in chap. 2) and Senesino (in chap. 4).

105. Celletti, 71.

106. Woyke, Saskia, “Faustina Bordoni-Hasse—eine Sängerinnenkarriere im 18. Jahrhundert,” Göttinger Handel-Beiträge 7 (1998): 218–57Google Scholar, at 242.

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108. Ibid., 88–9.

109. Ibid.