The first Black prima donna: Vittoria Tesi

Vittoria Tesi, probably at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice during the Carnival season of 1735-36; caricature by Anton Maria Zanetti. Image source: Royal Collection Trust

In 1725 in Naples, two of the most celebrated opera singers in Italy, Carlo Broschi (known as Farinelli) and Vittoria Tesi, performed together in Johann Hasse's serenata Antonio e Cleopatra. From that serenata, the duet "Bella etade avventurosa" (Age of beauty and adventure):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdj3ZA-gZKE

The singers on this recording are Jamie Barton (Marc' Antonio) and Ava Pine (Cleopatra), accompanied by the ensemble Ars Lyrica Houston conducted by Matthew Dirst.

From a present-day perspective there were several notable aspects of the 1725 performance. To start, the two roles were gender-switched: the soprano role of Cleopatra was sung by the castrato Farinelli, and the alto role of Marc Anthony was sung by Vittoria Tesi. Performing en travesti (cross-dressed) was common in Baroque opera. A key reason was the rise of castrati to superstardom on the opera stage between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries.

The castration of boys to preserve their high voices into adulthood for cathedral choirs in Italy and elsewhere had been a response to the papal prohibition against women singing in public, coupled with the long-term economic crisis in the late 16th century that drove more boys and young men to seek careers in the church. The castration of a boy treble could possibly enable him to have sustained employment as a soprano or alto choral singer, and mean greater financial stability for him and his family. And when the new genre of opera developed in early 17th century courts, castrati began to appear onstage. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607), often described as the first operatic masterpiece, was performed by an all-male cast: castrati sang the female roles of Euridice, Proserpina, La Musica, La Messaggera, La Speranza, and nymphs (as was common practice, singers probably performed double roles).

As opera developed, castrati—with their powerful, flexible high voices—increasingly took on leading roles. It also quickly became more acceptable for women to appear onstage everywhere but in the Papal States, where women remained banned from the stage until the late 18th century. And because women sang in the same ranges as castrati it was possible for either men or women to portray characters of the other sex.

Both Farinelli and Tesi were renowned for their performances of cross-gender roles; Farinelli sang the female title role in Nicola Porpora's Adelaide (1723), for example. Indeed, the first known image of Farinelli (also known as Farinello) is a caricature from the following year that portrays the 19-year-old singer in women's dress:

Inscription: Farinello Napolitano famoso cantore di Soprano che cantò nel Teatro d'Aliberti nell'Anno 1724. fatto da me Cav[alie]re Ghezzi à di 2 Marzo 1724. [The famous Neapolitan soprano singer Farinello who sang at the Aliberti Theatre [in Rome] in 1724. Made by me, Cavalier [Pier Leone] Ghezzi, on 2 March 1724.] Image source: The Morgan Library & Museum

Just as Farinelli's brilliant soprano made him suitable for female roles, Vittoria Tesi's voice and bearing ensured that she was not infrequently cast as a male character, or as a female character in disguise as a man. The musician Johann Joachim Quantz saw Tesi perform in the Naples Antonio e Cleopatra; he had previously encountered her in Dresden in 1719, three years after her professional debut, where she was performing in the celebrations of the marriage of Frederick Augustus II, Prince Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha, Archduchess of Austria. Quantz's description of Tesi is quoted in the second volume of The present state of music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces (1773) by Charles Burney (father of Jane Austen's favorite novelist Fanny Burney):

Vittoria Tesi had by nature a masculine, strong, contralto voice. In 1719 she generally sung, at Dresden, such airs as are made for bass voices; but afterwards, besides the majestic and serious style, she had occasionally something coquettish in her manner, which was very pleasing. The compass of her voice was so extraordinary, that neither to sing high nor low, gave her trouble. She was not remarkable for her performance of rapid and difficult passages; but she seemed born to captivate every spectator by her action, principally in male parts, which she performed in a most natural and intelligent manner. [1]

In Tesi's 1718 Venetian debut in Giovanni Porta's L'Amor di figlia (A daughter's love), Tesi sang the male role of Claudio, who falls in love with "Marzia," who apparently is the sister of the heroine Sabina, but in actuality is Sabina's jealous husband in women's clothing. Marzio/Marzia was played by a castrato, Giovanni Maria Morosi, who was frequently cast as a woman. So not for the first or last time in Baroque opera we have a woman playing a man falling in love with a man disguised as a woman.

From the libretto for L'Amor di figlia: Claudio, son of a Triumvir of Rome, in love with Marzio, [who] in women's clothing [is] believed to be Marzia, supposed sister of Sabina, and for that reason [i.e., to maintain his disguise, is] flattered by his interest, of an odd and martial character. Signora Vittoria Tesi, Florentine, virtuosa [in the service] of the Most Serene Prince Antonio of Parma. Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress

In fact, of the 19 roles Tesi sang between 1716 and 1721 for which I've been able to ascertain the gender of the character, 16 are male, including her professional debut in Emanuele d'Astorga's Dafni (1716) as the shepherd Fileno. For the decade and a half after 1721 she seems to have sung mainly female roles (Marc Anthony being an exception), but in the late 1730s in Naples she returned to male roles. In Domenico Sarro's L'Achille in Sciro (Achilles in Skyros, 1737) she played the Greek warrior Achilles, who until the final moments of the opera dresses as the handmaiden "Pirra" of the Princess Deidamia; in Leonardo Leo's L'Olimpiade (1737) she played Megacle, who wins the Olympiad and the hand of the king's daughter Aristaea but has competed under the name of his friend Licida; and in Leo's Demetrio (1737) she played Alceste, who is later discovered to be Demetrio, King of Syria. In Vinci's Artaserse in Naples in 1738 Tesi sang the role of Arbace, the lover of Artaserse's sister Mandane; in 1730 and 1731 she had sung the role of Mandane in the same opera in Bologna, Ferrara and Milan (and she would sing Mandane again in Vienna in 1749). Tesi also played cross-gender disguise roles, such as Lucinda in Venceslao (Porta, Pollarollo and Capelli, 1722, Venice), who spends most of the opera in male disguise as "Lucindo," and Emira in Siroe (Hasse 1733, Bologna; Manna 1743, Venice; Wagenseil 1748, Vienna), who spends most of the opera in male disguise as "Idaspe."

From Leo's Demetrio, Alceste's aria "Dal suo gentil sembiante nacque il mio primo amore" (From that gentle countenance my first love was born):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uat01p1RyQc

The singer on this recording is countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic, accompanied by the ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev.

So the subversion of gender expectations was one notable aspect of Tesi's career. Another notable aspect was her racial heritage: she was the first Black or biracial prima donna.

Early life

According to Alessandro Adamello's biographical article on Tesi published in 1889, she was born in Florence on 13 February 1700. In the baptismal record her father is named as "Alessandro di Antonio Tesi" her mother as "Maria Antonia di Cosimo Rapacciuoli"; the "di" ("of") seems to indicate that Alessandro and Maria Antonia were servants of Antonio Tesi and Cosimo Rapacciuoli, respectively. Alessandro was nicknamed "il Moretto," meaning Moor, African, or dark-skinned. Later one of Vittoria Tesi's stage names was "La Moretta," and the librettist Pietro Metastasio wrote to Farinelli in 1749 of "nostra impareggiabile africana Tesi" (our incomparable African Tesi).

Alessandro must have been connected to the musical establishment of the Grand Prince of Tuscany, Ferdinando de' Medici, because the baptismal record shows that standing as godfather to Vittoria was Francesco De Castris, a castrato (musico) under Ferdinando's patronage.

Portrait of three musicians and a servant of the Medici court by Anton Domenico Gabbiani, 1687. Painting from the collection of the Galleria dell' Accademia, Florence. Image source: New York Times

In Gabbiani's painting, Francesco De Castris has been identified as the figure in the blue coat; could the servant on the right be Alessandro, who 13 years later would become Vittoria Tesi's father?

Portrait of an African servant, possibly Vittoria Tesi's father as a young man, by Anton Domenico Gabbiani, 1687 (detail). Painting from the collection of the Galleria dell' Accademia, Florence. Image source: New York Times

There is speculation that Vittoria Tesi may have been named after Vittoria Tarquini, a soprano in Ferdinando's service who is said to have been the prince's mistress, although she is not named in the baptismal record as godmother; Vittoria Tesi might also have been named after Ferdinando's paternal grandmother, Vittoria dell Rovere. [2]

In another source quoted in Adamello, Giambatista Mancini's Reflections on the practice of singing (1777), Vittoria Tesi is said to have begun her vocal studies in Florence with "the celebrated Maestro di Cappella Francesco Redi." Although this assertion has been repeated in many sources since, I am unable to trace such a musician in Florence in the period between 1700 and 1715. There is a famous poet and natural philosopher of that name who died in 1697, three years before Tesi was born. Perhaps Mancini meant instead to refer to Giovanni Nicola Ranieri Redi, who composed the music for the oratorio Gioasso that was performed in Florence in 1719. Redi was appointed as maestro di cappella pro interim of Florence's cathedral, but not until 1760. Or perhaps Mancini was thinking of Francesco Maria Mannucci, appointed maestro di capella at the cathedral in 1712 and serving until 1732. [3]

Mancini goes on to say that Tesi moved to Bologna and continued her studies with composer Francesco Campeggi and at "the school of [Antonio] Bernacchi," an acclaimed castrato. Bernacchi was born in Bologna and was singing there in the early 1710s, so he might well have provided instruction to Tesi at that time. And when Tesi began to sing professionally she and Bernacchi performed together in Venice (Autumn 1721 and Carnival 1722), Milan (Carnival 1728), and Parma (Spring 1728). However, he did not found his famous singing school until his retirement around 1737. [4]

Very soon after her first professional opera performance at the age of 16 (or 15: see footnote 2) in 1716 in Dafni at the Teatro Ducale in Parma, Tesi was in demand at opera centers around Italy and beyond. She made her Dresden debut in 1717 as the goddess Diana in Antonio Lotti's Giove in Argo, and was invited back in 1719 to perform in the marriage celebrations of Frederick Augustus and Maria Josepha. This is a strong indication of her ability; in 1719 the Elector of Saxony, in the words of Winton Dean, "maintained the finest opera company in Europe." [5]

Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress

The Dresden company's renown was so great that when George Frideric Handel was sent to recruit singers for London's Royal Academy opera company in 1719 he went to Dresden rather than Italy. He was in the audience when Tesi performed for the newlyweds in Lotti's Teofane with the alto castrato Francesco Bernardi (Senesino), the soprano castrato Matteo Berselli, soprano Santa Stella Lotti (the composer's wife), mezzo-soprano Margherita Durastanti, tenor Francesco Guicciardi, and bass Giuseppe Boschi. Of these seven singers, four—Senesino, Berselli, Durastanti, and Boschi—plus the soprano Maria Maddalena Salvai, who also sang at Dresden, came to London the following year. An offer may not have been extended to Tesi because, as Adamello points out, she was an alto like Senesino (with perhaps an even greater vocal range), but she was a 19-year-old and at the time he was opera's biggest star: he was the one singer mentioned by name in Handel's recruiting instructions from the Royal Academy, and would go on to sing in two dozen of Handel's London operas.

Senesino by Alexander van Haecken, after Thomas Hudson, 1735. Image source: Rijksmuseum

So instead of going to London with her colleagues Tesi returned to Italy, and by her mid- to late twenties assumed leading roles in Milan, Venice, Florence, and Naples. Although we can only make guesses about what she sounded like based on the roles that were written for her, it tells us something about the quality of her singing that she continued to be cast in leading roles in major centers of opera for the next three decades.

"Nothing more beautiful could be heard on this earth"

Another clue suggesting her extraordinary ability is that for the next three decades she was sought after for celebratory occasions: she was invited to perform in Fiorè's Argippo in Milan in 1722 for the birthday of the Holy Roman Empress Elisabeth Christina (mother of the future Empress Maria Theresa, then five years old); in Sarro's L'Achille in Sciro in Naples in 1737 for the opening of the Teatro San Carlo, at the time the biggest and most magnificent opera house in the world; in Madrid in 1739 for the celebrations of the wedding of the 19-year-old Infante Philip, son of King Philip V of Spain, to the 12-year-old Marie Louise Élisabeth, eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France; in Pietro Pulli's Vologeso, Re di Parti (Vologeso, King of Parthia) in Reggio in 1741 for the inaugural performances of the Teatro del Pubblico; and in Giuseppe De Majo's Il sogno d' Olimpia (The Dream of Olympia) in Naples in 1747 for the birth of the first son of King Charles III of Sicily. Bringing her career full circle, her final performance on an opera stage was as Lisinga in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Le cinesi (The Chinese Women) in Vienna in 1754 for the extravagant Schloss Hof Festival in honor of Empress Maria Theresa, now 37 and herself a mother many times over. Perhaps the reason for the choice of this work was that the role of Lisinga had been sung by Maria Theresa herself, when as an 18-year-old in 1735 she had performed Caldara's original setting of Metastasio's libretto with her sister Marianne and a lady-in-waiting. [6]

The final quartet from Le cinesi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YNccBgEe70

The singers are Anne Sofie von Otter (Lisinga), Gloria Banditelli (Tangia), Isabelle Poulenard (Sivene), and Guy de Mey (Silango), accompanied by the Orchestra of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis conducted by René Jacobs.

Further testimony about Tesi's artistry is given by knowledgeable auditors who attended her performances. Librettist Pietro Metastasio wrote of her performance in Gluck's Semiramide riconosciuta (Semiramis revealed, 1748, another disguise role), "Semiramide is heavenly in spite of the unbearable, arch-vandalic music. La Tesi sings so well that it astonishes me and all the people of Vienna of both sexes." Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, an Austrian violinist and composer, saw Tesi at the end of her career; he wrote, "She had a round and clear contralto voice and her majestic delivery delighted me no end. I believed that nothing more beautiful could be heard on this earth." And the vocal pedagogue Mancini wrote of Tesi,

Although she had become a very skilled singer, and had learned an excellent method. . .she developed further by treating action and gesture with greater commitment, and happily succeeded in the difficult art of adding new admiration to that for her singing. She was right in doing so because it is an adornment of all those rare talents, that very often are not present together, and that were all united in her. An excellent and well-regarded person accompanied by noble and graceful posture; a clean and clear pronunciation; vibrato applied to words depending on the true sense; the ability to distinguish moment by moment every different character with a change of expression, as well as an appropriate gesture; the command of the stage; and finally a very perfect intonation that never wavered even in the fervor of the most vivid action, were her singular merits and were well-guided by art, which made her the only perfect teacher. [7]

Some sources state that her singing was inconsistent, and indeed although her acting was universally praised, there are a few negative comments about her voice. Pierre Ange Goudar wrote, "She gave expression to the music and moved the passions by communicating to the soul of the spectator what she felt herself. With an ungrateful voice, she often caused the audience to shed tears. She may be the first performer who acted well and sang badly." Even Metastasio had earlier described her as a "grandissima nullità" (a giant nothing). [8]

Of course, over the course of a four-decade-long career even the most acclaimed diva could have an off night or undergo a vocal rough patch. However, I think that it was not Tesi's singing that was inconsistent, but the aesthetic standards by which she was being judged. Her career spanned the high Baroque, the galant style, and Gluck's operatic "reforms," each of which had its own (sometimes mutually exclusive) criteria of excellence.

In the high Baroque style one of the most highly praised vocal characteristics was the ability to sing rapid passagework and ornamentation (elaborate improvised embellishments of a melody). Of Farinelli, Quantz wrote, "His intonation was pure, his trill beautiful, his breath control extraordinary and his throat very agile, so that he performed even the widest intervals quickly and with the greatest ease and certainty. Passage-work and all varieties of melismas were of no difficulty whatever for him. In the invention of free ornamentation in adagio he was very fertile." Burney wrote of the castrato Giovanni Carestini, "he had a wonderful facility of executing difficult divisions from the chest, like Farinelli, and those of the Bernacchi school; and graced, and varied passages, usually, with great success, though in this he was sometimes a little licentious and extravagant." [9]

Antonio Bernacchi in Capelli's Mitridate, rè di Ponto in 1723, depicted with a long meandering string of sixteenth notes emerging from his mouth; caricature by Anton Maria Zanetti. Image source: Fondazione Giorgio Cini

Tesi, judging from the comments of auditors and the music composed for her, did not rely on coloratura for effect; as Quantz wrote of her, "She was not remarkable for her performance of rapid and difficult passages." Instead she was noted for her cantabile, literally, "a singing [i.e., flowing, lyrical] style." Of the recording of Hasse's Antonio e Cleopatra heard above, for example, Brian Stewart writes,

Farinelli sings the virtuosic music, while Tesi receives only cantabile arias. . .Though all of it is attractive, the best music in Antonio e Cleopatra is to be found in the cantabile arias, where we most clearly hear the elegant turns of phrase which made Hasse famous. . .This is the very essence of the stile galant. [10]

So Hasse gave Tesi "only" his best music. And for Gluck two decades later, the emphasis was on dramatic declamation over vocal display. So the conflicting remarks about Tesi's singing may have resulted from a clash of aesthetics: those who thought that coloratura and vocal filigree were the essence of a singer's art were disappointed in Tesi, while those for whom drama and the evocation of emotion were paramount found her voice to be "astonishing," "perfect," and "beautiful."

Three major changes

There are some notable changes in the way Tesi is credited in libretti. In the earliest libretto of her career I was able to find, for Orlandini's Merope in 1717, she is listed as "Virtuosa del Serenissimo Principe Antonio di Parma"; the patronage of Prince (later Duke) Antonio Farnese of Parma continued until his death in 1731.

Credit for Vittoria Tesi in the libretto for Merope, 1717. Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress

In 1730 or 1731 Tesi married Giacomo Palmerino Tramontini. Francesco Lora states that the marriage took place in Bologna in 1731, and indeed a libretto from spring 1731 credits her as Tesi, while libretti from summer and fall of that year credit her as Tesi Tramontini. But a libretto for Hasse's Catone in Utica performed in Turin during Carnival 1732 still credits her as "La Signora Vittoria Tesi." So while it's certain that her marriage took place before summer 1731 at the latest, it's possible that she was still credited under her maiden name for some weeks or months after her marriage. Perhaps Lora is aware of other evidence that establishes a more precise date.

Credit for Vittoria Tesi Tramontini in the libretto for Cesare in Egitto, 1735. Image source: Albert Schatz Collection, Library of Congress

There is a widely circulated story (repeated by Tesi's contemporaries Burney and Dittersdorf) that describes the marriage as contracted virtually at random so that Tesi could avoid a proposal from an importunate (but unnamed) aristocrat. In Burney's telling Tramontini was a journeyman baker previously unknown to her, while in Dittersdorf's he was a stage barber. Lora identifies him as a jeweller and businessman, and Michael Lorenz has discovered that he owned a house in Padua in the Veneto. Tesi, who by the 1730s was herself wealthy thanks to the high fees commanded by prima donne, and who owned a house in Florence, would have been unlikely to marry a laborer. Curiously, after 1735 she is credited on occasion under her maiden rather than her married name, but whether this indicates anything about the state of her marriage at the time is unknown. Although the story about marriage at random is clearly false, it may have arisen to explain a marriage of convenience. [11]

In 1733 Tesi was credited in the libretto for Hasse's Siroe as "virt[uosa]. del princ[ipe]. ereditario di Modena." The hereditary prince of Modena, Francesco III d'Este, would become duke in 1737; he remained Tesi's patron through at least her performance as Berenice in Pulli's Vologeso, performed in April 1741 to inaugurate the new Teatro del Pubblico in Reggio Emilia, 20 km northwest of Modena.

Credit for Vittoria Tesi Tramontini in the libretto for Vologeso, 1741. Image source: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense

In 1743, while appearing in Venice, Tesi's patron changed for the final time: she was now "virtuosa di Camera di S[erenissima]. M[aestà]. la Regina d' Ungheria, e Boemia." The queen of Hungary and Bohemia (and later Holy Roman Empress) was Maria Theresa, who remained her patron for the rest of Tesi's life. In 1748 Tesi, then in her late 40s, was invited to Vienna to perform in operas staged at the Burgtheater, which had opened seven years earlier next to the Empress's Hofburg palace. Over three seasons Tesi appeared as the prima donna in six operas, but after the 1750 season seems to have largely retired from the stage (returning, so far was we know, only for Le cinesi four years later).

Images of Vittoria Tesi

It was common for famous singers of Tesi's era to have their portraits done, and paintings exist today of many of her colleagues and contemporaries including Senesino, Farinelli, Faustina Bordoni, and Francesca Cuzzoni. Lora states that a portrait of Tesi was painted by the Bolognese artist Guiseppe Maria Crespi; if so, the likeliest time would have been in the early 1730s, as from the 1720s onward Crespi largely remained in Bologna, and as Tesi did not appear there professionally after 1733. If such a portrait was ever painted, either it has not been identified or it no longer exists. A detail from Crespi's Hogarthian painting "The Courted Singer" may give us a sense of his style:

Giuseppi Maria Crespi, "The Courted Singer" (detail), ca. 1700s. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

However, there are some existing images of Tesi created by those who saw her perform. One of them is the caricature at the head of this post by Zanetti, probably done during the Venice Carnival season in 1736. Between November and February, Tesi appeared at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo as Cornelia in Giacomelli's Cesare in Egitto, Cleofide in Hasse's Alessandro nell' Indie, and as Lucinda in Venceslao by an unknown composer. It is not known in which role she is depicted in Zanetti's caricature.

There is an earlier caricature of Tesi by Marco Ricci, the Venice-based painter and scenic designer. It depicts Tesi in a female role, and so is likely to have been done at some point between November 1721 and February 1723:

Vittoria Tesi, caricature by Marco Ricci, c. 1721-1723. Image source: Royal Collection Trust

During that time Tesi appeared in Venice six roles: as Giulia, the widowed mother of adult sons, in Pollarollo's Plautilla (performed in November 1721—Tesi, of course, was only 21 at the time); as Fausta, second wife of of the Emperor Constantine, in Capello's Giulio Flavio Crispo (performed in January 1722); as Lucinda, the Queen of Lithuania who goes in male disguise as "Lucindo," in Porta, Pollarollo and Capelli's Venceslao (performed in February 1722); as Tusenelda, Arminius's wife, in Pollarollo's L'Arminio (performed in November 1722); as Ramira in Leo's Timocrate (performed in late December 1722); and as Candace in Albinoni's I Veri amici (The true friends, performed in January 1723). Again, it is not known in which role Tesi is depicted.

Caricatures, of course, can be affectionate, hostile, or somewhere in between. Exaggeration of distinctive features is the caricaturist's stock in trade, and such exaggerations can be intended to provide the mild amusement of recognition, or to mock and degrade. And when the subject is a Black or biracial woman, the caricatures (in these cases by white men) can employ racist tropes.

It's also true that there has been a long practice of caricaturing opera singers and other performers. Ricci's and Zanetti's caricatures fit into that tradition and are no more unflattering than many; for copious examples, please see the Zanetti caricatures displayed on the website of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice. Below is a Zanetti caricature of Tesi, probably done around same time as Ricci's:

La Tesi, caricature by Anton Maria Zanetti, ca. 1721-23. Image source: Fondazione Giorgio Cini

In my view the caricatures are extremely valuable eyewitness documents of their subject. Both Ricci and Zanetti attended Venetian theaters (Ricci also worked in them as a scenic artist) and were likely present at performances by Tesi, as is suggested by the level of detail with which her costumes are depicted. And I also think it's possible to see through, as it were, the exaggerations and distortions of Tesi's person in these caricatures and perceive something of her public self: in all three caricatures I see a singer of great nobility and dignity proudly owning her status as prima donna. The caricatures included here convey a lively sense of her personality, which might not have been captured as well by more idealized portrayals (such as a formal portrait in oils).

There are other images or reports of images of Tesi that I've come across in my research for this post. In 1741 she was in the cast for the inaugural performances in the Teatro del Pubblico in Reggio nell' Emilia. The opera was Pulli's Vologeso, Re di Parti (Vologeso, King of Parthia), and Adamello reports that a sonnet was printed to "'signora Vittoria Tesi Tramontini, Virtuosa di S[ua]. A[ltezza]. Serenissima di Modena, that in Vologeso, produced in Reggio in 1741, played splendidly the part of Berenice.' Above the printed type there is an image of Tesi in a gorgeous costume with a long mantle supported by a page." Unfortunately I have not been able to locate a digitized copy of this sonnet; it is not present in the copy of the libretto I have seen. [12]

In 1747 she was invited to perform in Giuseppe de Majo's Il Sogno d' Olimpia (The Dream of Olympia) in Naples for the celebrations surrounding the birth of a male heir to Carlos III, King of the Two Sicilies. The cast included the greatest singers available in Italy at the time: Tesi in the title role of Olympia, Queen of Macedonia; the mezzo-soprano castrato Gaetano Majorano (Caffarelli) as Jove; soprano castrato Gioacchino Conti (Egizziello) as Apollo; tenor Gregorio Babbi as Mars; the soprano castrato Giovanni Manzuoli as Destiny; and soprano Angela Conti (Taccarina) as Virtue.

A commemorative volume was published shortly afterwards with detailed engravings of the transformations of the Royal Palace and the adjoining San Carlos Theater for the occasion. Entitled Narrazione delle solenni reali feste fatte celebrare in Napoli da Sua Maestà il Re delle Due Sicilie Carlo Infante di Spagna, Duca di Parma, Piacenza &c. &c. per la nascita del suo primogenito Filippo Real Principe delle Due Sicilie (Narration of the solemn royal feasts celebrated in Naples by His Majesty the King of the Two Sicilies Carlo, Infante of Spain, Duke of Parma, Piacenza &c. &c. for the birth of his first son Filippo, Royal Prince of the Two Sicilies), it features 15 engraved two-page plates of the festivities. According to the Narrazione, the serenata was first performed on 6 November in the Great Hall of the Royal Palace, and then moved to the Teatro San Carlo for public performances on 9, 12, and 15 November, before a final performance in the Royal Palace on 16 November. (According to the libretto there were four performances, on 6, 11, 13, and 16 November; however, the libretto was printed before the event, and the Narrazione, published after, states that King commanded an additional performance, shifting the schedule.)

Two plates are devoted to Il Sogno d' Olimpia. Both plates show the cast onstage. Plate V depicts "Sala del Palazzo Real apparata per la Serenata" (Great Hall of the Royal Palace arranged for the Serenata), presumably on 6 November:

Plate V. Sala del Palazzo Reale apparata per la Serenata (Great Hall of the Royal Palace arranged for the Serenata). Designed and created by Vincenzo Rè, engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1748. Image source: Internet Archive

In the center towards the bottom of the engraving are three chairs; the King is seated in the right-hand chair (from our perspective); the Queen is seated in the center chair; and the empty left-hand chair symbolizes the Infante Filippo. Arrayed around the royal couple are the men and women of the court; in front of the stage is an enclosed orchestra pit; and on the stage are shown the six singers of the cast. (To see an enlargeable version of this engraving, click on the Internet Archive link below the image.)

The cast is depicted in greater detail in Plate VI, captioned "Disegno della Scena, che servi per la Serenata nel Real Teatro di S. Carlo rappresentante una Deliziosa, che introduce ad'un magnifico Tempio Domestico nella Reggia di Macedonia" (Design of the scenery, which was used for the serenata in the Royal Theater of San Carlo, portraying a lovely prospect which introduces a magnificent private temple in the palace of Macedonia):

Plate VI. Disegno della Scena, che servi per la Serenata nel Real Teatro di S. Carlo rappresentante una Deliziosa, che introduce ad'un magnifico Tempio Domestico nella Reggia di Macedonia (Design of the scenery, which was used for the serenata in the Royal Theater of San Carlo, portraying a lovely prospect which introduces a magnificent private temple in the palace of Macedonia). Created and drawn by Vincenzo Rè, engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1748. Image source: Internet Archive

From the iconography of their costumes we can identify the male characters. Mars (Gregorio Babbi) is usually depicted wearing a helmet, indicating that he is the figure on the steps of the temple. Apollo (Egizziello), god of the sun and poetry, has a sun on his breastplate and is wearing laurels, the symbol of poetry; he is standing next to Jove (Caffarelli), king of the gods, who is wearing a crown. Further downstage is a male-female couple; the man must be Destiny (Giovanni Manzuoli).

Detail of Plate VI of Narrazione delle solenni reali feste. . . (1748). Image source: Internet Archive

This leaves the two women: Vittoria Tesi is one, and Angela Conti the other. But which is which? In I teatri di Napoli, secolo XV-XVIII (1891), Benedetto Croce identifies the central male-female couple as Tesi and Caffarelli. Since they were the prima donna and the primo uomo and the central couple are the most prominent figures in the scene, this is a reasonable conclusion. However, as we've seen, the male character of the central couple must be Destiny, sung by Manzuoli. Croce is also mistaken in his identification of the women; he writes that the lone woman furthest downstage is "Angela Conti, leaning against a baluster, thoughtfully." Conti was performing the role of Virtue, an allegorical figure like those portrayed by the male cast members; there is no situation in the libretto in which Virtue is separated from the other characters, musing. However, the libretto begins, "Olimpia che dorme. La Virtù; e poi il Destino" (Olympia sleeping. Virtue, followed by Destiny.)

Libretto of Il Sogno d' Olimpia, 1747. Image source: Google

This seems to be precisely what is depicted in the engraving: the sleeping Olympia being approached by Virtue, then Destiny. So Tesi must be the lone figure at the front of the stage, with Conti and Manzuoli behind her.

Detail of Plate VI of Narrazione delle solenni reali feste. . . (1748). Image source: Internet Archive

I'll also note that this figure has short hair and is wearing a feathered headdress, just as Tesi is depicted in Ricci and Zanetti's caricatures. Perhaps I am giving too much emphasis to this image, which seems mainly intended to give a sense of the magnificence of the setting, and so does not provide a detailed image of Tesi. But it is one of possibly three images in existence (one of the others being Plate V) that depict her in performance onstage in an identifiable work, showing the scenic design in detail and portraying her with colleagues.

Another possible onstage image of Tesi is of her performance in Antonio Lotti's Teofane in Dresden in 1719. There were three women in the cast: Santa Stella Lotti (Teofane), Margherita Durastanti (Gismonda), and Tesi (Matilda). An engraving, printed a decade after the event after a drawing by Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling, shows two women and a man onstage:

Orchester und Bühne im Großen Königlichen Theater (Opernhaus am Zwinger) mit Opernszene aus Teofane von Pallavicini und Lotti, uraufgeführt am 13. September 1719 anläßlich der Vermählung des sächsischen Kurprinzen mit Maria Josepha von Österreich 1719 [Orchestra and stage in the Grand Royal Theatre (Opera House at the Zwinger) with an opera scene from Teofane by Pallavicini and Lotti, premiered on 13 September 1719 on the occasion of the marriage of the Saxon elector with Maria Josepha of Austria 1719]. Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling, ca. 1728/1730. Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

A detail of the engraving makes the features of the cast more visible. The woman on the viewer's left is long-waisted, is wearing a feathered headdress, and has short hair—all characteristics seen in the caricatures of Tesi:

Orchester und Bühne. . . [Orchestra and stage. . .] (detail). Carl Heinrich Jacob Fehling, ca. 1728/1730. Image source: Deutsche Fotothek

Reinforcing the identification of the singer on the viewer's left as Tesi is that Teofane contains only three scenes featuring two women and a man, and Matilda (sung by Tesi) is present in all three: Act II Scene II features Gismonda (Durastanti), Adelberto (Matteo Berselli), and Matilda (Tesi); Act II Scene IV features Matilda, Teofane (Lotti), and Ottone (Senesino); and Act III Scene X features Ottone, Matilda, and Gismonda. I suspect that this is a rendering of Act II Scene IV, because that scene involves both the primo uomo and the prima donna, but this identification is tentative.

There is another widely circulated image that is purportedly of Vittoria Tesi. Michael Lorenz has identified its source as Moriz Bermann's Maria Theresia und Kaiser Josef II in ihrem Leben und Wirken (Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II in their lives and works, 1881).

"Vittoria Tesi, Ritterin des Ordens der Treue" (Knight of the Order of Fidelity), from Bermann's Maria Theresia. . . (1881). Image source: Internet Archive

Apart from its unknown origin and date, another problem this engraving presents is that it disagrees with the eyewitness representations of Tesi in almost every detail. The caricatures above (done over a span of a decade and a half) are quite consistent: Tesi has short, curly hair, a small upturned nose, and full lips. The subject of the engraving has long, wavy hair (perhaps a wig, but there is no representation of Tesi in which she is wearing a wig), a long straight nose, and rosebud lips. I don't see any way that the subject of the engraving can be same person as portrayed in the caricatures.

The caricatures are representations of Tesi that were based on firsthand knowledge. Although in caricatures features are distorted, sometimes to absurd proportions, the identity of the subject must always be evident: the goal is for the subject of the caricature to be instantly recognizable. I'll note that in the caricatures Tesi's African heritage is apparent; in the engraving, if it is indeed intended to be Tesi, that heritage has been erased.

Final years

From 1748 until her death in 1775 Tesi resided (possibly along with her husband, at least at times) in the Vienna palace of the advisor to the Empress and musical connoisseur Prince Joseph Friedrich of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Curiously, in 1736 during Carnival in Venice Tesi had performed in Venceslao, an opera dedicated by librettist Domenico Lalli to "Giuseppe Federico, Principe di Sassonia Hildburgausen," suggesting that their personal connection may have gone back more than a decade before her move to Vienna.

After her retirement from the stage Tesi may have continued to give private performances for Maria Theresa and her court. But primarily she went on to become a well-regarded teacher of singing and acting whose students included Caterina Gabrielli, who has been described as "one of the most eminent and perfect singers of her time"; Anna Lucia De Amicis, "one of the most acclaimed singers of the second half of the 18th century"; and Elisabeth Teyber, of whom Hasse wrote, "this young woman certainly has great merit, a very grateful voice, she sings clearly and with a perfected taste." [13]

In December 1762 Tesi is known to have met the 6-year-old Wolfgang Mozart and his 11-year-old sister Nannerl during their first visit to Vienna.

Mozart enfant, son père et sa soeur (The child Mozart, his father and his sister) by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, ca. 1763 (detail). Image source: Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly

Ten years after that childhood visit Mozart would create the virtuosic role of Giunia in Lucio Silla for Tesi's student Anna De Amicis. Mozart's father Leopold wrote that "De Amicis is our best friend. She sings and acts like an angel and is extremely pleased because Wolfgang has served her extraordinarily well. Both you and Salzburg would be amazed if you could hear her." And writing in 1778 to try to dissuade his son from his plan of travelling to Italy with the soprano Aloysia Weber, Leopold underlined the importance of Tesi's instruction to the success of her students:

You are thinking of taking [Mlle. Weber] to Italy as a prima donna. Tell me, do you know of any prima donna who has walked onto the stage in Italy as a prima donna without having first appeared many times in Germany?. . .How many operas Mlle. Deiber [Teyber] sang in Vienna under the direction of Hasse—and under the instruction of the old singer and renowned actress Sga. Tesi, whom you saw at Prince Hildburgshausen's, and whose Moor ["Mohrin," i.e., Black or African maidservant] you kissed as a child. How often Mlle. [Katharina] Schindler performed at the Vienna Theatre, after making her debut at the private opera house on the estate of Baron Fries under the instruction of Hasse and Tesi and Metastasio!. . .I am quite willing to believe that Mlle. [Weber] sings like a Gabrielli; that she has a powerful voice for the Italian stage; that she has the figure of a prima donna and all the rest; but it is absurd for you to vouch for her capacity to act. Acting calls for more than these qualities. [14]

It was those additional qualities of expression, gesture, and dramatic commitment for which Tesi was renowned and which she passed on to her students.

Tesi died on 9 May 1775, and her will may shed some light on her marriage. It was somewhat unusual in the 18th century for women to marry for the first time in their 30s. And Tesi, having become wealthy through her performances, had no need to marry for financial reasons. However, she had a brother, Giovanni, who was deaf, mute, and possibly developmentally disabled. As Michael Lorenz writes, "the central objective of Tesi Tramontini's will was to secure the subsistence of her brother Giovanni who needed permanent care." From the evidence of Tesi's will Giovanni was living in Giacomo Tramontini's house in Padua, and the will was designed to ensure that he would continue to reside and receive care there. As Tesi's will states,

I establish, order, and desire, that the sum of eight thousand Viennese florins should be put aside from my estate and this sum. . .should be used for the subsistence of my poor brother Giovanni, who. . .needs the most special care, a matter that will forever be close to my heart; and since my dear husband, Giacomo Tramontini, took every care of my aforesaid poor brother and gave him free accommodation in his house in Padua, I hope, he will also provide the same care in the future, however with the knowledge and under the direction of my executors, and will always provide free lodging in his said house in Padua. [15]

This suggests that whatever her other motives, a key reason for Tesi's marriage may have been to ensure a permanent home for and the continuing care of her brother Giovanni.

As Mancini summed up Tesi's achievements,

This woman deserved great fame and honors. . .it can be said that she was in her time in this genre a pillar of the Italian stage. This is not the only example of how much the knowledge of one’s own powers is worth, or the understanding of the natural disposition that one has to succeed in the studies undertaken, and in the corresponding path of life. It is certain that La Tesi's voice alone and singing alone, though of ultimate perfection, would never have brought her the renown that her sublime manner of declamation deservedly obtained. [16]

Update 16 April 2022: The second paragraph in the section "Three major changes" has been corrected to reflect that the earliest libretto crediting Vittoria Tesi Tramontini under her married name dates from summer 1731, not Carnival 1735 as was stated earlier. I found an entry for the 1731 libretto in Claudio Sartori, I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800: catalogo analitico con 16 indici, Vol. 3, p. 459.

Update 21 April 2022: Another possible image of Tesi onstage at Dresden in 1719 has been added.

Update 3 September 2022: The account of Tesi's patrons has been corrected to include the hereditary prince (later duke) of Modena.

Other posts on Vittoria Tesi:

• African Queen: Sofonisba
• Vittori Tesi: Some notable operatic performances, 1716-1754
• Vittoria Tesi's colleagues: Rival Queens and castrati
• Why is Vittoria Tesi not better known?

---

1. Charles Burney, The present state of music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces. Or, the journal of a tour through those countries, undertaken to collect materials for A General History of Music. Vol. II, p. 176. The word that Burney translates as "coquettish" in Quantz is "Schmeichelen," which I would translate as "alluring," "ingratiating," or even "enticing" in this context: https://archive.org/details/presentstateofmu02burn/page/176/mode/2up
2. Tesi's baptismal record, quoted in Alessandro Adamello, "Le cantati Italiane celebri del secolo decimottavo: Vittoria Tesi," Nuova antologia di scienze, lettere ed arti, Vol. 106, 1889, p. 309 (https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101076894359&view=1up&seq=313), gives her date of birth as 13 February 1700. However, Francesco Lora, in his Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani entry on Vittoria Tesi (Vol. 95, 2019), reads the baptismal record as if it used the Old Style dating system in which the new year began on Lady Day (the Feast of the Annuciation, March 25), and so gives her date of birth as 13 February 1701 in the present-day New Style system, in which the new year begins on January 1. New Style dating wasn't decreed in Florence until 1750; see Marcello Verga, "1° gennaio 1750: la riforma del capodanno fiorentino" in Storia di Firenza and Silvia Bonanci, "Il calendario firenze" in Florence with Guide. It's not known to me whether the baptismal record used Old or New Style dating, or whether the date was silently translated by Adamello or his source. A birthdate of 1701 would make Tesi only 15 at the time of her debut in 1716; while an age of 16 seems more plausible, it must be noted that Farinelli made his debut at age 15 in Nicola Porpora's serenata Angelica e Medoro (1720), as did Caffarelli in Domenico Sarro's Valdemaro (1726).
   
3. Mancini quoted in Adamello, p. 311. Libretto for Gioasso listed in Robert Elliott and Harry M. White, "A Collection of Oratorio Libretti, 1700–1800, in the Thomas Fisher Rarebook Library, University of Toronto," Fontes Artis Musicae, Vol. 32, No. 2 (April-June 1985), p. 106: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23506055. G.N.R. Redi's and Francesco Maria Mannucci's appointments as maestri di cappella given in Frank A. D’Accone, John Walter Hill, Leonardo Pinzauti, and Julian Budden, "Florence," Grove Music Online, 2001: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.09847
4. Mancini quoted in Adamello, p. 311. Libretti of Pollarolli's Plautilla (Venice, 1721), Capello's Giulio Flavio Crispo (Venice, 1722), Brivio's pasticcio Ipermestra (Milan, 1728), and Vinci's Medo (Parma, 1728) from the Albert Schatz Collection in the Library of Congress.
5. Winton Dean and John Merrill Knapp, Handel's Operas 1704–1726, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 301.
6. By age 37 in September 1754 Maria Theresa had given birth to 14 children. Her next child, Maria Antonia, born in 1755, would go on to be known to history as Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI of France. Her performance of the role of Lisinga at age 18 in the first version of Le cinesi, then entitled Componimento drammatico che introduce ad un ballo, is described in Max Loppert, "Gluck’s Chinese Ladies: An Introduction," The Musical Times, vol. 125, no. 1696, 1984, pp. 321–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/960904.
7. Metastasio quoted in Adamello, p. 318; Dittersdorf quoted in Robert Meikle, Leonardo Vinci's Artaserse: An edition, with an editorial and critical commentary, Ph.D. thesis, Cornell University, 1970, p. 369; Mancini quoted in Adamello, p. 323.
   
8. Goudar quoted in Adamello, p. 322; Metastasio quoted in Gerhard Croll, "Tesi (Tramontini), Vittoria," Grove Music Online, 2001: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.27735
9. Quantz quoted in Ellen T. Harris, "Farinelli," Grove Music Online, 2001: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.09312; Burney, Vol. II, p. 180: https://archive.org/details/presentstateofmu02burn/page/180/mode/2up
10. Brian D. Stewart,  "Johann Adolph Hasse: Antonio e Cleopatra" [review], Opera Today, 12 December 2010: https://operatoday.com/2010/12/johann_adolph_hasse_antonio_e_cleopatra/
11. Burney, Vol. I, p. 318-319: https://archive.org/details/presentstateofmu01burn/page/318/mode/2up. Dittersdorf quoted in Michael Lorenz, 'The Will of Vittoria Tesi Tramontini," 2016: http://michaelorenz.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-will-of-vittoria-tesi-tramontini.html
12. Adamello, p. 313.
13. Gabrielli quote from Gerhard Croll and Irene Brandenburg, "Gabrielli [Gabrieli], Caterina [La Cochetta]," Grove Music Online, 2001: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.10452; De Amicis quote from Saskia Willaert, "De Amicis [De Amicis-Buonsollazzi], Anna Lucia," Grove Music Online, 2014: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.07330; Hasse quoted in Carl Mennicke, Hasse und die Brüder Graun als Symphoniker, 1906, p. 427: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_ruoPAAAAYAAJ/page/427/mode/1up
14. Leopold Mozart quotes about Anna De Amicis from a letter to his wife Anna Maria, 26 December 1772, in Letters of Mozart and His Family, edited and translated by Emily Anderson, Macmillan, 1938, Vol. I, p. 325; quote about Elisabeth Teyber, Katharina Schindler and Caterina Gabrielli from a letter to his son Wolfgang, 11-12 February 1778, in Letters of Mozart, Vol. II, p. 705-706. (Translations slightly revised.)
    
15. Quoted in Lorenz: http://michaelorenz.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-will-of-vittoria-tesi-tramontini.html (slightly revised translation)
16. Quoted in Adamello, p. 323.