Vittoria Tesi's colleagues: Rival Queens and castrati

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

At the opening of the previous post, Vittoria Tesi: Some notable operatic performances, 1716-1754, I quoted 18th-century music historian Charles Burney:

Between the year 1725 and 1740, the musical drama in Italy seems to have attained a degree of perfection and public favour which perhaps has never been since surpassed. The opera stage from that period being in possession of the poetry of Apostolo Zeno and [Pietro] Metastasio; the compositions of Leo, Vinci, Hasse, Porpora, and Pergolesi; the performance of Farinelli, Carestini, Caffarelli, Bernacchi,. . .la Tesi,. . .Faustina, and Cuzzoni. . . [1]

This post will be devoted to a brief discussion of some of Vittoria Tesi's colleagues, to give a sense of the world in which she excelled.

Vittoria Tesi's colleagues: Rival Queens and castrati

In the golden age of Baroque opera, Tesi was one of the premier performers in the world. She not only belongs on a list with the most renowned singers of her time, she performed onstage with many of them.

Her female colleagues included:

Faustina Bordoni Hasse by Count Ludovico Mazzanti, 1738-40. Image source: Minneapolis Institute of Art

Faustina Bordoni, mezzo-soprano. Faustina sang with Tesi in Bologna (Astarto, 1721), Florence (Flavio Anicio Olibrio, 1723), and Parma (Venceslao, 1724). Faustina joined Handel's Royal Academy of Music in London in Spring 1726 and stayed for two years. She and Francesca Cuzzoni were known as the "Rival Queens," although they needn't have been rivals: Bordoni was famous for her facility in lively arias, while Cuzzoni was renowned for her performance of pathetic arias. Their conflict, egged on by audience factions, brought a performance of Bononcini's Astianatte on 6 June 1727 to a halt; the two were later satirized as Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit in John Gay's Beggar's Opera (1728).

After returning to the continent, Faustina would marry the composer Johann Adolf Hasse in 1730, and continue to perform in opera for the next two decades in Dresden, Venice and Naples. Tesi must have known the couple well; she would sing in ten productions of works composed by Hasse over her career.

"Un lusinghiero dolce pensiero" from Handel's Alessandro (1726), sung by Julia Lezhneva accompanied by Armonia Aetena conducted by George Petrou.

Francesca Cuzzoni onstage in Handel's Ottone, Flavio, or Giulio Cesare (1723-24). Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London. [2]

Francesca Cuzzoni, soprano. When the 16-year-old Tesi stepped onstage in an opera for the very first time, in Emanuele d'Astorga's Il Dafni in 1716 in Parma, Cuzzoni was also in the cast. They sang together in Bologna (Merope) the following year, and in Venice for the 1721-22 season. Cuzzoni then went to London, where after a dazzling debut as Teofane in Handel's Ottone she stayed for six seasons. She sang in every opera produced by the Royal Academy during that time, creating the roles of Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare, 1724), Asteria (Tamerlano, 1724), and Rodelinda (1725). When Faustina Bordoni arrived in 1726, she and Cuzzoni were known as the "Rival Queens" (see above); both left Handel's company at the end of the 1727-28 season. After returning to Italy, Cuzzoni sang again with Tesi in Porta's Farnace in Bologna in the spring of 1731.

"Ho perduto il caro sposa" from Rodelinda, sung by Sophie Daneman accompanied by Raglan Baroque Players conducted by Nicholas Kraemer.

Margherita Durastanti, mezzo-soprano. Durastanti sang with Tesi in Lotti's Teofane during the 1719 wedding celebrations in Dresden for Frederick Augustus II, Prince Elector of Saxony, and Maria Josepha of Austria. A visiting George Frideric Handel was in the audience on that occasion. Durastanti had previously encountered the young Handel on his first trip to Italy, and Handel had written solo cantatas, the part of Mary Magdalene in his oratorio La Resurrezione (1708), and the title role in his wickedly cynical Venetian opera Agrippina (1709) for her. After renewing their acquaintance in Dresden, Handel invited Durastanti to London to join the Royal Academy. Durastanti created the male title role of Radamisto (1720), Rossane in Floridante (1721), Gismonda in Ottone (1723, based on the same libretto as Teofane), and Cornelia's son Sesto in Giulio Cesare (1724).

"Cara speme" from Giulio Cesare, sung by Angelika Kirschlager accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by William Christie.

Anna Maria Strada del Pò by Johann Verelst, 1732. Gerald Coke Handel Collection, Foundling Museum, London. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Anna Maria Strada (del Pò), soprano. Tesi sang with her in five operas in Naples during the 1724-25 season, as well as in at least one opera during the following Carnival in 1726. It was during this time in Naples that Strada married Aurelio del Pò, manager of the Teatro San Bartolomeo. In 1729 Handel invited Strada to London, where she created the title role in Partenope (1730) and Angelica in Orlando (1733), among other roles. At the end of the 1732-33 season, when the castrato Senesino led the defection of Handel's singers to the rival Opera of the Nobility, Strada was the single performer who remained loyal to Handel. She went on to create the roles of Ginevra in Ariodante (1735), and the title roles in Arianna in Creta (1734), Alcina (1735), Atalanta (1736), and Berenice (1737), among others. In revivals she sang eight roles originally created for Cuzzoni and one created for Faustina. In all she stayed for eight seasons (fall 1729 through spring 1737), and appeared in 24 of Handel's operas.

"Verdi piante" from Orlando, sung by Sandrine Piau accompanied by Les Talens Lyriques conducted by Christophe Rousset.

Tesi also appeared with the greatest castrato singers at the peak of their renown, such as:

Antonio Bernacchi by Marco Ricci, c. 1720-1730. Image source: Royal Collection Trust

Antonio Bernacchi, alto castrato. Tesi's teacher and primo uomo for Handel in London for the 1729-30 season. Handel created the title role of Lotario (December 1729) and the role of Arsace in Partenope (February 1730) for him. Tesi sang with Bernacchi in Venice (1721-22), Milan and Parma (1728), and after his return from London, in Bologna (1731).

"Sento amor con novi dardi" from Partenope, sung by Philippe Jaroussky accompanied by Il Pomo d'Oro conducted by Ricardo Minassi.

Francesco Bernardi, detto il Senesino, engraved by Elisha Kirkall after Joseph Goupy, 1727. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London

Francesco Bernardi, known as Senesino, alto castrato. Tesi sang with him in Dresden in the 1717-1718 season, and again in that city in 1719 in the operas and serenatas celebrating the marriage of the Prince Elector, including Lotti's Teofane. Handel's presence in Teofane's audience was no coincidence: he had been sent to Europe expressly to recruit Senesino for his London opera company, the Royal Academy. A few months later, after an argument between Senesino, castrato Matteo Berselli and the composer Heinichen got the entire company of Italian singers in Dresden fired, Senesino (and other Dresden singers) left to join Handel's company. He went on to become the leading man of the company between 1720 and 1728, and would sing again for Handel from 1730-33. He created 17 roles in Handel's operas, including the title roles in Floridante (1721), Ottone (1723), Giulio Cesare (1724) and Orlando (1733), as well as Andronico in Tamerlano (1724) and Bertarido in Rodelinda (1725).

"Aure deh per pietà" from Giulio Cesare, sung by Marijana Mijanovic accompanied by Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski.

Joannes [Giovanni] Carestini, engraved by John Faber Jr. after George Knapton, 1735. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London

Giovanni Carestini, soprano castrato. Tesi sang with him during Carnival in Milan (1731) and in autumn in Piacenza (1732), before he went to London in late 1733. Carestini was only in London for about 18 months, but during that short time he created several memorable roles: Teseo (Theseus) in Handel’s Arianna in Creta (1734), Apollo in Parnasso in festa (1734), the anguished title role in Ariodante (1735), and the love-besotted knight Ruggiero in Alcina (1735). Famously Carestini did not at first want to sing Ruggiero's aria "Verdi prati," thinking that it did not sufficiently showcase his voice; Handel insisted, and it became one of the most popular arias from the opera.

On Carestini's return to Italy he reunited with Tesi in Naples (1736), in Reggio nell' Emilia for the opening of the Teatro del Pubblico (1741), and in Venice for Carnival (1745).

"Verdi prati" from Alcina, sung by Andreas Scholl accompanied by Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.

Caffarello en habit de theatre [Caffarello in costume] by Pier Leone Ghezzi, c. 1735. Image source: Christie's London

Gaetano Majorano, known as Caffarelli, mezzo-soprano castrato. Of the singers on this list, he was Tesi's second-most-frequent partner, and they sang together in productions spanning two decades. Among other engagements, they performed regularly together in Milan (the Carnival seasons of 1729, 1731, and 1733).

Caffarelli was engaged for the 1737-38 season in London; the castrato created the title roles in Handel's Faramondo and Serse, which opens with one of Handel's most famous arias, "Ombra mai fù." Despite the high quality of the music, neither opera succeeded; Faramondo had eight performances, and Serse only five, in part because they were in direct competition with Henry Carey and John Lampe's hugely successful opera parody The Dragon of Wantley (1737), which had 69 performances at Covent Garden.

After Handel's disappointing opera season, Caffarelli returned to Italy, where he appeared with Tesi during Carnival 1739 in Naples to celebrate the birthday of King Charles III with a performance of Porpora's Semiramide riconosciuta (Semiramide revealed; Tesi sang Semiramide while Caffarelli sang the role of her lover Scitalce).

This engagement likely led to an invitation extended to both singers to perform in Madrid for the marriage of Charles' younger brother, the 19-year-old Infante Philip, with the 12-year-old Louise Élisabeth, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV and Queen Maria of France. The wedding opera was Francesco Corselli's Farnace, in which Caffarelli sang the title role and Tesi sang Berenice, Farnace's scheming mother-in-law who plots to destroy him and his family (which includes her own daughter!).

Their next opera together was also a celebration, this time in Naples in 1747 for the birth of a male heir to Charles III. In De Majo's Il Sogno di Olimpia (The Dream of Olympia), Tesi sang the title role of Alexander the Great's mother, while Caffarelli sang the role of Jove. They would sing together twice more in Vienna in 1749, the year before Tesi retired from the stage.

"Ombra mai fù" from Serse, sung by Franco Fagioli accompanied by Il Pomo d’Oro, Zefira Valova, concertmaster.

Carlo Broschi detto Farinelli, engraved by Joseph Wagner after Jacopo Amigoni, 1735. Image source: National Portrait Gallery, London

Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli, soprano castrato. If we can judge by the number of times they sang together, Farinelli was Tesi's favorite partner. They sang together (often with Anna Maria Strada) in Naples from the fall of 1724 through the end of Carnival 1726, including in Hasse's gender-switched serenata Antonio e Cleopatra (1725; see Vittoria Tesi: The first black prima donna for more details and a musical excerpt). In Spring 1728 they appeared with Bernacchi in Vinci's Medo in Parma, and in Spring 1731 sang together (with Bernacchi and Cuzzoni) in Porta's Farnace in Bologna. Eight more operas followed in Milan, Turin, Florence, and elsewhere by the end of Carnival 1734, after which Farinelli went to London to sing with his teacher Nicola Porpora's Opera of the Nobility.

His first London appearance in October 1734 was as Arbace in Artaserse, with music by Hasse and added arias by Farinelli's brother Ricardo Broschi. Plate II of William Hogarth's print series A Rake's Progress (1735) depicts the extravagance of his reception. The print includes a long scroll descending from the back of a chair on which a composer (whether intended to be Handel or Porpora isn't clear) is sitting at a harpsichord playing numbers from the score of a (fictitious) new opera, The Rape of the Sabines. [3]

A Rake's Progress, Plate II, by William Hogarth, 1735. Image source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The scroll lists "the rich presents Signor Farinelli the Italian singer condescended to accept from the English nobility and gentry for one night's performance in the opera Artaxerses," which includes jewelry, a bank note in a gold case, a gold snuff box "chace'd with the story of Orpheus charming ye Brutes" given by "T. Rakewell, Esq.," (the anti-hero of the series, standing at the center of the group on the right), and hundreds of guineas in cash. Underneath and partly hidden by the scroll is a poem dedicated by Rakewell to Farinelli with an engraving of ecstatic women offering their flaming hearts on a sacrificial altar placed before the singer, with their kneeling leader crying out, "One God, one Farinelli"—what a noblewoman at a performance of Artaserse is reported to have shouted from her box.

Detail of A Rake's Progress, Plate II, by William Hogarth, 1735. Image source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Farinelli remained in London through Spring 1737, and then retired from public performance. He travelled to Madrid at the behest of the Spanish Queen Isabella (Elisabeth Farnese), where he was appointed "royal servant" to her husband Philip V and sang arias to the king every night to soothe his melancholy. Farinelli probably renewed his acquaintance with Tesi in autumn 1739, when she came to Madrid to perform in the wedding opera for the Infante Philip, the king and queen's second son, and his bride Louise Élisabeth of France.

"Alto Giove" from Porpora's Polifemo (1735), sung by Philippe Jaroussky accompanied by the Venice Baroque Orchestra conducted by Andrea Marcon.

These singers were Vittoria Tesi's peers and onstage colleagues, and so a question may occur to us: Why is she not as well-known as they are? The next post in this series will examine the politics and economics of 18th-century opera, and why a ground-breaking figure such as Tesi, the first Black or biracial prima donna, is not better known today.

Other posts on Vittoria Tesi:

• African Queen: Sofonisba
• The first Black prima donna: Vittoria Tesi
• Vittori Tesi: Some notable operatic performances, 1716-1754
• Why is Vittoria Tesi not better known?

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1. Charles Burney, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, Volume the fourth, 1789, p. 561. https://archive.org/details/dli.granth.93402/page/561/mode/1up
2. A very similar group representing the same singers in similar costumes appears on a banner labelled "Opera" portrayed in William Hogarth's first self-published engraving, The Bad Taste of the Town, or Masquerades and Operas (1724). On the banner a group of nobles kneels before the singers and pours money onto the stage, with one saying "Pray Accept 8000 l." The opera represented has been identified by the Royal Collection Trust curators as Handel's Flavio.
3. The performers are listed as:
   
   Romulos: Sen. Fari—li [Farinelli]
   1[st] Ravisher: Sen. Sen—no [Senesino]
   2[nd] Ravisher: Sen. Cor—ni [Carestini?]
   3[rd] Ravisher: Sen. Coz—n [Cozen? In its meaning of "To deceive or perpetuate fraud"; perhaps a play on the name of Gioacchino Conti, known as Gizziello.]
   
   Sabine Women:
   Sen.ra Str—dr [Anna Maria Strada?]
   Sen.ra Ne—gr [Maria Negri? She was a contralto singing with Handel]
   Sen.ra Ber—li [Francesca Bertolli, a contralto who had sung with Handel but had switched to the Opera of the Nobility]
   
   The "joke" of castrati appearing as "ravishers" in an opera about rape (rape here having the dual meaning of abduction and sexual violence) is another example of the salacious and at times pornographic speculation about the sexuality of castrati and their female colleagues described by Thomas McGeary, "Verse Epistles on Italian Opera Singers, 1724-1736," Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, no. 33, 2000, pp. 29–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25099475.