Cantrice, Castrati e otre Bestie - Part III

The Rival Queens - Part I

The history of opera is riff with stories of rivalries between singers - male and female - though often those frictions are more in the minds of their supporters than of the favourites they champion.  Several modern day (i.e. late 20th century) examples spring to mind - rather disappointingly today the majority of operatic stars vow undying love for their peers and colleagues in syrupy air-kissy intermission features on High Definition broadcasts that make one long for the days of Maria Callas and her infamous comparison of her voice to Renata Tebaldi's.**

Gone are the days of a *Nellie Melba sailing through the red velvet curtains after pushing aside a young Giovanni Martinelli as the audience chanted his name with the remark that her dear public wanted their "Auntie Nellie".  Or the even more heady events of 6 June 1727 during a performance of Bononcini’s Astianatte when a battle royal or rather a battle before the royals broke out between the fans of the two reigning queens of song at Handel's Royal Academy of Music.

As an astounded Princess Caroline looked on Francesa Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni are reported to have heaped insults, in Italian, on each other and finally resorted to pulling each others hair as their adoring fans egged them on with catcalls, cheers and other "indecencies".  According to the local press the disheveled prime donne were escorted off stage, several of the audience arrested and the performance - and the opera season - was suspended.   There is sufficient proof that the press may have exaggerated the events of the battling donne (imagine our surprise!!!) and that the cause of the major disturbance were more the actions of  their devoted followers than the two singers themselves.  The Cuzzonists were led by Lady Pembroke who it is said encouraged her entourage to hiss Faustina.  This led to a satirical verse making the rounds of the town:

UPON LADY PEMBROKE’S PROMOTING

THE CAT-CALLS OF FAUSTINA.

Old poets sing that beasts did dance 

Whenever Orpheus play’d, 

So to Faustina’s charming voice 

Wise Pembroke’s asses bray’d.

In fact the two ladies were considered the "best of enemies" and there is a possibility that behind the scenes they were on cordial if not sisterly terms.   The Royal Academy was not the first stage they had shared and, thought the concept was new for the London opera scene, it was not unknown in an Italy house to have two prime donne in the same opera.  There is also the very good possibility that the directors of the Royal Academy manipulated the situation to sell tickets for their often financially troubled company.

A playbill from 1747 for Lee's popular tragedy which
had pitted rival actresses against each other on the
English stage since 1677.  The same story had served
Paolo Antonio Rolli as the inspiration for his Alessandro
which featured the two "Rival Queens" of opera twenty
years earlier.

Cuzzoni and Bordoni first shared the London stage in Handel's Alessandro; the argument of which was well-known to English playgoers as the subject of Nathaniel Lee's popular and oft-revived 1677 tragedy The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great - a popular vehicle for rival actresses.   And a source had been feeding the press and public curiosity with stories of backstage intrigue and tensions for several weeks before the prima.   The occasion itself passed without incident - the only fireworks being the vocal ones on stage.  Handel had provided music of equal brilliance for each of them.  He had made sure that both roles were of equal length and wrote one short duet (Placa l'alma) for the two of them.  He knew Cuzzoni's abilities and style well but based Faustina's music on what he knew of her previous repertoire.  Later he was to replace two of her arias with music that he felt exploited her abilities more completely.

Their joint appearance was a great success and the coffers of the Royal Academy were filled by a public that began to clamour for tickets to see the "Rival Queens".  After that first overwhelming triumph the city waited impatiently to see what Handel, Bononcini and company were going to create for the two of them.   And they were not to be disappointed: Handel wrote five works that featured the two divas.  It must not have been an easy task as he had to pay particular attention to who got what to sing, when they got to sing it and with whom.  And the abilities and demands of the great castrato Senesino had to be considered - Francesco Bernardi, the third member of Handel's "dream team",  was not know to give up centre stage easily.  It was a delicate balancing act.

The "rivalry" continued in the 1727-28 season however when Bordoni was offered a salary that was one guinea more than Cuzzoni for the next season  the soprano reacted to the insult by almost immediately packing her bags and returning to the continent. The financially troubled company hoped the affair would soon be forgotten but they had not such luck.   That same season John Gay's The Beggar's Opera opened and Handel's bickering divas were immortalized as the back-biting heroines Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit.  The much worshiped goddess had become a source of fun and the pretensions of Italian opera the butt of a very successful satire.

By 1729 the Academy declared bankruptcy and was dissolved.   Bordoni was never to appear in England again however Cuzzoni was to make an ill-fated return several years later.

A ticket for a performance of The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden for the benefit of Thomas Walker the original MacHeath.  It shows the unhappy Captain trapped between his battling "wives".  The design is attributed to Hogarth.

As mention Cuzzoni and Faustina had first appeared together in Venice and were great favourites there - and both had been the subjects of Anon Maria Zanetti's satirical pen.

 Francesca Cuzzoni 

 

Born in Parma in 1700 (?) Francesca Cuzzoni (called la Parmigiana) made her debut in her home town at the age of 16 in Dafni, a pastoral opera, starring Vittoria Tesi.  However she was not to remain in the shadow of other singers for long.  By 1718 she was appearing on the stage of San Giovanni Grisostomo with Faustina Bordoni and Antonio Bernacchi.  She went on to appear on the major stages of Italy and in 1722 debuted with Handel's Royal Academy in London.   She had been enticed to make the channel crossing, accompanied by her husband the harpsichordist, teacher and composer Pier Giuseppe Sandoni, by a £2000 salary and the proceeds of a benefit.

Cuzzoni had appeared many times with the renowned male soprano Nichola Grimaldi or Nicolino.  The
Carnivale season of 1730 they appeared in three operas - Idaspe, Artaserese and Mitridate; Zanetti
neglected to note which of the three was lined in this caricature

Cussoni was not known for her stage presence - she was a cold actress by the days' standards - nor her personal beauty - her receding chin is perfectly captured in Zanetti's caricature and badly hidden in one of the few official portraits.  Nor was she known for her sense of style - singers provided their own wardrobe as them moved from stage to stage and her's was often remarked upon as being rather dowdy.  However it should be noted that the brown silk dress shot with silver that she wore in Rodelinda set a fashion trend amongst the younger ladies of London.  With Cussoni it was her vocal talents that enchanted as Cleopatra, Rodelinda, Asteria and several other damsels in distress that Handel,  Bononcini and her husband wrote for her.

The painter of one of the few "official" portraits of Francesca
Cuzzoni did his best to highlight the lady's better features.
What he could not capture was the magic of her voice which
overrode any physical shortcomings she may have had.

Her London debut was as Teofane in Handel's Ottone on January 12, 1723. The story is often told that she had found that "Falsa immagine"***, her first aria, was not to her liking: she felt it was too simple and did not display her talents to their fullest.  She also had a sneaking suspicion that it had been originally written for Maddalena Salvai, Handel's previous prima donna.  Handel, who unlike many of the composers of his time would only indulge singers' whims so far, is said to have grabbed her by the waist and threatened to throw her out the window, growling: Madame you are a devil, but I will make you know that I am Beelzebub, King of the Devils.  A cowed Cuzzoni sang the aria and her debut was an incredible success.  The Royal Academy also basked in financial success with ticket prices doubling and tripling for subsequent performances.

She had a range of two octaves and her high notes were said to be unrivaled in clearness and sweetness.   It was reported that she seemed incapable of singing out of tune and had a true intonation that impressed even her rivals.  Her unaffected style fit the sympathetic roles that Handel wrote for her. 

After leaving London following the aforementioned salary insult she travelled to various opera houses in Europe and met with success everywhere but Vienna where her outrageous salary demands met with a cold reception from the local impresario.   Though she and Sandoni had separated she appeared in his operas in Venice, Modena, Bologna, Naples, Piacenz and during Carnivale seasons in 1730-1734.  In 1734 she returned to London as prima donna for the ill-fated Opera of the Nobility.  The company folded after one season and Cuzzoni made her way back to the Continent.

"Though Tuneful Scarecrow and Thou Warbling Bird" by Joseph Goupy was said to be based on a design
by the Countess of Burlington.  Farinelli and Cuzzoni had been hired by James John Heidegger, a Swiss
entrepreneur seen here lurking in the background, to perform in London. Goupy's caricature of Handel is
said to have ended their friendship.

Though she was to continue giving concerts it appears that her last operatic performance was in Hamburg in 1741.  That same year it was rumoured and gleefully reported by at least one London newspaper that she had been charged with poisoning her husband and was to be executed.  She and Sandori had been long separated and her reported act of mariticide was a good seven years before his actual demise of natural causes.

Her appointment in 1746 as court singer in Stuttgart was cut short when she left the city leaving a large number of unpaid debts.    Cuzzoni's demand for astronomical fees may have been more than a matter of prestige - she was often in debt and one of her last appearances in London was a benefit in May of 1751.  The advertisement for the concert including a begging note from the prima donna stating: "I am so extremely sensible of the many Obligations I have already received from the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom ... that nothing but extreme necessity and a desire of doing justice, could induce me to trouble them again, but being unhappily involved in a few Debts, am extremely desirous of attempting every Thing in my Power to pay them, before I quit England ..."  Sadly the concert was not a success and Walpole called her "old Cuzzoni" and Burney remarked on her "thin, cracked voice".  She left London for Holland shortly after; however once again the problem of debts followed her and she spent some time in Debtor's Prison.  The Prison Governor allowed her to earn money from performing to gradually pay back her creditors.

After that her name was noticeably missing from playbills or announcements and she faded from the music scene.  It is known that she went to Bologna and spent the remaining years of her life there living in poverty.  It was rumored that she found employment as a button maker and on her death in 1770 the once great prima donna left neither estate nor family. 

If Cuzzoni died in penury life after London was to be an entirely different story for her rival.

...  to be continued.

*I repeat this story with the possibility that it is an operatic urban legend but if it didn't happen it could have!

** Again possibly another operatic legend but during an interview with Time Magazine Callas is  quoted as saying that comparing her to Tebaldi was like comparing champagne with Coca-Cola.  However a bystander insists she said "champagne to cognac" and some else quipped "No, to Coca-cola" which the interviewer then attributed to Callas.

***This link will take you to a lovely performance by Rose Manion from a rather unusual programme aired in the UK called "A Night with Handel" filmed in and around modern London.

May 18 - 1944:  Deportation of Crimean Tatars by the government of the  Soviet Union.

Comfort Ye My People

Like many I grew up with The Messiah as a Christmas tradition - either in its full version as broadcast each year on CBC from Massey Hall with the TSO under Sir Ernest MacMillan or snippets at our local church if the choir master was particularly adventuresome.   Both Handel and Charles Jennens would be puzzled by our tradition of their oratorio being presented in concert halls, town halls, school auditoria and churches at Yuletide.  It was premiered at Eastertide in Dublin in April 1742 and Jennens' text is an extended reflection on Christ as the Messiah; only Part I addresses the Prophetic Coming and Nativity, Part II and II portraits the Passion, Resurrection, Accession, Last Judgment and Final Victory of Christ the Messiah.

For Jennen's it was not a Christmas message but a Christian one (howbeit skewered to his particular beliefs) that he was delivering.  And though at various times his libretto has been denigrated as a mere cobbling together of text from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer it is now recognized as what Watkins Shaw describes as "a meditation of our Lord as Messiah in Christian thought and belief".  And despite his dislike for Jennens as a person, Shaw conceded that the finished text "amounts to little short of a work of genius".  And that literary genius was wedded perfectly to Handel's musical genius.

This copyist's manuscript from 1743 repeats a text error
from the original in the bass aria The Trumpet Shall Sound.
It reads "And the Death shall be raised..." of course it shoud
read "And the dead shall be raise...

Though Jennen's text has been little changed, if at all, over the years the same cannot be said for the musical settings around it.  Shortly after its premiere Handel himself was busy at work adapting the work to the changing vocal and instrumental forces at his disposal.  And he was to make further changes, additions and deletions until the last performances he attended eight days before his death in April of 1759.  After his death other hands began to "adapt" and even "improve" upon Handel's work - on the Continent Hiller in Berlin expanded the orchestration, and in 1789 Mozart in Vienna re-orchestrated the oratorio to bring it more in line with modern tastes.  Larger forces came into play both in Europe and North American but nowhere more than in the United Kingdom.  Larger and larger choruses and orchestras were employed until in 1857 at the Chrystal Palace a chorus of 2,000 sang their Hallelujahs with the backing of an orchestra 500 players strong.  This tradition of the "grand" Messiah was carried on - though with fewer numbers - by British conductors well into the later part of the 20th century.  Certainly the versions I first heard where with full 19th century symphony orchestra and a larger chorus backing singers such as Lois Marshall, Maureen Forrester and Jon Vickers.  The performances that conductors like Sir Ernest MacMillan, Sir Malcom Sargent and Sir Thomas Beecham led were full blown affairs with nary a whiff of "period practice" about them.  By the last quarter of the 20th century tastes had changed and Bernard Shaw's desire to hear a performance in a small venue "with chorus of twenty capable artists" was being fulfilled and more and more presentations reflected the desire for "historically informed performances".  It has now come to the point that no one would dare go for the Beecham style.

The Messiah during the Great Handel Festival of 1857 at the Crystal Palace in London
- a chorus of 2,000 and 500 musicians made sure that the Hallelujahs were well and truly heard.

 Though I have several versions of The Messiah - including Der Messias, the Mozart arrangement in German and several period instrument performances - for some reason every year I go back to my old Sir Thomas Beecham recording on RCA Victor.  It uses the very "unauthentic" and apparently contested arrangement Sir Eugene Goossens made for Beecham in 1959 for performances at the Lucerne Festival.  It is grand perhaps even grandiose, the forces are large - Beecham's Royal Philharmonic and the Huddersfield Choral Society at full throttle.  The four soloists come no where near giving us "authentic performances" - a phrase which always brings to mind Anna Russell's comment: "terribly pure if a trifle bloodless".  There is nothing period or bloodless about the young Jon Vickers and I dare anyone not to be thrilled when his voice cries out in the wilderness. 

In a letter in May of 1959 Beecham admonished Goossens: "You will not forget, I am sure, that Hallelujah must lead off with the most glorious and crashing noise, everybody going all out - hell for leather!"  Fulfilling Sir Thomas's wish Goossens uses cymbals to start of the thing with a big bang.  When challenged about his arrangement by Records and Recordings in 1960 Sir Eugene turned the question around.  "And why not?" he asked the interviewer: "Aren't we exhorted in the Bible to 'praise the Lord with the sound of cymbals'?"  And praise the Lord Sir Thomas and his forces certainly do.  It may lack a certain subtlety but its is joyous and guaranteed to bring an audience to its feet hoary old tradition or not.

Now this is not The Messiah as I always want to hear it - at some point this week the Gabrielli Consort CD will go on the player or the Charles Mackerras Mozart will be clicked on iTunes. The wonder is that Jennen's and Handel's glorious work can take all those interpretations and still move us to tears, joy and contemplation.

23 December - 1823: A Visit from St. Nicholas, also known as The Night Before Christmas, is published anonymously.

Mercoledi Musciale

I can only join with so many others in celebrating the life of the great Joan Sutherland. Hers was a remarkable voice that I consider myself fortunate to have heard both live, on recording and in video.



I recall her first appearance in Toronto was a concert scheduled the evening that John Kennedy was assassinated. However she was to make later concert appearances and debut a few of her later roles with the Canadian Opera Company. I only wish I could have seen more of her live as I had almost all of her LPs at one point. But as well as her performances what also sticks in the mind was her incredible sense of humour and at times self-effacing manner in interviews and a few very memorable opera quiz round tables. She led a rich and very full life and saying goodbye should indeed be a celebration of all that she was and gave.

Dearest Joan may those Bright Seraphim greet you in their burning rows and may their voices be uplifted in glorious song as they welcome you.

My dear OC up in Milano wrote what I think is one of the most loving tributes to La Stupenda found in the last few days: The Time Traveler's Wife.

13 ottobre - San Teofilio di Antiochia

Lunedi Lunacy

This one has been floating around the ether the past few days but just in case you missed it and in the spirit of sharing for the season and the tradition of presenting Messiah at Christmas I give you: The Silent Monks singing Handel.



It appears that this routine has been taken up by several choral groups and become as seasonal favorite. There are four or five versions on YouTube - unfortunately the video by the Monks of St Francis de la Sissies (The Portland Gay Men's Chorus) is not of the best quality though their introduction is inspired lunacy.

With thanks, as always, to Cathy.

13 decembre - San Giovanni della Croce

Mercoledi Musicale

I realize that counter tenors are not to everyone's taste but when Handel's Lascia ch'io pianga is sung this beautifully I just have to post it.

An example of the sweetness of Philippe Jaroussky's singing - and we were so lucky to have heard him live on Sunday.

03 giugno - San Carlo Lwanga

Parlo del Piu e del Meno

• Sunday was beautiful and sunny but the apartment still had a damp cold feel to it - our building is concrete with marble and terra cotta floors - so we left the house with jackets on. Totally unneeded! If the neon sign at the Farmacia was right it hit 31C by late in the afternoon. We wandered through the neighbourhood, stopped for a gelato, did a quick detour into the 3rd Century Basilica of Santa Constanza (though its just next door Laurent had never seen it) and sat in the condo complex park for a while. A nice way to spend a Sunday.

• Though it wasn't part of our normal Saturday subscription we decided to catch Handel's Alexander's Feast at the Academia this past Saturday night. Handel isn't really in the Italian blood so though it was a fine performance it missed the spark needed to set the piece on fire. However I must admit the young Slovak tenor Pavol Breslik was pretty to look at and he could sing too.
  
  Its been years since I'd heard it and while rereading John Dryden's text I was struck by the following passage on the fallen Darius, dead on the battlefield:
  

  Deserted at his utmost need
  By those his former bounty fed
  On the bare earth expos'd he lies.
  Without a friend to close his eyes.
  

  Surely that last line is one of the saddest in English poetry.

• It is estimated that 50% of the people who ride the buses in Rome do so without a ticket. If caught there is a hefty fine - EURO150.00 or about CAD225.00 - but as the enforcers normally announce their intentions by congregating in uniform at the bus stops ...
  
  Though Romans complain about their transit system we've found it exceptional, if at times crowded. A ticket costs E1.00 ($1.50 CAD)and is good for unlimited travel on any combination of transit for 75 minutes. A monthly pass is E30.00 ($45.00) - though I was asked two months ago if I qualified for the E20.00 Seniors Pass - the bitch! I understand that back home in Ottawa its now $3.00 per ride and a monthly pass is $73.00.
  
  Saturday night the only option for getting around town was public transit. We tried to get a taxi from the Parco della Musica but there were none to be had. So we hopped on a Number 2 tram with a gang of football fans returning from a Roma game, changed at Piazza del Popolo to Metro A and again at Termini to Metro B. It only took us 30 minutes; the traffic was so bad that if we had waited for that taxi we'd probably still be sitting somewhere along Via Flaminia with a two days growth of beard.

• We were headed for I Fiori di Cina (Flowers of China) to meet our friends Vin and Larry for a late (well late by North American standards) dinner. By the time we got there it was 9:30 and the place was packed - so packed we couldn't get a table on the gay side!
  
  The gay side???? Yeah I guess that does sort of require a bit of explaining. As our friend Kevin said after Laurent's birthday dinner: Well I guess I can cross eating at a Gay Chinese Restaurant in the Historic Centre of Rome off my list of things to do before I die. Its not that its officially gay, its just that its very, very, very gay friendly. The hostess knows most of the clients and seats people pretty much according to perceived sexuality - lesbians and gays to the right, straights to the left and undecideds where ever there's a free table.
  
  But as I said on Saturday it was so packed we could only get a table on the left side - along with a table of 8 twinks - who were replaced by 8 daddy bears, a table of 4 hairdressers, two or three tables of gay couples and a table of 4 lesbians. The Straight side??? Yes! There was a table beside us and there was a straight couple sitting there.

• Yesterday (April 21) Rome officially turned 2761. Yes back on April 21, 751 BC Romulus and Remus tore themselves away from pulling on She-wolf nipples and founded a village on the slopes of the Palatine Hill. Buon compleanno Roma, you don't look a day over 2000!

22 aprile - Santa Leonida