Dethroning the Divas Satire Directed at Cuzzoni and Faustina
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Dethroning the Divas Satire Directed at Cuzzoni and Faustina JAMES WIERZBICKI N terms of the satire it would provoke, the most important event of the Downloaded from I 1722-23 season on the London stage was the debut of soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. Born in Parma around 1700, Cuzzoni had achieved a prominence in Italy after her 1718 debut in Venice in Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's Ariodante. She arrived in London in the middle of the 1722-23 season and promptly mar- ried a harpsichordist named Sandoni. Shortly afterward, she was engaged by http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/ the Royal Academy of Music for the premiere of Handel's Ottone, the first new opera of the season; the opening performance took place on 12 January 1723, and with it Cuzzoni immediately captured the attention of the London audi- ence. Newspaper accounts that followed her first few performances suggest that her appearances were quite out of the ordinary. The Daily Journal of 14 Janu- ary 1723 reported that "on Saturday Night, his Majesty was at the Opera . and Signiora Catzoni, newly arriv'd from Italy, perform'd for the first Time, to at University of Sydney on November 2, 2016 the Surprize of the Audience, which was very numerous."1 Five days later, the London Journal noted that at the second performance oiOttone (on 15 January), the tickets, which were usually priced at a half-guinea, "sold that Day and the day preceding, at 4 Guineas each."2 According to the same newspaper, "the gen- try seem to have so high a taste of her [Cuzzoni's] fine parts that she is likely to be a great gainer by them."3 And the playbill for the third performance (on 19 January) included this message to patrons: "Upon Complaint to the Royal Academy of Musick, that Disorders have been of late committed in the Foot- men's Gallery, to the Interruption of the Performance, This is to give Notice, That the next Time any Disorder is made there, that Gallery will be shut up."4 Signora Cuzzoni does not seem to have been an especially attractive woman. Horace Walpole, whose politics were soon to be satirized in John Gay's Beg- gar's Opera, saw her perform in Handel's Rodtlinda during the 1724-25 season; he described her as being "short and squat, with a doughy cross face."5 Nor was her temperament a likable one: when rehearsing Ottont she apparently refused, for some reason, to sing the aria "Falsa immagine" (which later proved to be the opera's most popular aria), and Handel convinced her to cooperate only by 176 JAMES WIERZBICKI threatening to throw her out a window.6 And by most accounts she was not a particularly effective actress. Cuzzoni could sing, however. The German composer Johann Joachim Quantz, who heard her perform in London during this period, related details of her vocal abilities to Charles Burney. Quantz told Burney that Cuzzoni had ... a very agreeable and clear soprano voice, a pure intonation and a fine trill. Her compass extended two octaves, from C to C. Her style of singing was innocent and affecting. Her graces did not seem artificial, from the easy and neat manner in which she executed them. However, they took possession of the soul of every auditor by her tender and touching expression. She had not great rapidity of execution in allegros; but there was a roundness and smoothness which were neat Downloaded from and pleasing.7 The impact of Cuzzoni's presence on the London stage was enormous. She appeared in the three other new operas that filled out the 1722-23 season: Ariosti's CorioUmo (premiered on 19 February 1723 and repeated twelve times), Bononcini's Erminia (premiered on 30 March 1723 and repeated seven times), http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/ and Handel's Flavio (premiered on 14 May 1723 and repeated nine times). Her successes were duly noted in the press. During the CorioUtno run the London Journal reported that "the new Opera Tickets are very high, and like to con- tinue so as long as Mrs Cotzoni is so much admired."8 A few weeks later, the newspaper said of an Ottone performance given for her benefit that it was "a considerable Benefit... to her indeed, for, we hear, that some of the Nobility gave her 50 Guineas a Ticket;"9 of the same performance, the Daily Journal at University of Sydney on November 2, 2016 reported that "the Benefit of the famous Seignora Francesca Cuzzoni... we hear amounted to upwards of 700 £."10 Cuzzoni sang in all five of the new operas presented during the 1723-24 season; these were Bononcini's Farnace (premiered on 27 November 1723 and repeated six times), Ariosti's I Vespasiano (premiered on 14 January 1724 and repeated eight times), Handel's Giulio Cesare (premiered on 20 February and repeated twelve times), Bononcini's Calfurnia (premiered on 18 April 1724 and repeated ten times), and Ariosti's Aquilio consolo (premiered on 21 May and repeated three times). She also sang in the revival of Ottone (performed six times during the 1723-24 season), and it is likely that she participated in the one-night revival of CorioUmo on 17 March 1724 that was a benefit for her rival, the soprano Margherita Durastantd. Durastanti had been the leading soprano of Handel's Royal Academy of Music opera company since 1720, and she lasted only one year after Cuzzoni's arrival. She went into retirement after the 8 June 1724 performance of'Calfur- nia^ singing on that occasion a farewell song with words written especially for her by Alexander Pope: DETHRONING THE DIVAS 177 Generous gay, and gallant nation, Bold in arms and bright in arts; Land secure from all invasion, All but Cupid's gende darts! From your charms, oh who would run? Who could leave you for the sun? Happy soil, adieu, adieu! Let old charmers yield to new; In arms, in arts, be still more shining; All your joys be still increasing, All your tastes be still refining, All your jars for ever ceasing: But let old charmers yield to new; Happy soil, adieu, adieu!12 Downloaded from The music for this song has not survived, nor is it known who composed it. But the lyrics are genuinely touching and sincerely intended; a few years later, they were transformed into a tartly anti-opera burlesque by John Arbuthnot: http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/ Puppies, whom I now am leaving, Merry sometimes, always mad, Who lavish most when debts are craving, On fool, on farce, and masquerade! Who would not from such bubbles run, And leave such blessings for the sun? at University of Sydney on November 2, 2016 Happy soil, and simple crew! Let old sharpers yield to new. All your tastes be still refining; All your nonsense still more shining: Blest in some Berenstadt or Boschi, He more awkward, he more husky; And never want, when these are lost t'us, Another Heidegger and Faustus. Happy soil, and simple crew! Let old sharpers yield to new! Bubbles all, adieu, adieu!13 For the two seasons after Durastanti's retirement, Cuzzoni had the London stage almost to herself, her only competition coming from the popular mezzo- soprano castrato Senesino. During the 1724-25 season she sang in four new works (Handel's RocUHnda and Tameriano, Anosvi'sArtasersc, and a pastiche by Leonardo Vinci and others titled Elpida) and in the season's only revival (Giulio Cesare). During the 1725-26 season, Cuzzoni appeared in another revival of 178 JAMES WIERZBICKI Ottonc and in the premieres of an anonymous opera entitled Elisa14 and two more works by Handel (Scipione and Alcssandro). The production of Alcssandro (on 5 May 1726) introduced a new Italian singer to the London audience. She was a mezzo-soprano, and her name was Faustina Bordoni. Faustina —during her London career she used only her first name— was a native of Venice and, like Cuzzoni, was born sometime around 1700. The two singers had known one another at least as early as 1719, when they both were performing in Venice. That acquaintance was hardly a cordial one, how- ever. A very young Faustina had made her debut in Venice in 1715, and the arrival of Cuzzoni three years later sparked a rivalry that lasted throughout their years in London. Whereas Cuzzoni's debut in London took the audience by surprise, Faustina's reputation preceded her to the English capital. In its report of the Cuzzoni benefit performance of 26 March 1723, the London Journal noted that "as soon Downloaded from as Cuzzoni's time is out we are to have another over; for we are assured Faustina, the fine songstress at Venice, is invited, whose voice, they say, exceeds what we have already here."15 A year later, on 18 March 1724, a notice appeared for a concert of instrumental music at the Haymarket Theatre, "by Corbett on the Viol de Vevre, a particular New Instrument, never yet heard of in England, http://oq.oxfordjournals.org/ after the New Manner of Signiora Faustina."16 Quantz gave Burney this description of Faustina's singing: Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice that was less dear than penetrating. Her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing words rapidly and distinctly, and a flexible throat for divisions, with so beautiful a trill that she could put it at University of Sydney on November 2, 2016 in motion upon short notice just when she would. The passages might be smooth or by leaps or consist of iterations of the same tone.