U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: March 4, 2009 I, Ashley Offret , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Master of Music in Music History It is entitled: A Dozen Little Farinellos: A Reception History of Farinelli in London, 1734-1737 Ashley Offret Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Melinda Boyd Jeongwon Joe Jonathan Kregor Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Melinda Boyd A Dozen Little Farinellos: A Reception History of Farinelli in London, 1734-37 A Thesis Submitted to the Division of Graduate Studies and Research of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in the Division of Composition, Musicology, and Theory of the College-Conservatory of Music 2009 By Ashley Offret B. M., University of Maine, 2005 Committee Chair: Dr. Melinda Boyd ABSTRACT Farinelli’s arrival in London in 1734 to perform with the Opera of the Nobility marked a temporary rise in the declining popularity of Italian Opera in England. The previous few decades had seen Italian opera overwhelmingly successful under the baton of Georg Frederic Handel, despite frequent and constant complaints by critics. This thesis will reconstruct Farinelli’s reception history through an examination of contemporary literature. First, it will examine Farinelli’s irresistibility as a sexual icon by reconstructing London’s ideas about femininity, while taking into account his unique traits that attracted him to both males and females. Next, it will examine Britain’s evolving sense of national identity that they thought placed it in equal merit standing with other European countries. This thesis will use contemporary criticisms in various forms, including a false letter, essays and satires, by some of the most famous literary names of the time period. ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank my friends and family for listening to me talk endlessly about the following thesis, especially while it was in its beginning stages. I also want to thank the musicology faculty at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music for their support and advice, especially Dr. Jeongwon Joe and Dr. Jonathan Kregor for their valuable contributions as readers of my thesis. Most of all I want to thank Dr. Melinda Boyd, because I am certain that without her contagious passion for learning, careful attention to detail and firm encouragements this thesis would have been much more difficult for me to write. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract..………………………………………………………………………………………….ii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………..iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………….v Introduction. …………………………………………………………………………….……...…1 Chapter One: The Making of a Great Castrato…….…...………………….…………….……..…5 Chapter Two: Contextualizing Gender in 18th-Century Britain…………………...…….……….22 Chapter Three: The Castrato in Contemporary Literature……………………………………….45 Epilogue……………………………………………………………………………………….…72 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..75 v “But so numerous are they grown, it is high Time to put a Stop to them, lest the growing Generation be corrupted; and England rival Italy, in this most unnatural and wicked Practice.”1 Introduction London in the 1730s was deeply rooted in ancient, conservative tradition. Entertained for years by George Frederic Handel and his famous singers, the public was in love with the world of Italian opera. The court funded recruitment trips throughout Europe to invite some of the most talented musicians the continent had to offer to perform on the highly receptive, although often criticized, London stage. Handel’s rival opera company hired famous Italian Nicolo Porpora (1686-1768) to help the Opera of the Nobility compete for the fickle London audience. When Porpora seduced one of his most famous pupils, the castrato Carlo Broschi (1705-1782), also known by the stage name Farinelli, to participate in the 1734-37 season, the scale balancing the rivalry was inevitably tipped in favor of the Opera of the Nobility.2 Famous for his gentlemanly demeanor and charisma, Farinelli quickly became a household name among London’s opera public. He did not possess many of the notorious characteristics that some of his infamous fellow opera singers did, such as difficult rehearsing technique, impossible demands both onstage and offstage, and a general attitude in public that reflected an inflated sense of self. He was invited to many aristocratic homes, singing, entertaining and sharing his interesting life stories. His presence was so exciting to some of his 1 Rictor Norton, ed., "Reasons for the Growth of Sodomy, 1731," Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook, 14 April 2000; updated 4 March 2007, http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1731grow.htm (accessed September 14, 2008). 2 Ellen T. Harris, "Farinelli," in Grove Music Online/ Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/09312 (accessed October 5, 2008). 1 admirers that “one woman blasphemed: ‘One God, one Farinelli!’”3 Equating Farinelli with God may be seen as blasphemous, but such was the singer’s reputation at the time. London had never before experienced such overwhelming interest in a new performer. Studying the reception history of this outstanding performer through contemporary literature is the key to unlocking the paradox of the castrato: Europe’s fascination with the voice, and the fear of emasculation held by many fortunate enough to have heard and socialized with one. The widely varying amount of literature published during Farinelli’s tenure in London is indicative of his massive talent and stage-capabilities. This is why he is the ideal subject for this study, which reveals the undeniable influence he had on the development of operatic culture. Tracing the construction of gender as it was understood by early eighteenth-century Britons, especially in terms of their definition of effeminacy, is helpful in understanding exactly why Farinelli provoked the powerfully charged and emotional reactions that he did. The notion of effeminacy was by no means a new concept in England at the time that Italian castrati and their music were introduced in England, but their physical and social oddities were so surprising to the English that they could not help but provoke some sort of response in the public eye. References of attraction to Farinelli are numerous and obvious in the body of contemporary literature, by both sexes, partly because of the exotic quality his body and talent possessed for the English. Exactly how one’s attraction to Farinelli revealed itself in the literature depended upon the gender and background of the person in question, a subject which will also be explored in this thesis. Understanding the physical attraction to castrati is only a part of the source of the 3 Thomas McGeary, “‘Warbling Eunuchs’: Opera, Gender, and Sexuality on the London Stage, 1705- 1742,” Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theater Research 7, no. 1 (Summer 1992): 13. 2 Londoners’ reaction, but it is an important one, as it would continue to impact English society for a long time. An examination of the reception of Italian opera in England through the contemporary literature provides another key to understanding Farinelli’s strong reception in London. Italian art’s influence was felt in England long before Farinelli began his stay there, largely through paintings, portraits and literature that were brought back by the English who travelled abroad. There was, according to Nigel Llewellyn, a driving need by the English bourgeois to feel elite and educated, especially when it came to cultures outside of their own.4 Opera was embraced by so many partly because this need for culture was already rooted in British society. It is also the reason that there were so many public arguments against Italian opera. Famous British critics and poets alike tackled the issue, debating such problems as the influence Italian opera would have on young women, men who would be influenced to become more feminine, and the overwhelming support of opera by the royalty. Alexander Pope was one of the most famous people to tackle what he perceived as the problems with Italian opera. He demonstrated opera’s influence over the monarchy in his epic Dunciad,5 in which his Queen, Dullness, attempts to rule by ridding her court of science and reason. The British thought their country to be in the middle of a cultural revolution, and as such deservedly sat apart from the rest of the European countries. Another reason behind the outcry against Italian opera was this elitism, which for critics threatened to again place England at the 4 Nigel Llewellyn, “ ‘Those loose and immodest pieces’: Italian art and the British point of view,” in Italian Culture in Northern Europe in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Shearer West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). 5 Alexander Pope, The Dunciad , http://ebooks.ohiolink.edu/xtf- ch/view?docId=tei/enpo/22269.xml&query=dunciad&brand=default (accessed Sept. 2, 2008). 3 same level as the rest of Europe instead of setting it apart from and ahead of its competitors. John Dennis emphasized this in his Essay on the Operas,6 which is examined below, and by doing so attempted to place pressure on Britian’s government to forcefully rid England of the foreign art. This obviously did not happen, as 30 years after his publication Farinelli came to London with such overwhelming initial success. Nonetheless, interpreting this work also provides insight as to why Farinelli was received with such mixed reactions. England was a society far enough away from the rest of Europe and was only aware of a trickle of what was happening artistically elsewhere, but its elite were still starved for exposure to the exotic offerings of other countries.7 None were more exotic or irresistible, to both critics and supporters, than the great operatic castrati from Italy.