Venanzio Rauzzini
{{short description|Italian opera singer}}
File:Venanzio Rauzzini by Robert Hancock.jpg by Robert Hancock]]
Venanzio Rauzzini (19 December 1746 – 8 April 1810)Kathleen Kuzmick Hansell, Oxford Music Online was an Italian castrato, composer, pianist, singing teacher and concert impresario. He is said to have first studied singing under a member of the Sistine Chapel Choir.Sands, "Venanzio Rauzzini, Singer, Composer, Traveller,: 15. He was a cantante soprano at the Socio Accademico of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.Rice, p. 2 He studied with Giuseppe Santarelli in Rome.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120304144014/http://hosting.triboni.com/triboni/exec?method=com.operissimo.composer.webDisplay&id=ffcyoindnoaaaaaaevmu&xsl=webDisplay&searchStr=Venanzio Rauzzini Biography of Venanzio Rauzzini at operissimo.com (in German)] Though unlikely, it has been suggested that Rauzzini may not in fact have been a castrato, but rather had an endocrine condition that prevented his voice from breaking, hence his many affairs as he was thought to be "safe".{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/12/bath-castrato-bicentenary|title=Bath celebrates the life of the bedhopping singing star of the 1700s|last=Brown|first=Mark|date=2010-04-12|website=the Guardian|access-date=2016-06-13}} That said, scholars such as Paul Rice and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland refute this idea.Rice, p. X; Robertson-Kirkland, p. 151
Life
File:William Herschel Museum - portrait of Vananzio Rauzzini.jpg]]
Rauzzini was born in Camerino. He made his opera debut in 1765 at the Teatro Valle in Rome portraying one of the female characters in Niccolò Piccinni's opera Il finto astrologo.Barbier, p. 88 He sang at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice in 1766, after which he performed at the Munich Hofoper in 1766–1767. Michael Kelly claimed that Rauzzini had to leave the Munich court because of his many affairs with married women.Barbier, pp. 138-139 He next sang at the court at Vienna in 1767 where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "reacted with delight when he heard Rauzzini singing and offered him the role of primo uomo in his Lucio Silla (1772), in Milan, before composing the motet Exsultate Jubilate (1773) especially for him."Barbier, p. 179
Rauzzini returned for performances in Venice and Munich during the early 1770s and also had a very successful run in LondonBarbier, p. 185 from 1774 until his retirement from the stage in 1778.Barbier, p. 210 After his opera career ended he worked as a singing and piano teacher and also composed a number of operas. After living in London for some years he settled in Bath in 1780 and became Director of the New Assembly Room Concerts in 1781.{{cite journal|last=Sands|first=Mollie|title=Rauzzini at Bath|journal=Musical Times|date=March 1953|volume=94|issue=1321|pages=108–111|doi=10.2307/933745|jstor=933745}} He also became a famous singing master, teaching many of the most famous British opera singers of the day.Robertson-Kirkland, p. 1 Joseph Haydn stayed with him in 1794 and composed the canon "Turk was a Faithful Dog" as a gift for his host, taking the words from the garden memorial to Rauzzini's favourite dog.{{cite web|last=Baldwin|first=Olive|title=Rauzzini, Venanzio (1746–1810)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|access-date=27 November 2012}} Some of Rauzzini's pupils included Stephen Storace, Nancy Storace, Michael Kelly, John BrahamEmerson (2005, 101) Rosemond Mountain,[http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_307347_en.pdf The Silencing of Bel Canto], Brianna E Robertson-Kirkland, University of Glasgow, page 4, retrieved 4 February 2015 and Maria Dickons.W. B. Squire, ‘Dickons, Martha Frances Caroline (c.1774–1833)’, rev. John Rosselli, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7610, accessed 21 Dec 2014] Rauzzini directed and financed concert life in Bath from c. 1781 until his death in 1810; many of his pupils appeared in the subscription concerts that he organised each year.{{cite news|last=Brown|first=Mark|title=Bath celebrates the life of the bedhopping singing star of the 1700s|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/12/bath-castrato-bicentenary|access-date=27 November 2012|location=London|work=The Guardian|date=12 April 2010}} Before dying he published vocal exercises and a treatise on singing.Hansell, ibid. Rauzzini was buried in Bath Abbey where there is a memorial erected to him by his pupils Nancy Storace and John Braham.
His brother, Matteo (1754-1791), was also a composer and a teacher of singing.Baldwin and Wilson.
Operas
- Piramo e Tisbe, libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi, (London, His Majesty's Theatre, 16 marzo 1775)
- L'ali d'amore, libretto by Carlo Francesco Badini (1776)
- L'eroe cinese, libretto by Pietro Metastasio (1782)
- Creusa in Delfo, libretto by Gaspare Martinelli (1783)
- Alina ossia La regina di Golconda, libretto by Antonio Andrei (1784)
- La vestale, libretto by Badini (1787)
Notes
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References
- Baldwin, Olive and Wilson, Thelma: "Rauzzini, Venanzio (1746-1810)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23167 (site accessible via subscription), (accessed 17 July 2013).
- P. Barbier (1989). The World of the Castrati: The History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon transl. M. Crosland, Souvenir Press
- Emerson, Isabelle Putnam (2005) Five Centuries of Women Singers. Greenwood Publishing Group.
- Rice, Paul F. (2015) Venanzio Rauzzini in Britain: Castrato, Composer and Cultural Leader. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
- Robertson-Kirkland, Brianna E. (2022) Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing Scandalous Lessons. NY: Routledge.
External links
- {{IMSLP|id=Rauzzini, Venanzio}}
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Category:Italian opera singers
Category:Italian Classical-period composers
Category:Italian opera composers