Venanzio Rauzzini

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Stipple engraving by Robert Hancock

Venanzio Rauzzini (19 December 1746 – 8 April 1810)[1] 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.[2] He was a cantante soprano at the Socio Accademico of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome.[3] He studied with Giuseppe Santarelli in Rome.[4] 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".[5] That said, scholars such as Paul Rice and Brianna Robertson-Kirkland refute this idea.[6]

Life

Portrait of Rauzzini with his dog Turk at the Herschel Museum of Astronomy

Rauzzini was born in

Exsultate Jubilate (1773) especially for him."[9]

Rauzzini returned for performances in Venice and Munich during the early 1770s and also had a very successful run in London[10] from 1774 until his retirement from the stage in 1778.[11] After his opera career ended he worked as a singing and piano teacher and also composed a number of operas.[4] After living in London for some years he settled in Bath in 1780 and became Director of the New Assembly Room Concerts in 1781.[12] He also became a famous singing master, teaching many of the most famous British opera singers of the day.[13] 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.[14] Some of Rauzzini's pupils included Stephen Storace, Nancy Storace, Michael Kelly, John Braham[15] Rosemond Mountain,[16] and Maria Dickons.[17] 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.[18] Before dying he published vocal exercises and a treatise on singing.[19] Rauzzini was buried in Bath Abbey where there is a memorial erected to him by his pupils Nancy Storace and John Braham.[14]

His brother, Matteo (1754-1791), was also a composer and a teacher of singing.[20]

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

  1. ^ Kathleen Kuzmick Hansell, Oxford Music Online
  2. ^ Sands, "Venanzio Rauzzini, Singer, Composer, Traveller,: 15.
  3. ^ Rice, p. 2
  4. ^ a b c Rauzzini Biography of Venanzio Rauzzini at operissimo.com (in German)
  5. ^ Brown, Mark (2010-04-12). "Bath celebrates the life of the bedhopping singing star of the 1700s". the Guardian. Retrieved 2016-06-13.
  6. ^ Rice, p. X; Robertson-Kirkland, p. 151
  7. ^ Barbier, p. 88
  8. ^ Barbier, pp. 138-139
  9. ^ Barbier, p. 179
  10. ^ Barbier, p. 185
  11. ^ Barbier, p. 210
  12. JSTOR 933745
    .
  13. ^ Robertson-Kirkland, p. 1
  14. ^ a b Baldwin, Olive. "Rauzzini, Venanzio (1746–1810)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  15. ^ Emerson (2005, 101)
  16. ^ The Silencing of Bel Canto, Brianna E Robertson-Kirkland, University of Glasgow, page 4, retrieved 4 February 2015
  17. ^ W. B. Squire, ‘Dickons, Martha Frances Caroline (c.1774–1833)’, rev. John Rosselli, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 21 Dec 2014
  18. ^ Brown, Mark (12 April 2010). "Bath celebrates the life of the bedhopping singing star of the 1700s". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  19. ^ Hansell, ibid.
  20. ^ Baldwin and Wilson.

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.
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