Angelica Catalani
Angelica Catalani ( born May 10, 1780 in Senigallia Ancona, † June 12, 1849 in Paris) was an Italian opera singer in the vocal range soprano.
Life
Angelica Catalani, daughter of the gem merchant Antonio Catalani, came to education in the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, near Rome, where it already, when she sang as a child about the nuns in the Church, through her vocal talents attracted attention. About her musical training, she first got in the monastery, but there are only few reliable data. In her 14 years she left the monastery and became perhaps of living in Venice singer Boselli (pseudonym for Anna Morichelli ) taught. They also trained the Kastratensopran Girolamo Crescentini. Her father and educator P. Morandi they sought to instruct. She debuted in 1797 in Venice at Teatro La Fenice, the opera by Johann Simon Mayr Lodoïska. In 1798 she appeared in Livorno on, next year at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence and in 1800 at La Scala. There she worked among others December 26, 1800 at the premiere of the opera by the Italian composer Niccolò Clitemnestra Antonio Zingarelli and on January 21, 1801 in I Baccanali di Roma by Giuseppe Nicolini. 1801 also was in Rome and Naples ideas. All of these major cities in Italy, she celebrated next Crescentini and Luigi Marchesi unparalleled success. She was probably in 1804 by the Prince Regent of Portugal, a commitment in Lisbon, where she also delighted the audience and already once matured considerable fees.
During their stay in Portugal Catalani made the acquaintance of Paul Valabrègue, the attaché at the French embassy in Lisbon and former French captain, and took him in 1804 to husband. As a result Valabrègue, which is often characterized in the literature as greedy acted as her manager. She traveled with him in 1806 via Madrid and Paris to London. In Paris they had occurred only in concerts and had refused Napoleon's lucrative offer for an engagement at the Grand Opéra. During her seven-year stay in England, she stood as one of the greatest prima donnas their time at the height of their fame and gained immense, the then customary fees far in excess of sums of money. In London she appeared for the first time in December 1806 at the King's Theatre in the title role of the opera La morte di Semiramide by the Portuguese composer Marcos António Portugal. On the same house she also acted in many other operas, including La morte di Cleopatra by Sebastiano Nasolini. In 1808 she earned in a season with two performances per week 60,000 guilders. During this time, their biggest rival was the singer Elizabeth Billington (1770-1818):
As Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in 1812 at His Majesty ' Theatre premiered, she sang the role of Susanna. The in London and later in Paris with her cooperating Italian composer Vincenzo Pucitta benefited greatly from this collaboration, and wrote for them a few operatic roles, including La caccia di Enrico IV (1809 ) and La vestale (1810 ). Later Pucitta fell out but with Catalani husband Valabrègue.
When, after the fall of Napoleon, the Bourbon monarch Louis XVIII. 1814 was returned to France, he dedicated Angelica Catalani, which he had often admired in London, director of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris. When Napoleon renewed brief seizure of power during the reign of the Hundred Days (1815 ) she went to the king into exile, then returned to Paris and took over for the second time the management of the Théâtre-Italien. She was, however, granted little luck in this function. Your Directorate leadership that has been criticized on the staging of her own person also because of their orientation, was a financial failure; probably mainly due to the clumsy interference of her husband in the management of the theater and the dispute with her singing envious colleague Madame Fodor - Mainville. 1818 resigned from her position.
Already 1815/16 Catalani had taken an art trip, visited Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Belgium and then was taken up with enthusiasm everywhere. But apparently she suffered since about 1817 voice problems and attracted numerous games not so brilliant as before to present. Nevertheless, she made repeated tours of Europe since 1818. In 1818 she was invited to Aachen Congress and met so significant European monarch as the Austrian Emperor Franz I, the Russian Tsar Alexander I and the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. and won Baron Rothschild to their investment advisor. 1819 was cheered in Warsaw, 1820, she celebrated on a tour successes in Riga, Lviv, Vilnius and Brno. The next year she joined, among others in Romania. After London she came back in 1824 and sang in Johann Simon Mayr's here farsa Che originali! . End of 1824, she ended her career on stage, but still came in 1827 in Berlin and ending in May 1828 in Hanover at concerts.
Catalani lived since 1830 with her husband and her children on her estate in Florence, where she also donated a singing school. At times, they also lived in Paris. She was among the first to look back on a successful singing career in Europe, which had earned her an enormous financial gain. While her husband in the literature often avarice is said they had even substantial portions of the acquired during her career as an artist fees benefit the needy. If they, for example, in a single four-month London season took 240,000 francs, so should the other hand, donated by her arms sum amounted to a total of about 2 million francs. But that they, as often stated, after their retreat from the stage needy, talented girl gratuitous singing lessons had been given, is not provable. At the age of 69 years, she died in Paris in 1849 of cholera. She also had several arias and songs composed, among other things, the canzonetta Papa non dite for the opera Il furbo contro il furbo by Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari.
Evaluation of Catalani's singing qualities
Angelica Catalani combined physical beauty with an amazing sound power of its melodious soprano voice, which she had brought to a virtuoso throat skill by a great zeal. To their assessment as an artist is to be noted however, that it was often considered in the literature as typical opera diva and her corresponding ideal-typical traits were attributed. Information about their musical activities and personality are mostly cliched and only very limited use to design an objectively well-founded picture of the singer. So is her voice, according to some authors a startling fluency, technical perfection in the execution have exhibited faster passages and a huge range of over three octaves, while they have other sources limited options and only obsessed in contradiction to a very limited vocal range and therefore no Donna Elvira or Queen of the Night was able to sing.
About the coloratura soprano Henriette Sontag, who also died of cholera, Catalani said:
The voice of the poet Annette von Droste- Hulshoff was compared with the voice of Catalani, who also composed before her career as a writer and poet and enthusiastic singing at family gatherings.