Antonia Bembo

Antonia Bembo (* around 1640 in Venice, † 1720 in Paris) was an Italian composer and singer.

Life

Antonia Bembo was the daughter of the doctor Giacomo Padoani and the most gifted student of Francesco Cavalli. 1659 she married the noble Lorenzo Bembo. Before 1676 she moved to Paris, after she had separated from her husband. There she sang before Louis XIV, this granted her a pension and apartment in the " Petite Union chrétienne des Dames de Saint -Chaumont ", a religious community. While they mainly occurred in the first period of their stay in France as a singer in appearance, she devoted herself exclusively to composition later. She was a contemporary of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre.

Six handwritten volumes obtained from Bembo's music are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where they are handed ormoniche as Produzioni. Most of them she devoted King Louis XIV They contain some autobiographical elements, which have been confirmed by other sources. She met with Francesco Cavalli and Barbara Strozzi. From 1654 she composed in all the major genres of their time. She wrote operas, secular and sacred cantatas, " petits " and " grands " Motetts. Her work is a mixture of French and Italian styles of the second half of the 17th century. So she took the virtuoso elements of Italian style just as the French dance forms. Much of their work is written for soprano voice with continuo accompaniment. Your opera L' Ercole Amante (1707 ), she composed to a libretto by Francesco Buti.