Anna Maria Strada was an Italian soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 of the 18th century. She is best remembered for her association with the composer George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

, in whose operas Strada sang.

Career

After an initial career in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 that included performances at Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 — in Vivaldi's opera La verità in cimento

La verità in cimento

La verità in cimento is an opera by Antonio Vivaldi to a libretto by Giovanni Palazzi. The opera, which is Vivaldi's 13th, was premiered during the Carnival at Venice in 1720. The work is listed as RV739 in the Vivaldi catalogue....

 (1720) — Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, and Livorno

Livorno

Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...

, Strada moved to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in 1729 to sing for Handel after the composer engaged her for his operas. She made her début as Adelaida in Lotario

Lotario

Lotario is an opera seria in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Antonio Salvi's Adelaide.-Performance history:...

and was prima donna in all his operas and oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

s until 1737. She sang in a minimum of 24 of Handel's operas and the opera-ballet

Opéra-ballet

Opéra-ballet was a popular genre of French Baroque opera, "that grew out of the ballets à entrées of the early seventeeth century". It differed from the more elevated tragédie en musique as practised by Jean-Baptiste Lully in several ways...

 Terpsicore, a revision of Il pastor fido

Il pastor fido

Il pastor fido is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. It was set to a libretto by Giacomo Rossi based on the famed and widely familiar pastoral poem of the same name by Giovanni Battista Guarini.-Performance history:...

. Her roles included Angelica in Orlando

Orlando (opera)

Orlando is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel written for the Royal Academy of Music . The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's L'Orlando after Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which was also the source of Handel's operas Alcina and...

, the title role in Partenope

Partenope

Partenope is an opera by George Frideric Handel, first performed at the King's Theatre in London on 24 February 1730.-Background:...

, Elmira in Sosarme

Sosarme

Sosarme, re di Media is an opera by George Frideric Handel written for the Royal Academy of Music . The text was based on an earlier libretto by Antonio Salvi, Dionisio, Re di Portogallo , and adapted by an unknown writer. Composed in 1732, the original setting of Portugal was changed to Sardis in...

, Thusnelda in Arminio

Arminio

Arminio is an opera composed by George Frideric Handel.- Performance History :Together with Giustino and Berenice, Arminio is one of three operas Handel wrote within a period of half a year in 1736. He began with the composition of Giustino on 14 August 1736, followed by that of Arminio on 15...

, and Ariadne in Giustino

Giustino

Giustino is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Pietro Pariati's Giustino, after Nicolo Beregan's Il Giustino.-Performance history:...

. Strada was the only singer of Handel's company who did not defect to the rival Opera of the Nobility

Opera of the Nobility

The Opera of the Nobility was an opera company set up and funded in 1733 by a group of nobles opposed to George II of England, in order to rival the Second Royal Academy of Music company under Handel .Nicola Porpora was invited to be its musical director and Owen Swiny considered as its talent scout...

 in 1733, and in 1732 had turned down the opportunity to sing for Giovanni Bononcini. She left, however, London in 1738 and returned to Italy, where she sang at Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 before her retirement to Bergamo.

Contemporary evaluations

18th-century music historian Charles Burney

Charles Burney

Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...

 described Strada thus:

Further evidence of Strada's unusual ugliness is provided by Mrs Pendarves — formerly known as Mary Granville and later Mrs Delany — a close friend of Handel.

Poet and librettist Paolo Rolli described her as "a copy of Faustina

Faustina Bordoni

Faustina Bordoni was an Italian mezzo-soprano.-Early career:She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the aristocratic brother composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. Her singing teacher was another composer, Michelangelo Gasparini...

 with a better voice and better intonation, but without her charm and brio". Her Handel parts reveal her vocal range to have been two octaves during the first part of her career, and the dramatic range required by these roles is varied. While in Naples during the first part of her career, Strada married theatre manager and librettist

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

Aurelio del Pò, reputedly because he owed her a large sum of money and married her as a substitute for payment.