Farinelli
Encyclopedia
Farinelli was the stage name
of Carlo Maria Broschi, celebrated Italian
castrato
singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera
.
(in what is now Apulia
) into a family of musicians. As recorded in the baptismal register of the church of S. Nicola in Andria, his father Salvatore was a composer and maestro di cappella of the city's cathedral, and his mother, Caterina Barrese, a citizen of Naples
. The Duke of Andria, Fabrizio Carafa, a member of one of the most prestigious families of the Neapolitan nobility, honoured Maestro Broschi by taking a leading part in the baptism of his second son, who was christened Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola (in later life, Farinelli wrote: "Il Duca d'Andria mi tenne al fonte" - "the Duke of Andria held me at the font"). In 1706 Salvatore also took up the non-musical post of governor of the town of Maratea
(on the western coast of what is now Basilicata
), and in 1709 that of Terlizzi
(some twenty miles south-east of Andria). Unlike many castrati, who came from poor families, Farinelli was well-to-do, and was related to minor nobility on both sides of the family.
From 1707, the Broschi family lived in the coastal city of Barletta
, a few miles from Andria, but at the end of 1711, they made the much longer move to the capital city of Naples, where, in 1712 Carlo's elder brother Riccardo
was enrolled at the Conservatory of S. Maria di Loreto, specialising in composition. Carlo had already showed talent as a boy singer, and was now introduced to the most famous singing-teacher in Naples, Nicola Porpora
. Already a successful opera composer, in 1715 Porpora was appointed at the Conservatory of S. Onofrio, where his pupils included such well-known castrati as Giuseppe Appiani
, Felice Salimbeni, and Gaetano Majorano (known as Caffarelli), as well as distinguished female singers such as Regina Mingotti and Vittoria Tesi
; Farinelli may well have studied with him privately.
Salvatore Broschi died unexpectedly on 4 November 1717, aged only 36, and it seems likely that the consequent loss of economic security for the whole family provoked the decision, presumably taken by Riccardo, for Carlo to be castrated
. As was often the case, an excuse had to be found for this illegal operation, and in Carlo's case it was said to have been necessitated by a fall from a horse. Under Porpora's tuition, his singing progressed rapidly, and at the age of fifteen he made his debut a by his master entitled . The text of this work was the first by the soon-to-be-famous Pietro Trapassi (known as Metastasio), who became a lifelong friend of the singer - Farinelli remarked that the two of them had made their debuts on the same day, and each frequently referred to the other as his ("dear twin"). The derivation of Broschi's stage name
is not certain, but it was possibly from two rich Neapolitan lawyers, the brothers Farina, who may have sponsored his studies.
Farinelli quickly became famous throughout Italy as ("the boy"). In 1722, he first sang in Rome
in Porpora's Eumene and Flavio Anicio Olibrio, as well as taking the female lead in Sofonisba by Luca Antonio Predieri
- it was common practice for young castrati to appear en travesti
. All these appearances were greeted with huge public enthusiasm, and an almost legendary story arose that he had to perform an aria with trumpet obbligato, which evolved into a contest between singer and trumpeter. Farinelli surpassed the trumpet player so much in technique and ornamentation that he "was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience" (to quote the music historian Charles Burney
– this account cannot be verified one way or the other, since no surviving work which Farinelli is known to have performed contains an aria for soprano with trumpet obbligato).
In 1724, Farinelli made his first appearance in Vienna
, at the invitation of Pio di Savoia, director of the Imperial Theatre. He spent the following season in Naples
. In 1726, he also visited Parma
and Milan
, where Johann Joachim Quantz
heard him and commented: "Farinelli had a penetrating, full, rich, bright and well-modulated soprano voice, with a range at that time from the A below middle C to the D two octaves above middle C. ... His intonation was pure, his trill beautiful, his breath control extraordinary and his throat very agile, so that he performed the widest intervals quickly and with the greatest ease and certainty. Passagework and all kinds of melisma
s were of no difficulty to him. In the invention of free ornamentation in adagio he was very fertile." Quantz is certainly accurate in describing Farinelli as a soprano, since arias in his repertoire contained the highest notes customarily employed by that voice during his lifetime: "Fremano l'onde" in Pietro Torri's opera Nicomede (1728) and "Troverai se a me ti fidi" in Niccolò Conforto's La Pesca (1737) both contain sustained C6. However, the singer also possessed an extraordinarily extensive low range: "Navigante che non spera" in Leonardo Vinci's opera Il Medo (1728) takes him into what might well be described as the alien territory of C3, where a tenor would be more "at home".
Farinelli sang at Bologna
in 1727, where he met the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi
, twenty years his senior. In a duet in Orlandini's Antigona, Farinelli showed off all the beauties of his voice and refinements of his style, executing a number of passages of great virtuosity, which were rewarded with tumultuous applause. Undaunted, Bernacchi repeated every trill, roulade, and cadenza of his young rival, but performing all of them even more exquisitely, and adding variations of his own. Farinelli, admitting defeat, entreated Bernacchi to give him instruction in ("ultra-refined graces"); Bernacchi agreed.
In 1728, as well as performing in Torri's Nicomede at the Munich
court, Farinelli performed another concert before the Emperor in Vienna. In 1729, during the Carnival season in Venice
, he sang in two works by Metastasio: as Arbace in Metastasio's Catone in Utica (music by Leonardo Leo
) and Mirteo in Semiramide Riconosciuta (music by Porpora). During this period he could really do no wrong - loaded with riches and honours, he was so famous and so formidable as a performer that his rival and friend, the castrato Gioacchino Conti
("Gizziello") is said to have fainted away from sheer despondency on hearing him sing. George Frideric Handel
was also keen to engage Farinelli for his company in London
, and while in Venice in January 1730, tried unsuccessfully to meet him.
In 1731, Farinelli visited Vienna for a third time. There he was received by the Holy Roman Emperor
, Charles VI
, on whose advice, according to the singer's first biographer, Giovenale Sacchi, he modified his style, singing more simply and emotionally. After further seasons in Italy, and another visit to Vienna, during which he sang in oratorios in the Imperial chapel, Farinelli came to London in 1734.
, a singer who had been a part of Handel
's "Second Academy" which performed at the King's Theatre
, Haymarket, quarrelled with Handel and established a rival company, Opera of the Nobility
, operating from a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields
. This company had Porpora as composer and Senesino as principal singer, but had not been a success during its first season of 1733-34. Farinelli, Porpora's most famous pupil, joined the company and made it financially solvent.
He first appeared in Artaserse, a with music by his brother Riccardo and by Johann Adolph Hasse
. He sang the memorable arias "Per questo dolce amplesso" (music by Hasse) and "Son qual nave" (music by Broschi), while Senesino sang "Pallido il sole" (music by Hasse). Of "Per questo dolce amplesso", Charles Burney
reports: "Senesino had the part of a furious tyrant, and Farinelli that of an unfortunate hero in chains; but in the course of the first air, the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage-character, ran to Farinelli and embraced him in his own." "Son qual nave", on the other hand, was composed by Riccardo Broschi as a special showpiece for his brother's virtuosic skills. Burney described it thus: "The first note he sung was taken with such delicacy, swelled by minute degrees to such an amazing volume, and afterwards diminished in the same manner to a mere point, that it was applauded for full five minutes. After this he set off with such brilliancy and rapidity of execution, that it was difficult for the violins of those days to keep pace with him."
Both the cognoscenti and the public adored him. The librettist Paolo Rolli, a close friend and supporter of Senesino, commented: "Farinelli has surprised me so much that I feel as though I had hitherto heard only a small part of the human voice, and now have heard it all. He has besides, the most amiable and polite manners ...". Some fans were more unrestrained: one titled lady was so carried away that, from a theatre box, she famously exclaimed: "One God, one Farinelli!" and was immortalised in a detail of Plate II of William Hogarth
's "A Rake's Progress
" (she may also appear in Plate IV of his series "Marriage à la mode" of 1745).
Though Farinelli's success was enormous, neither the Nobility Opera nor Handel's company was able to sustain the public's interest, which waned rapidly. Though his official salary was £1500 for a season, gifts from admirers probably increased this to something more like £5000, an enormous sum at the time. Farinelli was by no means the only singer to receive such large amounts, which were unsustainable in the long term. As one contemporary observer remarked: "within these two years we have seen even Farinelli sing to an audience of five-and-thirty pounds". Nonetheless, he was still under contract in London in the summer of 1737 when he received a summons, via Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Secretary of the Spanish Embassy there, to visit the Spanish court.
on his way to Madrid
, singing on 9 July at Versailles
to King Louis XV, who gave him his portrait set in diamonds, and 500 louis d'or
. On 15 July he left for Spain, arriving about a month later. Elisabetta Farnese, the Queen, had come to believe that Farinelli's voice might be able to cure the severe depression
of her husband, King Philip V
(some contemporary physicians, such as the Queen's doctor Giuseppe Cervi, believed in the efficacy of music therapy
). On 25 August 1737, Farinelli was named chamber music
ian to the king, and , or servant to the royal family. He never sang again in public.
Farinelli became a royal favourite and very influential at court. For the remaining nine years of Philip's life, Farinelli gave nightly private concerts to the royal couple. He also sang for other members of the royal family and organised private performances by them, and by professional musicians in the royal palaces. In 1738 he arranged for an entire Italian opera
company to visit Madrid, beginning a fashion for opera seria
in the Spanish capital. The Coliseo of the royal palace of Buen Retiro was remodelled, and became Madrid's only opera house.
On the accession of Philip's son, Ferdinand VI
, Farinelli's influence became even greater. Ferdinand was a keen musician, and his wife, Barbara of Portugal
, more or less a musical fanatic (in 1728 she had appointed Domenico Scarlatti
as her harpsichord teacher; the musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick
acknowledges Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day"). The relationship between singer and monarchs was personally close: he and the queen sang duets together, and the king accompanied them on the harpsichord. Farinelli took charge of all spectacles and court entertainments. He was himself also officially received into the ranks of the nobility, being made a Knight of the Order of Calatrava
in 1750, an honour of which he was enormously proud. Although much courted by diplomats, Farinelli seems to have kept out of politics.
, who was no lover of music. Charles was the son of Elisabetta Farnese, who had never forgiven Farinelli for his decision to remain at court after Philip V's death, rather than following her into internal exile. It was clear that Farinelli would now have to leave Spain, though he was allowed a generous state pension. He retired to Bologna, where in 1732 he had acquired a property and citizenship. Though rich and still famous, much feted by local notables and visited by such notable figures as Burney
, Mozart and Casanova, he was lonely in his old age, having outlived many of his friends and former colleagues. One distinguished friend of his latter years was the music historian, Giovanni Battista (known as "Padre") Martini
. He also continued his correspondence with Metastasio, court poet at Vienna, dying a few months after him. In his will, Farinelli asked that he be buried in the mantle of the order of Calatrava, and was interred in the cemetery of the Capuchin monastery of Santa Croce in Bologna. His estate included gifts from royalty, a large collection of paintings including works by Velázquez
, Murillo
and Jusepe de Ribera, as well as portraits of his royal patrons, and several of himself, one by his friend Jacopo Amigoni
. He also had a collection of keyboard instruments in which he took great delight, especially a piano made at Florence in 1730 (called in the will ), and violins by Stradivarius
and Amati
.
His original place of burial was destroyed during the Napoleonic wars, and in 1810 Farinelli's great-niece Maria Carlotta Pisani had his remains transferred to the cemetery of La Certosa in Bologna. Farinelli's immediate heir, his nephew Matteo Pisani, sold Farinelli's house in 1798. (It later became the headquarters of a sugar factory, and was demolished in 1949, having been much damaged by bombardment during World War II
.) Maria Carlotta bequeathed many of Farinelli's letters to Bologna's University Library and was buried in the same grave as Farinelli in 1850.
ist. In old age, he learned to play the viola d'amore
. He occasionally composed, writing a cantata
of farewell to London (entitled , for which he also wrote the text), and a few songs and arias, including one dedicated to Ferdinand VI.
, Secretary of the Farinelli Study Centre, co-ordinator and general manager of the project, promoted the exhumation. The next day Carlo Vitali of the Farinelli Study Centre stated that the major bones were "long and sturdy, which would correspond with Farinelli's official portraits, as well as the castrati's reputation for being unusually tall." Maria Giovanna Belcastro of the Anthropology Institute of Bologna University, Gino Fornaciari, paleoanthropologist of the University of Pisa
, and David Howard, engineer of York University
are charged with deriving such new data on Farinelli and his lifestyle, habits and possible diseases, as well as the physiology of a castrato, as can be retrieved from these remains. Their research methods will include X-rays, CAT scans and DNA sampling.
, directed by Gérard Corbiau
, was made about Farinelli's life in 1994. This takes considerable dramatic licence with history, emphasising the importance of Farinelli's brother and reducing Porpora's role, while Handel becomes an antagonist; the singer's time in Spain is ignored almost entirely. Farinelli's supposed sexual exploits are a major element of the film's plot. Though cinematically effective, their basis in reality has not been established.
The film is not the first dramatic work to take Farinelli's life as its source material. He appears as a character in the opera , composed by Daniel Auber
to a libretto by Eugène Scribe
, and has the title-role in the opera Farinelli
by the English composer John Barnett
, first performed at Drury Lane
in 1839, where his part is, oddly, written for a tenor (this work is itself an adaptation of the anonymous , premiered in Paris in 1835). More recent operas include Matteo d'Amico's (1996) and by Siegfried Matthus
(1998).
Composer/performer Rinde Eckert gives Farinelli's time in Spain a contemporary treatment in his 1995 work for radio, Four Songs Lost in a Wall, commissioned by New American Radio.
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
of Carlo Maria Broschi, celebrated Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
.
Early years
Broschi was born in AndriaAndria, Italy
Andria is a city and comune in Apulia . It is an agricultural and service center, producing wine, olives and almonds...
(in what is now Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
) into a family of musicians. As recorded in the baptismal register of the church of S. Nicola in Andria, his father Salvatore was a composer and maestro di cappella of the city's cathedral, and his mother, Caterina Barrese, a citizen of 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...
. The Duke of Andria, Fabrizio Carafa, a member of one of the most prestigious families of the Neapolitan nobility, honoured Maestro Broschi by taking a leading part in the baptism of his second son, who was christened Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola (in later life, Farinelli wrote: "Il Duca d'Andria mi tenne al fonte" - "the Duke of Andria held me at the font"). In 1706 Salvatore also took up the non-musical post of governor of the town of Maratea
Maratea
Maratea is a town and comune of Basilicata, in the province of Potenza. It is the only town of the region on the Tyrrhenian coast and because of its beautiful scenery and coastline it has been called "the Pearl of the Tyrrhenian"...
(on the western coast of what is now Basilicata
Basilicata
Basilicata , also known as Lucania, is a region in the south of Italy, bordering on Campania to the west, Apulia to the north and east, and Calabria to the south, having one short southwestern coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea between Campania in the northwest and Calabria in the southwest, and a...
), and in 1709 that of Terlizzi
Terlizzi
Terlizzi is a town and comune in Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, to the west of the city of Bari, situated in the midst of a fertile plain. As of 2008, its population was some 27,400.-History:...
(some twenty miles south-east of Andria). Unlike many castrati, who came from poor families, Farinelli was well-to-do, and was related to minor nobility on both sides of the family.
From 1707, the Broschi family lived in the coastal city of Barletta
Barletta
Barletta is a city and comune located in the north of Apulia in south eastern Italy. Its current population is 94,140.It is famous for the Colossus of Barletta, a bronze statue, representing a Roman Emperor...
, a few miles from Andria, but at the end of 1711, they made the much longer move to the capital city of Naples, where, in 1712 Carlo's elder brother Riccardo
Riccardo Broschi
Riccardo Broschi was a composer of baroque music and the brother of the opera singer Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli....
was enrolled at the Conservatory of S. Maria di Loreto, specialising in composition. Carlo had already showed talent as a boy singer, and was now introduced to the most famous singing-teacher in Naples, Nicola Porpora
Nicola Porpora
Nicola Porpora was an Italian composer of Baroque operas and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. One of his other students was composer Matteo Capranica.-Biography:Porpora was born in Naples...
. Already a successful opera composer, in 1715 Porpora was appointed at the Conservatory of S. Onofrio, where his pupils included such well-known castrati as Giuseppe Appiani
Giuseppe Appiani
Giuseppe Appiani was an Italian painter of the Neoclassic periods. He was born in Vaprio d'Adda, near Milan, where he was mainly active. Hi parents moved to Monza, where his first mentor was the painter Giovanni Maria Gariboldi. At age 21, he moved to Milan, where he worked in the studios of...
, Felice Salimbeni, and Gaetano Majorano (known as Caffarelli), as well as distinguished female singers such as Regina Mingotti and Vittoria Tesi
Vittoria Tesi
Vittoria Tesi was an Italian opera singer and music teacher of the 18th century. Her vocal range was that of a contralto....
; Farinelli may well have studied with him privately.
Salvatore Broschi died unexpectedly on 4 November 1717, aged only 36, and it seems likely that the consequent loss of economic security for the whole family provoked the decision, presumably taken by Riccardo, for Carlo to be castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
. As was often the case, an excuse had to be found for this illegal operation, and in Carlo's case it was said to have been necessitated by a fall from a horse. Under Porpora's tuition, his singing progressed rapidly, and at the age of fifteen he made his debut a by his master entitled . The text of this work was the first by the soon-to-be-famous Pietro Trapassi (known as Metastasio), who became a lifelong friend of the singer - Farinelli remarked that the two of them had made their debuts on the same day, and each frequently referred to the other as his ("dear twin"). The derivation of Broschi's stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
is not certain, but it was possibly from two rich Neapolitan lawyers, the brothers Farina, who may have sponsored his studies.
Farinelli quickly became famous throughout Italy as ("the boy"). In 1722, he first sang in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in Porpora's Eumene and Flavio Anicio Olibrio, as well as taking the female lead in Sofonisba by Luca Antonio Predieri
Luca Antonio Predieri
Luca Antonio Predieri was an Italian composer and violinist. A member of a prominent family of musicians, Predieri was born in Bologna and was active there from 1704. In 1737 he moved to Vienna, eventually becoming Kapellmeister to the imperial Habsburg court in 1741, a post he held for ten years...
- it was common practice for young castrati to appear en travesti
En travesti
Travesti is a theatrical term referring to the portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex. Some sources regard 'travesti' as an Italian term, some as French. Depending on sources, the term may be given as travesty, travesti, or en travesti...
. All these appearances were greeted with huge public enthusiasm, and an almost legendary story arose that he had to perform an aria with trumpet obbligato, which evolved into a contest between singer and trumpeter. Farinelli surpassed the trumpet player so much in technique and ornamentation that he "was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience" (to quote the 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:...
– this account cannot be verified one way or the other, since no surviving work which Farinelli is known to have performed contains an aria for soprano with trumpet obbligato).
Career in Europe
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, at the invitation of Pio di Savoia, director of the Imperial Theatre. He spent the following season in 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...
. In 1726, he also visited Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
and 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 ,...
, where Johann Joachim Quantz
Johann Joachim Quantz
Johann Joachim Quantz was a German flutist, flute maker and composer.-Biography:Quantz was born in Oberscheden, near Göttingen, Germany, and died in Potsdam....
heard him and commented: "Farinelli had a penetrating, full, rich, bright and well-modulated soprano voice, with a range at that time from the A below middle C to the D two octaves above middle C. ... His intonation was pure, his trill beautiful, his breath control extraordinary and his throat very agile, so that he performed the widest intervals quickly and with the greatest ease and certainty. Passagework and all kinds of melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
s were of no difficulty to him. In the invention of free ornamentation in adagio he was very fertile." Quantz is certainly accurate in describing Farinelli as a soprano, since arias in his repertoire contained the highest notes customarily employed by that voice during his lifetime: "Fremano l'onde" in Pietro Torri's opera Nicomede (1728) and "Troverai se a me ti fidi" in Niccolò Conforto's La Pesca (1737) both contain sustained C6. However, the singer also possessed an extraordinarily extensive low range: "Navigante che non spera" in Leonardo Vinci's opera Il Medo (1728) takes him into what might well be described as the alien territory of C3, where a tenor would be more "at home".
Farinelli sang at Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
in 1727, where he met the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi
Antonio Bernacchi
Antonio Maria Bernacchi was an Italian castrato, composer, and teacher of singing. He studied with Francesco Antonio Pistocchi. His pupils included Farinelli, for a brief period during 1727, and the tenor Anton Raaff...
, twenty years his senior. In a duet in Orlandini's Antigona, Farinelli showed off all the beauties of his voice and refinements of his style, executing a number of passages of great virtuosity, which were rewarded with tumultuous applause. Undaunted, Bernacchi repeated every trill, roulade, and cadenza of his young rival, but performing all of them even more exquisitely, and adding variations of his own. Farinelli, admitting defeat, entreated Bernacchi to give him instruction in ("ultra-refined graces"); Bernacchi agreed.
In 1728, as well as performing in Torri's Nicomede at the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
court, Farinelli performed another concert before the Emperor in Vienna. In 1729, during the Carnival season in 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...
, he sang in two works by Metastasio: as Arbace in Metastasio's Catone in Utica (music by Leonardo Leo
Leonardo Leo
Leonardo Leo , more correctly Lionardo Oronzo Salvatore de Leo, was an Italian Baroque composer.-Biography:...
) and Mirteo in Semiramide Riconosciuta (music by Porpora). During this period he could really do no wrong - loaded with riches and honours, he was so famous and so formidable as a performer that his rival and friend, the castrato Gioacchino Conti
Gioacchino Conti
Gioacchino Conti , best known as Gizziello, was an Italian soprano castrato opera singer.-Biography:Conti was born in Arpino...
("Gizziello") is said to have fainted away from sheer despondency on hearing him sing. 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...
was also keen to engage Farinelli for his company in 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...
, and while in Venice in January 1730, tried unsuccessfully to meet him.
In 1731, Farinelli visited Vienna for a third time. There he was received by the Holy Roman Emperor
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...
, Charles VI
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
, on whose advice, according to the singer's first biographer, Giovenale Sacchi, he modified his style, singing more simply and emotionally. After further seasons in Italy, and another visit to Vienna, during which he sang in oratorios in the Imperial chapel, Farinelli came to London in 1734.
Farinelli in London
In London the previous year, SenesinoSenesino
Senesino was a celebrated Italian contralto castrato, particularly remembered today for his long collaboration with the composer George Frideric Handel.-Early life and career:...
, a singer who had been a part of Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
's "Second Academy" which performed at the King's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
, Haymarket, quarrelled with Handel and established a rival company, 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...
, operating from a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London, UK. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes...
. This company had Porpora as composer and Senesino as principal singer, but had not been a success during its first season of 1733-34. Farinelli, Porpora's most famous pupil, joined the company and made it financially solvent.
He first appeared in Artaserse, a with music by his brother Riccardo and by Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music...
. He sang the memorable arias "Per questo dolce amplesso" (music by Hasse) and "Son qual nave" (music by Broschi), while Senesino sang "Pallido il sole" (music by Hasse). Of "Per questo dolce amplesso", Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
reports: "Senesino had the part of a furious tyrant, and Farinelli that of an unfortunate hero in chains; but in the course of the first air, the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage-character, ran to Farinelli and embraced him in his own." "Son qual nave", on the other hand, was composed by Riccardo Broschi as a special showpiece for his brother's virtuosic skills. Burney described it thus: "The first note he sung was taken with such delicacy, swelled by minute degrees to such an amazing volume, and afterwards diminished in the same manner to a mere point, that it was applauded for full five minutes. After this he set off with such brilliancy and rapidity of execution, that it was difficult for the violins of those days to keep pace with him."
Both the cognoscenti and the public adored him. The librettist Paolo Rolli, a close friend and supporter of Senesino, commented: "Farinelli has surprised me so much that I feel as though I had hitherto heard only a small part of the human voice, and now have heard it all. He has besides, the most amiable and polite manners ...". Some fans were more unrestrained: one titled lady was so carried away that, from a theatre box, she famously exclaimed: "One God, one Farinelli!" and was immortalised in a detail of Plate II of William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
's "A Rake's Progress
A Rake's Progress
A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–33 then engraved and published in print form in 1735...
" (she may also appear in Plate IV of his series "Marriage à la mode" of 1745).
Though Farinelli's success was enormous, neither the Nobility Opera nor Handel's company was able to sustain the public's interest, which waned rapidly. Though his official salary was £1500 for a season, gifts from admirers probably increased this to something more like £5000, an enormous sum at the time. Farinelli was by no means the only singer to receive such large amounts, which were unsustainable in the long term. As one contemporary observer remarked: "within these two years we have seen even Farinelli sing to an audience of five-and-thirty pounds". Nonetheless, he was still under contract in London in the summer of 1737 when he received a summons, via Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Secretary of the Spanish Embassy there, to visit the Spanish court.
At the court of Spain
Apparently intending to make only a brief visit to the Continent, Farinelli called at ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
on his way to Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, singing on 9 July at Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
to King Louis XV, who gave him his portrait set in diamonds, and 500 louis d'or
Louis d'or
The Louis d'or is any number of French coins first introduced by Louis XIII in 1640. The name derives from the depiction of the portrait of King Louis on one side of the coin; the French royal coat of arms is on the reverse...
. On 15 July he left for Spain, arriving about a month later. Elisabetta Farnese, the Queen, had come to believe that Farinelli's voice might be able to cure the severe depression
Depression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
of her husband, King Philip V
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
(some contemporary physicians, such as the Queen's doctor Giuseppe Cervi, believed in the efficacy of music therapy
Music therapy
Music therapy is an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their...
). On 25 August 1737, Farinelli was named chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
ian to the king, and , or servant to the royal family. He never sang again in public.
Farinelli became a royal favourite and very influential at court. For the remaining nine years of Philip's life, Farinelli gave nightly private concerts to the royal couple. He also sang for other members of the royal family and organised private performances by them, and by professional musicians in the royal palaces. In 1738 he arranged for an entire Italian opera
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous operas in Italian were written by foreign composers,...
company to visit Madrid, beginning a fashion for opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
in the Spanish capital. The Coliseo of the royal palace of Buen Retiro was remodelled, and became Madrid's only opera house.
On the accession of Philip's son, Ferdinand VI
Ferdinand VI of Spain
Ferdinand VI , called the Learnt, was King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy...
, Farinelli's influence became even greater. Ferdinand was a keen musician, and his wife, Barbara of Portugal
Barbara of Portugal
Barbara of Portugal was an Infanta of Portugal and later Queen of Spain as wife of Ferdinand VI of Spain.-Life in Portugal:...
, more or less a musical fanatic (in 1728 she had appointed Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...
as her harpsichord teacher; the musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick was an American musician, musicologist and harpsichordist. He is most famous for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas.-Life and work:...
acknowledges Farinelli's correspondence as providing "most of the direct information about Scarlatti that has transmitted itself to our day"). The relationship between singer and monarchs was personally close: he and the queen sang duets together, and the king accompanied them on the harpsichord. Farinelli took charge of all spectacles and court entertainments. He was himself also officially received into the ranks of the nobility, being made a Knight of the Order of Calatrava
Order of Calatrava
The Order of Calatrava was the first military order founded in Castile, but the second to receive papal approval. The papal bull confirming the Order of Calatrava as a Militia was given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164.-Origins and Foundation:...
in 1750, an honour of which he was enormously proud. Although much courted by diplomats, Farinelli seems to have kept out of politics.
Retirement and death
In 1759, Ferdinand was succeeded by his half-brother Charles IIICharles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
, who was no lover of music. Charles was the son of Elisabetta Farnese, who had never forgiven Farinelli for his decision to remain at court after Philip V's death, rather than following her into internal exile. It was clear that Farinelli would now have to leave Spain, though he was allowed a generous state pension. He retired to Bologna, where in 1732 he had acquired a property and citizenship. Though rich and still famous, much feted by local notables and visited by such notable figures as Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
, Mozart and Casanova, he was lonely in his old age, having outlived many of his friends and former colleagues. One distinguished friend of his latter years was the music historian, Giovanni Battista (known as "Padre") Martini
Giovanni Battista Martini
Giovanni Battista Martini , also known as Padre Martini, was an Italian musician.-Biography:Martini was born at Bologna....
. He also continued his correspondence with Metastasio, court poet at Vienna, dying a few months after him. In his will, Farinelli asked that he be buried in the mantle of the order of Calatrava, and was interred in the cemetery of the Capuchin monastery of Santa Croce in Bologna. His estate included gifts from royalty, a large collection of paintings including works by Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
, Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...
and Jusepe de Ribera, as well as portraits of his royal patrons, and several of himself, one by his friend Jacopo Amigoni
Jacopo Amigoni
Jacopo Amigoni , also named Giacomo Amiconi, was an Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period, who began his career in Venice, but traveled and was prolific throughout Europe, where his sumptuous portraits were much in demand....
. He also had a collection of keyboard instruments in which he took great delight, especially a piano made at Florence in 1730 (called in the will ), and violins by Stradivarius
Stradivarius
The name Stradivarius is associated with violins built by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or reproduce, though this belief is controversial...
and Amati
Amati
Amati is the name of a family of Italian violin makers, who flourished at Cremona from about 1549 to 1740.-Andrea Amati:Andrea Amati was not the earliest maker of violins whose instruments still survive today...
.
His original place of burial was destroyed during the Napoleonic wars, and in 1810 Farinelli's great-niece Maria Carlotta Pisani had his remains transferred to the cemetery of La Certosa in Bologna. Farinelli's immediate heir, his nephew Matteo Pisani, sold Farinelli's house in 1798. (It later became the headquarters of a sugar factory, and was demolished in 1949, having been much damaged by bombardment during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.) Maria Carlotta bequeathed many of Farinelli's letters to Bologna's University Library and was buried in the same grave as Farinelli in 1850.
Farinelli's other musical activities
Farinelli not only sang, but like most musicians of his time, was a competent harpsichordHarpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
ist. In old age, he learned to play the viola d'amore
Viola d'amore
The viola d'amore is a 7- or 6-stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.- Structure and sound :...
. He occasionally composed, writing a cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
of farewell to London (entitled , for which he also wrote the text), and a few songs and arias, including one dedicated to Ferdinand VI.
Farinelli Study Centre
Farinelli lived in Bologna from 1761 until his death. The Farinelli Study Centre was opened in Bologna in 1998. Major events and achievements include:- The restoration of Farinelli's grave in the Certosa of Bologna (2000)
- An historical exhibition (2001 and 2005)
- The inauguration of a City Park in the name of Farinelli, near the site where the singer lived in Bologna (2002)
- An international symposium on the occasion of Farinelli's 300th anniversary of his birth (2005)
- An official publication (2005)
- The disinterment of Farinelli at the Certosa of Bologna (2006)
Disinterment
Farinelli's remains were disinterred from the Certosa cemetery on 12 July 2006. The stacking of the bones had degraded the condition of Farinelli's remains, but these included his jawbone, several teeth, parts of his skull and almost all of the major bones. Florentine antiquarian Alberto Bruschi and Luigi VerdiLuigi Verdi
Luigi Verdi is an Italian composer, musicologist and orchestra conductor.He studied at the "Martini" Conservatoire in Bologna and "Rossini" Conservatoire in Pesaro, graduating in Composition, Instrumentation, Choir and Orchestra Conducting...
, Secretary of the Farinelli Study Centre, co-ordinator and general manager of the project, promoted the exhumation. The next day Carlo Vitali of the Farinelli Study Centre stated that the major bones were "long and sturdy, which would correspond with Farinelli's official portraits, as well as the castrati's reputation for being unusually tall." Maria Giovanna Belcastro of the Anthropology Institute of Bologna University, Gino Fornaciari, paleoanthropologist of the University of Pisa
University of Pisa
The University of Pisa , located in Pisa, Tuscany, is one of the oldest universities in Italy. It was formally founded on September 3, 1343 by an edict of Pope Clement VI, although there had been lectures on law in Pisa since the 11th century...
, and David Howard, engineer of York University
York University
York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....
are charged with deriving such new data on Farinelli and his lifestyle, habits and possible diseases, as well as the physiology of a castrato, as can be retrieved from these remains. Their research methods will include X-rays, CAT scans and DNA sampling.
Portrayals of Farinelli
A film, FarinelliFarinelli (film)
Farinelli is a 1994 biographical film about the life and career of the Italian opera singer Farinelli, considered one of the greatest castrato singers of all time...
, directed by Gérard Corbiau
Gérard Corbiau
Gérard Corbiau is a Belgian film director.Corbiau was born in Brussels, Belgium. He is best known for his costume dramas about music, Le maître de musique , Farinelli and Le roi danse . Two of them were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
, was made about Farinelli's life in 1994. This takes considerable dramatic licence with history, emphasising the importance of Farinelli's brother and reducing Porpora's role, while Handel becomes an antagonist; the singer's time in Spain is ignored almost entirely. Farinelli's supposed sexual exploits are a major element of the film's plot. Though cinematically effective, their basis in reality has not been established.
The film is not the first dramatic work to take Farinelli's life as its source material. He appears as a character in the opera , composed by Daniel Auber
Daniel Auber
Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer.-Biography:The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy. Though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments...
to a libretto by Eugène Scribe
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe , was a French dramatist and librettist. He is best known for the perfection of the so-called "well-made play" . This dramatic formula was a mainstay of popular theater for over 100 years.-Biography:...
, and has the title-role in the opera Farinelli
Farinelli (opera)
Farinelli is an opera in two acts, described as 'serio-comic', by John Barnett, to a libretto by his brother Charles Zachary Barnett. Produced in 1839, it is the third of the composer's large-scale operas, and was the last to reach the stage...
by the English composer John Barnett
John Barnett
John Barnett was an English composer and writer on music.-Life:Barnett was the eldest son of a Prussian Jew named Bernhard Beer, who changed his surname on settling in England as a jeweller. According to some he was a cousin of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer...
, first performed at Drury Lane
Drury Lane
Drury Lane is a street on the eastern boundary of the Covent Garden area of London, running between Aldwych and High Holborn. The northern part is in the borough of Camden and the southern part in the City of Westminster....
in 1839, where his part is, oddly, written for a tenor (this work is itself an adaptation of the anonymous , premiered in Paris in 1835). More recent operas include Matteo d'Amico's (1996) and by Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus is a German composer and opera director living in Berlin and is one of Germany's most often performed contemporary composers.- Biography :Matthus attended secondary school in Rheinsberg, followed by studies at the Hochschule für Musik...
(1998).
Composer/performer Rinde Eckert gives Farinelli's time in Spain a contemporary treatment in his 1995 work for radio, Four Songs Lost in a Wall, commissioned by New American Radio.
External links
- Farinelli Study Centre
- Castrato superstar disinterred (Retrieved 8 May 2008)