Girolamo Crescentini
Encyclopedia
Girolamo Crescentini was a noted Italian
singer castrato
(sopranista), a singing teacher and a composer.
with the noted teacher Lorenzo Gibelli and made his debut in 1783, quite advanced in years as a castrato. After an unlucky stay in London
in 1785, where he did not win much approbation, on his getting back to Italy, he took part in Naples, very successfully, to a revival of Guglielmi
’s opera Enea e Lavinia, together with the already famous tenor
Giacomo Davide, who shared Crescentini’s artistic inclinations. Thenceforwards, his career made more and more headway, reaching the apex in the nineties, and specially in 1796, when he created two roles which would remain in repertoire for some decades and then famous until present times, in either case by his quasi-pupil Giuseppina Grassini
’s side. For him, indeed, Nicola Zingarelli
wrote the part of Romeo in his opera Giulietta e Romeo
, staged at Milan
’s La Scala
on January 30, while Domenico Cimarosa
composed the role of Curiazio in Gli Orazi e i Curiazi
, staged instead in northern Italy’s second greater theatre, Venice
’s La Fenice
, on December 26. For Zingarelli’s opera, Crescentini composed himself an aria, “Ombra adorata aspetta”, which would remain famous as “la Preghiera di Romeo” (Romeo’s Prayer), and which was a greatest enduring success for the singer and a permanent painful grievance for the composer, who referred to it as “my opera’s misfortune” because of its lack of “common sense”. After spending four years in Lisbon
, starting from 1797, as the director of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
, he got back to Italy and, after a sensational execution in Vienna
of Romeo’s Prayer , out of which he was granted a crown on stage, Napoleon
conferred upon him the Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy and appointed him singing teacher of the Imperial Family. This new charge drove Crescentini to Paris
from 1806 to 1812, when he finally got the leave to settle in his fatherland back again and was eventually free to retire from the stage. From 1814 he devoted himself to the teaching of singing at Bologna
’s Liceo Musicale, whose direction he was entrusted in 1817, then also in Rome
, and eventually at Naples’s Regio Collegio di Musica, where he had, among his pupils, Isabella Colbran
and Raffaele Mirate
. In 1811 he had already published a didactic essay with the title “Esercizi per la vocalizzazione”. Crescentini survived until 1846, when his artistic world was no more but a hazy faded recollection.
and with the extreme off-shoot of Velluti, Crescentini led castrati’s last charge: he was called, for his singing’s prodigies, the “Italian Orpheus”, and for his great, theoretical too, competence in this art, the “Nestor of the musici" . Decidedly unimposing on the stage (like Pacchiarotti), he was endowed with a clear, pliant and pure voice which won him the admiration of such personages as Alfred de Vigny
, who, in his story “La vie e la mort du Capitaine Renaud ou La canne de jonc”, wrote of “a seraph’s voice which sprang from an emaciated and wrinkled face”, or as the seventeen-year-old Arthur Schopenhauer
who, in his turn, entered in his diary a voice that was “beautiful in a supernatural way” and provided with a full and sweet timbre. Crescentini, who was not an exceedingly wide-ranged sopranista, always shunned the rush towards the highest notes which the C7 whistled by his contemporary La Bastardella was the living representation of, and shunned as well eagerness for immoderate singing ornamentation in all the cases where it was not actually necessary to the expression of the shade of feeling, of that quantum of “infinitely small which [formed] the perfection of [Crescentini’s] singing” in Romeo’s Prayer; “an infinitely small which, on the other end, [used to change] according to the singer’s voice, to the standard of illusion and of enthusiasm he was animated by”, and which would make any execution unfailingly different from the preceding one and from the following, too .
As the champion of the true “cantar che nell’anima si sente” Crescentini headed the revenge of the belcanto of yore on the late 18th century’s singing fashion and contributed, together with Pacchiarotti, Grassini , Luísa Todi de Agujar
, the tenor Giacomo David, and few others, to lay the bases for the splendours of Rossini grand finale of two centuries’ history of operatic singing.
Something of his concept of singing, as he had expressed it in the mentioned “Esercizi per la vocalizzazione”, is likely to have passed as well in the vocal style of Bellini
operas.
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...
singer 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...
(sopranista), a singing teacher and a composer.
Biography
He studied in BolognaBologna
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,...
with the noted teacher Lorenzo Gibelli and made his debut in 1783, quite advanced in years as a castrato. After an unlucky stay 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...
in 1785, where he did not win much approbation, on his getting back to Italy, he took part in Naples, very successfully, to a revival of Guglielmi
Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi
Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi was an Italian opera composer.Guglielmi was born in Massa. He received his first musical education from his father, and afterwards studied under Francesco Durante at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto at Naples...
’s opera Enea e Lavinia, together with the already famous tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Giacomo Davide, who shared Crescentini’s artistic inclinations. Thenceforwards, his career made more and more headway, reaching the apex in the nineties, and specially in 1796, when he created two roles which would remain in repertoire for some decades and then famous until present times, in either case by his quasi-pupil Giuseppina Grassini
Giuseppina Grassini
Giuseppina Maria Camilla Grassini was a noted Italian contralto, and a singing teacher...
’s side. For him, indeed, Nicola Zingarelli
Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli
Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli was an Italian composer, chiefly of opera.-Early career:Zingarelli was born in Naples, where he studied at the Santa Maria di Loreto Conservatory under Fenaroli and Speranza....
wrote the part of Romeo in his opera Giulietta e Romeo
Giulietta e Romeo
Giulietta e Romeo is a dramma per musica by composer Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli with an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa after the 1530 novella of the same name by Luigi da Porto...
, staged at 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 ,...
’s La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
on January 30, while Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
composed the role of Curiazio in Gli Orazi e i Curiazi
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi
Gli Orazi e i Curiazi is an opera in three acts composed by Domenico Cimarosa to a libretto by Antonio Simeone Sografi, based on Pierre Corneille's tragedy, Horace.-History:...
, staged instead in northern Italy’s second greater theatre, 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...
’s La Fenice
La Fenice
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres...
, on December 26. For Zingarelli’s opera, Crescentini composed himself an aria, “Ombra adorata aspetta”, which would remain famous as “la Preghiera di Romeo” (Romeo’s Prayer), and which was a greatest enduring success for the singer and a permanent painful grievance for the composer, who referred to it as “my opera’s misfortune” because of its lack of “common sense”. After spending four years in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
, starting from 1797, as the director of the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
Teatro Nacional de São Carlos
The Teatro Nacional de São Carlos is an opera house in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened on July 30, 1793 by Queen Maria I as a replacement for the Tejo Opera House, which was destroyed in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake...
, he got back to Italy and, after a sensational execution in Vienna
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...
of Romeo’s Prayer , out of which he was granted a crown on stage, Napoleon
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
conferred upon him the Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy and appointed him singing teacher of the Imperial Family. This new charge drove Crescentini to Paris
Paris
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...
from 1806 to 1812, when he finally got the leave to settle in his fatherland back again and was eventually free to retire from the stage. From 1814 he devoted himself to the teaching of singing 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,...
’s Liceo Musicale, whose direction he was entrusted in 1817, then also 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...
, and eventually at Naples’s Regio Collegio di Musica, where he had, among his pupils, Isabella Colbran
Isabella Colbran
Isabella Colbran was a Spanish opera singer, who was known in her native country as Isabel Colbrandt. Many sources note her as a dramatic coloratura soprano but, some believe that she was a mezzo-soprano with a high extension, a soprano sfogato...
and Raffaele Mirate
Raffaele Mirate
Raffaele Mirate was a celebrated Italian operatic tenor who had an active career from the 1830s through the 1860s. Known for his intelligent phrasing and bright and powerful vocal timbre, he was regarded as an outstanding interpreter of the tenor roles in the early and middle period operas of...
. In 1811 he had already published a didactic essay with the title “Esercizi per la vocalizzazione”. Crescentini survived until 1846, when his artistic world was no more but a hazy faded recollection.
Artistic features
With Pacchiariotti, MarchesiLuigi Marchesi
Luigi Marchesi was an Italian castrato singer, one of the most prominent and charismatic to appear in Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century.-Biography:Luigi Ludovico Marchesi was born in Milan...
and with the extreme off-shoot of Velluti, Crescentini led castrati’s last charge: he was called, for his singing’s prodigies, the “Italian Orpheus”, and for his great, theoretical too, competence in this art, the “Nestor of the musici" . Decidedly unimposing on the stage (like Pacchiarotti), he was endowed with a clear, pliant and pure voice which won him the admiration of such personages as Alfred de Vigny
Alfred de Vigny
Alfred Victor de Vigny was a French poet, playwright, and novelist.-Life:Alfred de Vigny was born in Loches into an aristocratic family...
, who, in his story “La vie e la mort du Capitaine Renaud ou La canne de jonc”, wrote of “a seraph’s voice which sprang from an emaciated and wrinkled face”, or as the seventeen-year-old Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
who, in his turn, entered in his diary a voice that was “beautiful in a supernatural way” and provided with a full and sweet timbre. Crescentini, who was not an exceedingly wide-ranged sopranista, always shunned the rush towards the highest notes which the C7 whistled by his contemporary La Bastardella was the living representation of, and shunned as well eagerness for immoderate singing ornamentation in all the cases where it was not actually necessary to the expression of the shade of feeling, of that quantum of “infinitely small which [formed] the perfection of [Crescentini’s] singing” in Romeo’s Prayer; “an infinitely small which, on the other end, [used to change] according to the singer’s voice, to the standard of illusion and of enthusiasm he was animated by”, and which would make any execution unfailingly different from the preceding one and from the following, too .
As the champion of the true “cantar che nell’anima si sente” Crescentini headed the revenge of the belcanto of yore on the late 18th century’s singing fashion and contributed, together with Pacchiarotti, Grassini , Luísa Todi de Agujar
Luísa Todi
Luísa Rosa de Aguiar Todi was a popular and successful Portuguese mezzo-soprano opera singer.Luísa Todi was born Luísa Rosa de Aguiar on January 9, 1753 in Setúbal, Portugal. In 1765, her family moved to Lisbon, where her father was a musical writer in the Theatre of Bairro Alto.Luísa began her...
, the tenor Giacomo David, and few others, to lay the bases for the splendours of Rossini grand finale of two centuries’ history of operatic singing.
Something of his concept of singing, as he had expressed it in the mentioned “Esercizi per la vocalizzazione”, is likely to have passed as well in the vocal style of Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
operas.
Sources
- Barbier, Patrick. The World of the Castrati: The History of an Extraordinary Operatic Phenomenon. Trans. Margaret Crosland. Suffolk: Souvenir Press, 1996.
- Caruselli, Salvatore (ed), Grande enciclopedia della musica lirica, Longanesi &C. Periodici S.p.A., vol 4, RomaRomeRome 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...
, I, ad nomen - Celletti, Rodolfo, Storia del belcanto, Discanto Edizioni, FiesoleFiesoleFiesole is a town and comune of the province of Florence in the Italian region of Tuscany, on a famously scenic height above Florence, 8 km NE of that city...
, 1983, passim - Richard Somerset-Ward. Angels and Monsters. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
- Sadie, Stanley (ed), The new Grove Dictionary of Opera, Oxford University Press, 1992, vol 4, ad nomen
- This article contains substantial material translated from Girolamo Crescentini in the Italian Wikipedia