Giulia Frasi was an Italian 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...

tic 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...

 who was primarily active in the city of London. A student of educator and 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:...

, Burney described her sound as "a sweet and clear voice, and a smooth and chaste style of singing, which, though cold and unimpassioned, pleased natural ears, and escaped the censure of critics."

In her native country Frasi studied singing under Giuseppe Ferdinando Brivio. After performing for a few years in Italy during the early 1740s, she moved to London in late 1742 with her friend and fellow singer Caterina Galli

Caterina Galli

Caterina Galli was an Italian operatic mezzo-soprano. She first rose to fame in England in the 1740s and early 1750s where she was particularly admired for her performances in the works of George Frideric Handel...

. She began her career in England shortly after her arrival, performing mainly comprimario

Comprimario

A Comprimario is a supporting role in an opera. Derived from the Italian "con primario", or "with the primary", the term refers to a performer who sings small role pieces....

 roles in operas at the King’s Theatre. She occasionally appeared in pants roles, including the giant Briareus in the world première of Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Gluck

Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

’s La caduta de' giganti on 7 January 1746.

Both Frasi and Galli became students of 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...

, and the composer wrote a number of his 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 with their voices in mind. Frasi sang in the world premieres of such Handel works as Susanna

Susanna (Handel)

Susanna is an oratorio by George Frideric Handel. The libretto, questionably attributed to Newburgh Hamilton, is based on the apocryphal 'history of Susanna'...

(1749, title role), Theodora

Theodora (Handel)

Theodora is an oratorio in three acts by George Frideric Handel, set to an English libretto by Thomas Morell. The oratorio concerns the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus....

(1750, title role), and Iphis in Jephtha (1752, Iphis).