Lucrezia Aguiari (1741 – 18 May 1783) was an Italian

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...

 coloratura soprano

Coloratura soprano

A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano who specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs and leaps. The term coloratura refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody, which is a typical component of the music written for this voice...

. She possessed an unusually agile voice with a large vocal range

Vocal range

Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...

 that spanned slightly more than three and a half octaves; faculties that enabled her to assail the most difficult passage work. In a letter dated 24 March 1770 Leopold Mozart

Leopold Mozart

Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.-Childhood and student years:He was born in Augsburg, son of...

 wrote of hearing her perform a C an octave above high C at the Ducal opera of Parma, "I could not believe that she was able to reach C soprano acuto, but my ears convinced me." Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

 also mentioned this event in his novel, Brave New World

Brave New World

Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...

.

Biography

Born in Parma, during her lifetime Aguiari was often referred to as "La Bastardina" or "La Bastardella". There are several different traditions explaining the origin of this nickname, one being that she was the illegitimate child of Leopoldo Aguiari or that of his wife Marchese Bentivoglio. Another possible explanation was that she was an abandoned child raised by Aguiari. Another curiosity about the soprano was that she possessed a pronounced limp that was reportedly the result of a dog or hog eating part of her leg while she was an infant.

Aguiari studied with Brizio Petrucci in Ferrara and then was further educated at a convent in Florence, where she got singing lessons from Abbé Lambertini. In 1764 she made her professional opera debut in Florence and the following year made appearances at the opera houses in Padua, Lucca and Verona. In 1766 she appeared in Genoa, Lucca, and Parma; ultimately becoming a Court singer in the latter city in 1768. That same year she sang the title role in the world premiere of Paisiello’s Le nozze di Peleo e Tetide in Naples (on the occasion of the wedding ceremony of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria). She also had several great successes in Milan, Paris, and London. There is no documentation to support reports that she was involved romantically with the composer Josef Mysliveček

Josef Myslivecek

Josef Mysliveček was a Czech composer who contributed to the formation of late eighteenth-century classicism in music...

 during her early career, in spite of many reports that appear in the musicological literature. No mention of a love affair with Mysliveček pre-dates the publication of the fifth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1954).

In 1780 Aguiari married the composer Giuseppe Colla (1731-1806). She left the stage after the close of the summer opera season at Genoa in 1782 due to ill health. Although it was rumored that she was poisoned by a jealous rival, she actually died of tuberculosis in 1783 at the age of 40.

Operatic Roles

Fulvia in Ezio by Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta was an Italian composer.-Biography:Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari, near the top of the heel of the boot of Italy. He eventually became a pupil of the composer, singer and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and scored a first success with his...

 (Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

, 1765)

Dircea in the pasticcio

Pasticcio

In music, a pasticcio or pastiche is an opera or other musical work composed of works by different composers who may or may not have been working together, or an adaptation or localization of an existing work that is loose, unauthorized, or inauthentic.-Etymology:The term is first attested in the...

 ‘’Demofoonte’’ (Lucca

Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

, 1765)

Beroe in La Nitteti by Brizio Petrucci (Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

, 1766)

Cleofide in the pasticcio Alessandro nell’Indie (Lucca

Lucca

Lucca is a city and comune in Tuscany, central Italy, situated on the river Serchio in a fertile plainnear the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Lucca...

, 1766)

Cleopatra in Tigrane by Giuseppe Colla (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....

, 1767)

Ipermestra in the anonymous Ipermestra (Parma, 1767)

Tetide in Le nozze di Peleo e Tetide by Giovanni Paisiello

Giovanni Paisiello

Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...

 (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...

, 1768)

Arcinia and Bauci in Le feste d'Apollo

Le feste d'Apollo

Le feste d'Apollo is an operatic work by Christoph Willibald von Gluck, first performed at the Teatrino della Corte, Parma, Italy, on 24 August 1769 for the wedding celebrations of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma and Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria.Styled a festa teatrale, Le feste d'Apollo consists...

by 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...

 (Parma, 1769)

Berenice in Vologeso by Giuseppe Colla (Venice, 1770)

Andromeda in Andromeda by Giuseppe Colla (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...

, 1772)

Zama in Tamas Kouli-Kan nell’Indie by Gaetano Pugnani

Gaetano Pugnani

Gaetano Pugnani was born in Turin. He trained on the violin under Giovanni Battista Somis and Giuseppe Tartini. In 1752, Pugnani became the first violinist of the Royal Chapel in Turin. Then he went on a large tour that granted him great fame for his extraordinary skill on the violin...

 (Turin, 1772)

Argea in Argea by Felice Alessandri

Felice Alessandri

Felice Alessandri was an Italian keyboardist and composer who was internationally active; working in Berlin, London, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Turin. He is best known for his stage works, and he produced a total of 32 operas between 1764 and 1794...

 (Turin, 1773)

Erasitea in Urano ed Erasitea by Giuseppe Colla (Parma, 1773)

Cleonice in Demetrio by Josef Mysliveček (Pavia

Pavia

Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

, 1773)

Andromeda in Andromeda by Giovanni Paisiello (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 ,...

, 1774)

Cleopatra in Tolomeo by Giuesppe Colla (Milan, 1774)

Aurora in Aurora by Gaetano Pampani (Turin, 1775)

Andromeda in Andromeda by Giuseppe Colla (Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, 1778)

Didone in the pasticcio Didone abbandonata (Florence, 1778)

Emirena in Adriano in Sira by Felice Alessandri (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...

, 1780)

Cleonice in Demetrio by Francesco Bianchi

Francesco Bianchi

Francesco Bianchi was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He is also known as Francesco del Bianchi Ferrara, also called Il Frare) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance. He was born at Ferrara. Modena is also mentioned as the place of his birth. His works were much esteemed in his time. He...

 (Venice, 1780)

Cleopatra in the anonymous Tigrane (Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, 1782)

Source: Claudio Sartori. I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini al 1800. Cuneo, 1992-1994.