Marietta Marcolini 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...

 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 contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

.

Marcolini was born in 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....

. The date of her stage debut is unknown but she was appearing 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...

 in 1800. She subsequently sang 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...

, 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 :...

, Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

, 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 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 ,...

, singing in the premieres of Pietro Carlo Guglielmi's La serva bizzarra (Naples 1803), Giacomo Tritto's Andromaca e Pirro (Rome 1807), Giuseppe Nicolini's Traiano in Dacia (Rome 1807), Carlo Bigatti's L'amante prigioniero (Milan 1809) and Ercole Paganini's Le rivale generose (Milan 1809). Rossini wrote five parts for her between 1811 and 1814 which - by their subject matter and technical difficulty - justify Marcolini's contemporary reputation for talent as a comedian and a splendid voice.

Rossini roles created

• Ernestina in Rossini's L'equivoco stravagante
  L'equivoco stravagante
  L'equivoco stravagante is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Gaetano Gasbarri. It was Rossini's first attempt at writing a full two-act opera.-Performance history:...
  
  (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,...
  
   1811)
• Ciro in Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia
  Ciro in Babilonia
  Ciro in Babilonia, ossia La caduta di Baldassare in an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Francesco Aventi. It was first performed at the Teatro Comunale, Ferrara during Lent, 1812. The exact date of the premiere is unknown but is believed to be March 14...
  
  (Ferrara
  Ferrara
  Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
  
   1812)
• Clarice in Rossini's La pietra del paragone
  La pietra del paragone
  La pietra del paragone is an opera, or melodramma giocoso, in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Romanelli.-Performance history:...
  
  (Milan 1812)
• Isabella in Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri
  L'italiana in Algeri
  L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
  
  (Venice 1813)
• Sigismondo in Rossini's Sigismondo
  Sigismondo
  Sigismondo is an operatic 'dramma' in two act by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa.The opera was not a success and Rossini later re-used some of its music in Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, The Barber of Seville, and Adina.-Performance history:Sigismondo was first...
  
  (Venice 1814)

Sources

• Forbes, Elizabeth (1992), 'Marcolini, Marietta' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  New Grove Dictionary of Opera
  The New Grove Dictionary of Opera is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volumes....
  
  , ed. Stanley Sadie (London) ISBN 0-333-73432-7
• Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), The Oxford Dictionary of Opera, 782 pages, ISBN 0-19-869164-5