Teresa Cornelys
Encyclopedia
Teresa Cornelys was a soprano
opera singer and impresario who hosted fashionable gatherings at Carlisle House in Soho Square
. She also had numerous lovers, including Casanova
, who was the father of her daughter.
Teresa was initiated into seduction by her mother, who had her torment the aged senator Alvise Malipiero, who fell desperately in love with her. At the same time she met Casanova, then the senator's protégé. But she refused the senator's offer of marriage. In 1745, Malipiero died and she followed Angelo Pompeati, a dancer and choreographer and former Master of the Venetian Ballet to Vienna, where he was working at the court of Empress Maria Theresa, and they were married in St. Stephen's Cathedral. However, within months she left him behind for an operatic engagement at the King's Theatre
in Haymarket, London.
Her first child, Giuseppe, was almost born on stage in Vienna, in 1746. Her husband never acknowledged him. After a period travelling with Gluck
and his opera company, her second child was born in Bayreuth in 1753 and was named Wilhelmine after Wilhelmine of Prussia, the wife of the Margrave
Frederick
, who may have been the child's father. She was back in Bayreuth after a sojourn in Italy when her daughter by Casanova was born early in 1754, and the child was named Sophia Wilhelmina Frederica, again after the margravine. Later that year she left her husband forever, initially for Paris. By the time Sophia was four, Teresa was leading a peripatetic, increasingly financially desperate existence while entertaining a multitude of lovers. During this period she called herself Madame de Trenti, claiming it was the name of her family estate. She was at one point in charge of all the theatres in the Austrian Netherlands. Wilhelmine and a baby to whom Teresa had given birth in Paris both died; Teresa was imprisoned for debt in Paris; in 1759 Giuseppe was taken away by Casanova to be raised.
Teresa's first appearance in London in 1746, in Gluck's La Caduta de' Giganti, had not been a success. A contemporary review was:
However, in 1759 she was persuaded to return by a man who was then calling himself John Freeman. He had been baptised John Boorder but had inherited a fortune and after that used the name John Fermor in England; he was a cellist
and double bass
ist who told her that he was a Church of England
clergyman and that she could make a fortune in London.
with outbuildings in the rear along a side street, for £180 a year. She was assisted in this by the patronage of Elizabeth Chudleigh, later to be the bigamous wife of a duke. In autumn that year she began giving entertainments there by subscription, in other words by selling tickets in advance.
At first her entertainments included only card games and dancing, but she met with sufficient success to buy the leasehold of the house and have a large extension built on the site of the rear buildings and part of the garden, consisting of a concert hall or ballroom above a supper room which seated four hundred at a vast crescent-shaped table. She had a copper plate set into the foundations with the inscription:
s. She had to have a new door put in to accommodate the crowds, and attendees included members of the royal family, the Prince of Monaco, the King of Denmark and his entourage and "half the peerage". In February 1770, Parliament adjourned early to enable members to attend one of her masquerades. Laurence Sterne
called a visit to Mrs Cornelys' "the best assembly and the best concert I ever had the honour to be at." In Humphrey Clinker, published in 1771, Tobias Smollett
writes of "Mrs. Cornelys' assembly, which for the rooms, the company, the dresses, and decorations, surpasses all description". In Thackeray's
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
the narrator recalls that "[a]ll the high and low demireps of the town gathered there". Dickens
wrote in an article on Soho that "the world was dying to be on Mrs. Cornelys's list." For her concerts, she engaged the best musicians available, including Johann Christian Bach
, Carl Friedrich Abel, Stephen Storace
and Carl Friedrich Weichsel. She held events once or twice a month, mainly in the winter season. Her response to the opening of rival establishments was to redecorate with even greater opulence, including redoing two rooms in Chinese style and having a Chinese bridge built to connect the house and the public rooms behind it, and to advertise in the papers:
Madame Cornelys was highly successful as an entrepreneur. According to Casanova, she had a country house in Hammersmith
with "three secretaries, thirty-two servants, six horses, a mute and a lady companion". Her daughter was well educated at a Catholic convent there. She controlled many details of the events, including who could attend (through a committee of ladies headed by Mrs Chudleigh and including Mary Bertie, wife of the Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven
, who was part of a "racy set" of women keen on partying and heavy spending) and what they were allowed to wear; hooped skirts took up too much room. When the throng outside the house on gala nights led to carriage collisions, she instituted London's first one-way system, stating in her advertising that coachmen must draw up with the heads of the horses towards Greek Street. However, she was a terrible businesswoman, spending more on the events and publicity for them than she took in, hardly ever paying employees or tradesmen on time, continuing to borrow, and with such a poor head for business that people stole from her freely.
In January 1771 she began to present operas, including Artaxerxes by Thomas Arne, with Gaetano Guadagni
in a leading role. Operatic performances were illegal without a royal licence; Madame Cornelys claimed unsuccessfully that they were charity benefits, as reported by Horace Walpole:
She ultimately did apply for a licence, but her application was denied. In her application she states that:
and ran it until it failed; in 1775, back in London, she organised a Venetian regatta on the Thames
and then returned to Carlisle House, this time as manager. She held two immensely successful seasons of 'rural masquerades', decorating the interiors of the reception rooms with fresh turf, hedges, exotic blooms, goldfish swimming in a fountain and pine trees in the concert room. However, she then slid back into bankruptcy and in 1779 was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison. She escaped in June the next year when the prison was set on fire during the Gordon Riots
, but was recaptured in Westminster in August.
In 1795 she was using the name Mrs Smith and selling asses'
milk in Knightsbridge
; she also tried unsuccessfully to organise a series of breakfasts with royal patronage. Her son, whom she had sent for to help her run Carlisle House, had not been much help then, having been raised as an idle aristocrat, but he did help support her in her later years; he was a tutor to the Earl of Pomfret
, but died before his mother. She died in the Fleet Prison at 74, probably of breast cancer. The actress Becky Wells
, who visited her there, reported that "in stepping into the carriage to go to prison, she struck her breast against the door, which caused her a most shocking cancer."
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...
opera singer and impresario who hosted fashionable gatherings at Carlisle House in Soho Square
Soho Square
Soho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
. She also had numerous lovers, including Casanova
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie , is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century...
, who was the father of her daughter.
Early life and opera career
Her father, Giuseppe Imer, was an opera impresario and her mother, Paolina, an actress. Her sister Marianna was also an opera singer.Teresa was initiated into seduction by her mother, who had her torment the aged senator Alvise Malipiero, who fell desperately in love with her. At the same time she met Casanova, then the senator's protégé. But she refused the senator's offer of marriage. In 1745, Malipiero died and she followed Angelo Pompeati, a dancer and choreographer and former Master of the Venetian Ballet to Vienna, where he was working at the court of Empress Maria Theresa, and they were married in St. Stephen's Cathedral. However, within months she left him behind for an operatic engagement 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...
in Haymarket, London.
Her first child, Giuseppe, was almost born on stage in Vienna, in 1746. Her husband never acknowledged him. After a period travelling with 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...
and his opera company, her second child was born in Bayreuth in 1753 and was named Wilhelmine after Wilhelmine of Prussia, the wife of the Margrave
Principality of Bayreuth
The Principality of Bayreuth or Brandenburg-Bayreuth was a reichsfrei principality in the Holy Roman Empire centered on the Bavarian city of Bayreuth. Until 1604 its capital city was Kulmbach; then the margraves used their palaces in Bayreuth as their residence...
Frederick
Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth , was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth....
, who may have been the child's father. She was back in Bayreuth after a sojourn in Italy when her daughter by Casanova was born early in 1754, and the child was named Sophia Wilhelmina Frederica, again after the margravine. Later that year she left her husband forever, initially for Paris. By the time Sophia was four, Teresa was leading a peripatetic, increasingly financially desperate existence while entertaining a multitude of lovers. During this period she called herself Madame de Trenti, claiming it was the name of her family estate. She was at one point in charge of all the theatres in the Austrian Netherlands. Wilhelmine and a baby to whom Teresa had given birth in Paris both died; Teresa was imprisoned for debt in Paris; in 1759 Giuseppe was taken away by Casanova to be raised.
Teresa's first appearance in London in 1746, in Gluck's La Caduta de' Giganti, had not been a success. A contemporary review was:
though nominally second woman, [she] had such a masculine and violent manner of singing that few female symptoms were perceptible
However, in 1759 she was persuaded to return by a man who was then calling himself John Freeman. He had been baptised John Boorder but had inherited a fortune and after that used the name John Fermor in England; he was a cellist
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
and double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
ist who told her that he was a Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
clergyman and that she could make a fortune in London.
Life in London
She returned to England in 1759 from Rotterdam, using the first name of her lover there, Cornelis de Rigerboos, as her surname and presenting herself as Madame Cornelys, a widow; claiming widowhood gave her added respectability and sympathy, but also entailed greater legal rights. In 1760, working through Fermor because she did not yet speak enough English herself, she rented Carlisle House, a large, well-appointed mansion in fashionable Soho SquareSoho Square
Soho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
with outbuildings in the rear along a side street, for £180 a year. She was assisted in this by the patronage of Elizabeth Chudleigh, later to be the bigamous wife of a duke. In autumn that year she began giving entertainments there by subscription, in other words by selling tickets in advance.
At first her entertainments included only card games and dancing, but she met with sufficient success to buy the leasehold of the house and have a large extension built on the site of the rear buildings and part of the garden, consisting of a concert hall or ballroom above a supper room which seated four hundred at a vast crescent-shaped table. She had a copper plate set into the foundations with the inscription:
Not Vain but Grateful In Honour of the Society [of her first subscribers] and my first Protectress Ye Honble Mrs. Elizabeth Chudleigh is Laid the First Stone of this edifice June 19 1761 by me Teresa Cornelys.She also extensively refurbished the house, and added sumptuous furnishings. Much of the furniture was hired – the ballroom furnishings alone were valued at £730 – and she had much of the work done on credit or in exchange for large numbers of tickets to her entertainments. She was already having problems with creditors and seizures of furnishings in February 1762. However, the entertainments were an immense success, particularly the elaborate masked ball
Masked Ball
Masked Ball is a 1918 Hungarian film directed by Alfréd Deésy and featuring Béla Lugosi.-Cast:* Norbert Dán* Róbert Fiáth* Lajos Gellért - * Annie Góth* Richard Kornai* Béla Lugosi...
s. She had to have a new door put in to accommodate the crowds, and attendees included members of the royal family, the Prince of Monaco, the King of Denmark and his entourage and "half the peerage". In February 1770, Parliament adjourned early to enable members to attend one of her masquerades. Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
called a visit to Mrs Cornelys' "the best assembly and the best concert I ever had the honour to be at." In Humphrey Clinker, published in 1771, Tobias Smollett
Tobias Smollett
Tobias George Smollett was a Scottish poet and author. He was best known for his picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle , which influenced later novelists such as Charles Dickens.-Life:Smollett was born at Dalquhurn, now part of Renton,...
writes of "Mrs. Cornelys' assembly, which for the rooms, the company, the dresses, and decorations, surpasses all description". In Thackeray's
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
The Luck of Barry Lyndon
The Luck of Barry Lyndon is a picaresque novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, first published in serial form in 1844, about a member of the Irish gentry trying to become a member of the English aristocracy...
the narrator recalls that "[a]ll the high and low demireps of the town gathered there". Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
wrote in an article on Soho that "the world was dying to be on Mrs. Cornelys's list." For her concerts, she engaged the best musicians available, including Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
, Carl Friedrich Abel, Stephen Storace
Stephen Storace
Stephen Storace was an English composer. His sister was the famous opera singer Nancy Storace. He was born in London in the Parish of St Marylebone to an English mother and Italian father...
and Carl Friedrich Weichsel. She held events once or twice a month, mainly in the winter season. Her response to the opening of rival establishments was to redecorate with even greater opulence, including redoing two rooms in Chinese style and having a Chinese bridge built to connect the house and the public rooms behind it, and to advertise in the papers:
[T]he alterations and additions to Carlisle House in Soho Square, performing by Messrs. Phillips and Shakespeare, together with all the new embellishments and furniture adding thereto by Mrs. Cornelys, will this year alone, amount to little less than 2000 [£] and that, when finished, it will be, by far, the most magnificent place of public entertainment in Europe.
[A]mongst her other elegant alterations [she] has devised the most curious, singular, and superb ceiling to one of the rooms that ever was executed or even thought of.She reputedly spent £5,000 between 1767 and 1772 alone. She was successful in maintaining her establishment at the height of fashion, although attendees continued to remark on how crowded it was. Frances Burney wrote in 1770:
The magnificence of the rooms, splendour of the illuminations and embellishments, and the brilliant appearance of the company exceeded anything I ever before saw. The apartments were so crowded we had scarce room to move, which was quite disagreeable, nevertheless, the flight of apartments both upstairs and on the ground floor seemed endless … The Rooms were so full and so hot that nobody attempted to dance … I must own this evening's entertainment more disappointed my expectations than any I ever spent; for I had imagined it would have been the most charming in the world.
Madame Cornelys was highly successful as an entrepreneur. According to Casanova, she had a country house in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
with "three secretaries, thirty-two servants, six horses, a mute and a lady companion". Her daughter was well educated at a Catholic convent there. She controlled many details of the events, including who could attend (through a committee of ladies headed by Mrs Chudleigh and including Mary Bertie, wife of the Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven
Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven
General Peregrine Bertie, 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, 3rd Marquess of Lindsey, 6th Earl of Lindsey, 19th Baron Willoughby de Eresby PC was the son of Peregrine Bertie, 2nd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven....
, who was part of a "racy set" of women keen on partying and heavy spending) and what they were allowed to wear; hooped skirts took up too much room. When the throng outside the house on gala nights led to carriage collisions, she instituted London's first one-way system, stating in her advertising that coachmen must draw up with the heads of the horses towards Greek Street. However, she was a terrible businesswoman, spending more on the events and publicity for them than she took in, hardly ever paying employees or tradesmen on time, continuing to borrow, and with such a poor head for business that people stole from her freely.
In January 1771 she began to present operas, including Artaxerxes by Thomas Arne, with Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato singer, most famous for singing the role of Orpheus at the premiere of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.- Career :...
in a leading role. Operatic performances were illegal without a royal licence; Madame Cornelys claimed unsuccessfully that they were charity benefits, as reported by Horace Walpole:
To avoid the Act, she pretended to take no money, and had the assurance to advertise that the subscription was to provide coals for the poor. . . . I concluded she would open a bawdy house next for the interests of the Foundling Hospital, and I am not quite mistaken, for they say one of her maids, gained by Mr. Hobart, affirms that she could not undergo the fatigue of making the beds so often.She and Guardagni were fined; at her next operatic presentation she charged extra to cover the fine.
She ultimately did apply for a licence, but her application was denied. In her application she states that:
[on arriving in England and discovering] that the most extensive, most opulent, and most important City in Europe was the only one of note that had not a settled Entertainment for the select reception and amusement of the Nobility and Gentry, . . . after struggling with a Siege of Troubles during a longer Period than the Siege of Troy [and producing for the nobility and gentry] a species of a more elegant dramatic musical Amusement than any they had ever had before, [she had become embroiled in] vexatious and expensive Prosecutions, as interestedly litigious, as innocently incurred.
Imprisonment and death
Madame Cornelys was in and out of debt and debtor's prison again and again until in 1772 Carlisle House was seized and its contents auctioned off. A group of her creditors bought it for a low price at a hastily arranged auction sale. Meanwhile, having secured her release from prison, she bought a hotel in SouthamptonSouthampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
and ran it until it failed; in 1775, back in London, she organised a Venetian regatta on the Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
and then returned to Carlisle House, this time as manager. She held two immensely successful seasons of 'rural masquerades', decorating the interiors of the reception rooms with fresh turf, hedges, exotic blooms, goldfish swimming in a fountain and pine trees in the concert room. However, she then slid back into bankruptcy and in 1779 was imprisoned in the King's Bench Prison. She escaped in June the next year when the prison was set on fire during the Gordon Riots
Gordon Riots
The Gordon Riots of 1780 were an anti-Catholic protest against the Papists Act 1778.The Popery Act 1698 had imposed a number of penalties and disabilities on Roman Catholics in England; the 1778 act eliminated some of these. An initial peaceful protest led on to widespread rioting and looting and...
, but was recaptured in Westminster in August.
In 1795 she was using the name Mrs Smith and selling asses'
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
milk in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
; she also tried unsuccessfully to organise a series of breakfasts with royal patronage. Her son, whom she had sent for to help her run Carlisle House, had not been much help then, having been raised as an idle aristocrat, but he did help support her in her later years; he was a tutor to the Earl of Pomfret
Earl of Pomfret
Earl of Pomfret , in the County of York, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1721 for Thomas Fermor, 2nd Baron Leominster. The Fermor family descended from Richard Fermor who acquired great wealth as a merchant. However, he fell out with Henry VIII after remaining an...
, but died before his mother. She died in the Fleet Prison at 74, probably of breast cancer. The actress Becky Wells
Mary Wells (actress)
Mary Wells, afterwards Mrs. Sumbel , was an English actress.-Early life:She was the daughter of Thomas Davies, a carver and gilder in Birmingham, and was born there about 1759. Her father died in a madhouse while she was a small child...
, who visited her there, reported that "in stepping into the carriage to go to prison, she struck her breast against the door, which caused her a most shocking cancer."
External links
- Judith Milhous, Cornelys, (Anna Maria) Teresa (1723?–1797), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online (2004) (subscription required)
- "A home fit for hedonists" by David Jays, The ObserverThe ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
(7 December 2003), review of The Empress of Pleasure.