Alice Barbi
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Alice Laura Barbi (born June 1, 1858 in Modena , Italy , † September 4, 1948 in Rome , Italy) was an Italian violinist , composer and singer ( mezzo-soprano ).
Life
Alice Barbi was born on June 1st, 1858 in Modena into a family of musicians. Her parents were Enrico Barbi and Marie geb. Tosenetti. She received her first musical training on the violin from her father and was later taught in Bologna by Carlo Verardi (1831–1878) and Buzzoni. At the same time, Countess Ida Corsini von Tresana and her husband Alice Barbi enabled a thorough training in music theory and foreign languages.
In 1876 Alice Barbi was accepted into the “First European Ladies Orchestra” by Josephine Amann-Weinlich. During a concert tour to Sweden she made her first appearance as a violin soloist. She also appeared as a soloist with this orchestra during a concert tour through the Netherlands at the end of 1876. Alice Barbi decided at the age of 20 to study singing, which she completed with Luigi Zamboni and Alessandro Busi and later in Florence with Luigi Vannuccini.
Her debut as a mezzo-soprano took place on April 2, 1882 in a concert in Milan and from then on no longer appeared as a violinist in public. Shortly thereafter, she sang in front of the Italian Queen at a concert in the Quirinal Palace in Rome under the direction of the composer Giovanni Sgambati . As a royal Italian court singer, Alice Barbi went on successful concert tours through the Italian music centers. In addition to England , where she first appeared in the London Popular Concerts in 1884, Germany , Austria , where she first appeared in a concert in Vienna in 1889 , and on a major tour of Russia in 1888, which took her to Tashkent and Samarkand .
When she gave her farewell concert on December 21, 1893 in Vienna because of her marriage to the German-Baltic Baron Boris von Wolff-Stomersee, the cabinet secretary of Queen Olga von Württemberg , the aged Johannes Brahms came from the audience to the podium and took over Piano accompaniment. After this marriage, she mostly lived on her husband's estates in Russia ( Livonia ) and on the Italian Riviera . Occasionally she performed in charity concerts until 1905. Alice Barbi also wrote poems, some of which were set to music by the composer Antonio Bazzini .
family
On January 30, 1894 married Alice Barbi in Menton the German-Baltic Baron Boris von Wolff-Stomersee (1850-1917), cabinet secretary of Queen Olga of Württemberg and chief steward of the Russian Tsar Nicholas II. , And withdrew from the public musical life. The marriage resulted in two daughters:
- Alexandra Alice Marie (also called "Licy", 1894–1982): psychoanalyst , married the nephew of her second husband in 1932, the writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa , author of the novel " The Cheetah ".
- Olga (also called "Lolette", 1896–1984): Married the Italian diplomat Augusto Biancheri Chiappori (1879–1939) in Rome in 1927 and became the mother of the Italian diplomat and politician Boris Biancheri Chiappori (1930–2011).
In 1920, after the death of her first husband, Alice married the Italian ambassador to London Pietro Tomasi Della Torretta and has since lived in Rome, where she died in 1948.
literature
- Bianca Maria Antolini: Alice Barbi. Una cantante da concerto in Europa tra Otto e Novecento , in: Antonio Caroccia, Paologiovanni Maione, Francesca Seller (ed.): Giuseppe Martucci e la caduta delle Alpi . (Strumenti della ricerca musicale, 14). LIM, Lucca 2008, pp. 283-340
- A. Ehrlich : Alice Barbi , in: Famous Singers Past and Present. A collection of 91 biographies and 90 portraits . Leipzig 1895, pp. 11–13 ( digitized version )
- A [lexander] P [oppovic]: Alice Barbi, Zum Abschied , Doblinger, Vienna 1894. (very rare)
- Ada Zapperi: Barbi, Alice , in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Vol. VI. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Roma 1964
Web links
- Annkatrin Babbe: Barbi, Alice, married. Wolff-Stomersee, m. Tomasi in the instrumentalist lexicon of the Sophie Drinker Institute
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Barbi, Alice |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wolff-Stomersee, Alice Baronesse von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian singer (mezzo-soprano), violinist and composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 1, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Modena , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 4, 1948 |
| Place of death | Rome , Italy |