Angelica Catalani

Angelica Catalani around 1810, lithograph by Maxim Gauci

Angelica Catalani (born May 10, 1780 in Senigallia near Ancona , † June 12, 1849 in Paris , France ) was an Italian opera singer ( coloratura soprano ) of legendary reputation.

Life

Angelica Catalani, daughter of the gemstone dealer Antonio Catalani and his wife Antonia Summi, received her first lessons from the cathedral music director of Senigallia, Pietro Morandi. She then went to the Santa Lucia monastery in Gubbio near Rome to be educated , where she caused a sensation as a child, when she sang with the nuns in church, for example because of her talent for singing. There is, however, only little reliable information about her musical training, which she first received in the monastery. She left the monastery at the age of 14 and may have been tutored by the singer Boselli (pseudonym for Anna Morichelli), who lives in Venice . She received her further training from the two famous castrato sopranos Luigi Marchesi and Girolamo Crescentini .

She made her debut in Venice in 1797 at the Teatro La Fenice in the opera Lodoïska by Johann Simon Mayr . In 1798 she performed in Livorno , the next year at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence and in 1800 at La Scala in Milan . There she worked u. a. on December 26, 1800 at the world premiere of the opera Clitemnestra by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli and on January 21, 1801 in I Baccanali di Roma by Giuseppe Nicolini . In 1801 she also gave performances in Rome and Naples . Alongside Crescentini and Luigi Marchesi, she celebrated unprecedented success in all of these major Italian cities . Towards the end of 1801 she received an engagement in Lisbon from the Prince Regent of Portugal , where she appeared in numerous operas by the Portuguese composer Marcos António Portugal called "Portogallo", and others. a. in La morte di Semiramide (premiere: December 23, 1801), which became one of her favorite operas. Here, too, she delighted audiences for years and has already received considerable fees.

During her stay in Portugal, Catalani made the acquaintance of Paul Valabrègue, the attaché at the French embassy in Lisbon and a former French captain, and married him in 1804. As a result, Valabrègue, often characterized in literature as avaricious, acted as her manager. In 1806 she traveled with him to London via Madrid and Paris . In Paris she only appeared in concerts and had turned down Napoleon's lucrative offer for an engagement at the Grand Opéra . During her seven-year stay in England, she was at the height of her fame as one of the most important prima donnas of her time and earned enormous sums of money that far exceeded the usual fees at the time. In London she first appeared in December 1806 at the King's Theater in the title role of Portogallo's La morte di Semiramide . At the same house she also appeared in many other operas, including a. in La morte di Cleopatra by Sebastiano Nasolini , who had already composed the title role for Catalani in 1800 (premiere: May 21, 1800, Venice). In 1808, she earned 60,000 guilders in one season with two performances a week. During this time, her greatest competitor was the singer Elisabeth Billington (1770-1818):

“The competition between the greatest singers of our time, Billington and Catalani, is becoming more and more serious here, […] Billington was previously considered to be England's first female singer, and no one disputed this advantage. Now Catalani appeared, and appeared with all the magic of her silver voice and her charming figure, gushing in youthful bloom. Miss Billington, of course a bit stout and already well into her thirties, gathered all her art together to compete with a dangerous rival. Vain; Catalani shows herself more and more not only as the most accomplished singer, but also as the most agile actress. Miss Billington now feels this superiority herself, and wants to retreat into rural seclusion at least until the dangerous Catalani leaves England again. "

Angelica Catalani in 1812. Lithograph by Anthony Cardon after Clara Maria Pope

The Catalani particularly enjoyed performing in concerts, where she performed her favorite bravura aria “Son Regina” from Portogallos Semiramide or tricks like the Variations by Rode originally composed for violin or a Polacca by Pucitta ; Her concert repertoire also consisted of arias by Zingarelli, Rossini , Francesco Morlacchi ("Caro suono lusinghiero") and Paisiello ("Nel cor più non mi sento" from La bella Molinara ), which she freely and abundantly decorated with lavish decorations. With her performances of " God save the King " or " Rule Britannia " she sparked enthusiasm and patriotic enthusiasm in the English audience.

When Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro was premiered at His Majesty's Theater in 1812 , she sang the role of Susanna; she also appeared as Vitellia in La clemenza di Tito . Her "house composer" and companion, however, was Vincenzo Pucitta , who worked with her in London and later in Paris , who profited greatly from this cooperation and wrote a number of opera roles for her, including a. in La caccia di Enrico IV (1809) and La vestale (1810). Later, however, Pucitta fell out with Catalani's husband Valabrègue.

When, after the fall of Napoleon, the Bourbon ruler Louis XVIII. Returned to France in 1814, he engaged Angelica Catalani, whom he had often admired in London, as director of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris. During Napoleon's renewed brief takeover during the reign of the Hundred Days (1815) and in the first months of the Restoration, the Catalani undertook an art tour through Germany , Denmark and Sweden , then visited Holland and Belgium and was received with enthusiasm everywhere. She then returned to Paris and took over the management of the Théâtre-Italy for the second time. However, she was not very lucky in this role. Their management, which was also criticized for their focus on staging their own person, was a financial failure; probably mainly because of her husband's clumsy interference in the administration of the theater. In 1818 she resigned from office.

Around 1817 the first vocal problems became noticeable and Catalani was no longer able to perform many roles as brilliantly as before. Nevertheless, she made repeated tours of Europe since 1818. In 1818 she was invited to the Aachen Congress , where she met such important European monarchs as the Austrian Emperor Franz I , the Russian Tsar Alexander I and the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. and won Baron Rothschild as her wealth adviser. Goethe heard them on August 14, 1818 in Karlsbad and then wrote:

“In the room as in the high hall

you never get tired of it

because you understand for the first time

why you have ears. "

Golden pocket watch that Angelica Catalani gave Chopin as a gift at the age of ten.

In 1819 she was celebrated in Warsaw , where on October 3, 1820 she gave ten-year-old Frédéric Chopin a gold pocket watch with her dedication because of his special talent. In the same year she celebrated successes on a tour in Riga , Lviv , Vilnius and Brno and appeared in Romania the next year . She returned to London in 1824 and sang here in Johann Simon Mayr's Farsa Che originali! . She ended her stage career at the end of 1824, but still appeared in concerts in Berlin in 1827 and for the last time in May 1828 in Schleswig-Holstein and Hanover .

Catalani had lived with her husband and children on their estate near Florence since 1830 , where she also founded a singing school. At times she also lived in Paris. She was one of the first to look back on a successful singing career throughout Europe, which had brought her enormous financial gain. While her husband is often said to be stingy in literature, she herself allowed a considerable part of the fees she earned during her artistic career to benefit the needy. If you z. If, for example, she earned 240,000 francs in a single four-month season in London, the sum she donated to the poor is said to have totaled about 2 million francs. However, it cannot be proven that, as often stated, after she withdrew from the stage she gave free singing lessons to talented girls in need. At the age of 69 she succumbed to cholera in Paris in 1849 . She had also composed several arias and songs, a. a. the Canzonetta Papa non dite for the opera Il furbo contro il furbo by Giacomo Gotifredo Ferrari .

Catalani's voice and art

Angelica Catalani 1806. Painting by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

Angelica Catalani combined physical beauty with the wonderful tonal power of her melodious soprano voice, which through great diligence had brought her to a virtuoso guttural skill that was in the Italian tradition of the great prima donuts and castrati. Numerous statements about her voice and her singing have survived, which highlight both their merits and weaknesses. Her voice is said to have had an enormous range of almost three octaves, for example from the low g or a flat to the three-stroke f '' '. She had astonishing fluency, technical perfection in the execution of fast passages and was particularly famous for her ascending and descending chromatic scales - according to Ferris she is even said to have been the first to use this type of ornament, which was later used by composers like Rossini , Bellini et al. a. was requested more often. Her voice was homogeneous across all registers and almost perfectly balanced.

Although she is primarily and consistently described as a brilliant singer , and it is also passed down that she originally did not particularly enjoy acting on the theater stage out of shyness. B. Michael Kelly , who appeared with her in serious and comical operas in Dublin , that she sang by no means completely expressionless and had a very personal interpretive approach that was not without charm.

The composer Louis Spohr , who heard her in a concert at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in 1817 (including Crescentini's aria "Ombra adorata" and arias by Paisiello and Pucitta), admired her agility and perfect intonation , her perfect execution of the trill - both in the whole tone - as in semitone spacing -, however, noticed at this point in her career a certain weakness in the transition to the head voice, which she, however , overplayed with a skillful use of mezza voce and "wonderful" effects when performing descending scales understanding. Her mezza voce “both below and above”, confirmed Paganini after a late concert by the Catalani at Scala in 1833, and said that the “magical effect” of her singing arises from the fact that she “does everything she does at high volume with great sweetness, and can do pianissimo ”- but she lacks the right measure and“ musical philosophy ”.

What the famous violin virtuoso meant by this was explained in more detail by Lord Mount-Edgcumbe in his famous description of Catalani's voice and singing:

“This celebrated singer is well known to have a voice of an unusual quality and capable of almost supernatural exertions. As noted by medical professionals, her throat appears to be endowed with a force for expansion and muscular movement which is by no means common, and when her whole voice is full, it has a volume and strength which are quite surprising; while her agility in refractions, or when she runs up and down the scale in semitones , and her range when she jumps over two octaves at once , are equally amazing. It would be wished ... that she were less wasteful in playing to those wonderful strengths and trying to please rather than surprise; but their tastes are vicious, their excessive love of ornament spoils any simple melody, and their greatest joy (indeed their chief merit) lies in songs of bold and lively character, where much is left to their discretion (or indiscretion) without one Accompaniment to be restricted, but where it can insert passages ad libitum , with a lush exuberance and an overabundance that no other singer has ever possessed or practiced, and which drives them to a fantastic excess. "

The Catalani preferred (except at the beginning of her career) music that gave her as much freedom as possible, both in dealing with time (e.g. through agogic ) and for her own adornments, which is supposed to have been the reason that she did not particularly like Mozart's music because it felt restricted by its classically strict composition and rich instrumentation.

The Catalani is said to have said about the coloratura soprano Henriette Sontag in the mid-1820s: “She is the first in her genre, but her genre is not the first” (“Elle est la première de son genre, mais son genre n'est pas le premier"). She was referring to the lighter voice quality of Sontag, which was a soprano leggiero and less full than that of Catalani; Therefore, Sunday was more suitable for roles in the opera buffa and semiseria than for the opera seria , which, according to Italian tradition, had the highest priority.

The Catalani was so famous that it became a synonym for singing, for example the voice of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , who before her career as a writer and poet, also composed and enthusiastically sang in family circles, was compared with the voice of the Catalani - surely a somewhat exaggerated euphemism .

Roles for Catalani

The following is an (incomplete) list of games written for Angelica Catalani. Other roles are e.g. Sometimes mentioned in the text, but not listed here. Almost all of the operas mentioned have been forgotten today, excerpts from very few exist on CD (“Son Regina” from Portogallos Semiramide & an aria from Nicolini's Baccanali di Roma ), which give a certain impression of Catalani's voice and singing. Most of the operas are by Zingarelli, Pucitta and the Portuguese composer Marcos António Portugal, known as "Portogallo".

• Carolina in Carolina e Mexicow by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli , premiere: December 26, 1797, Venice , Teatro La Fenice ; together with Luigi Marchesi
• Lidia in Lleichen e Lidia by Giovanni Simone Mayr , premiere: January 14th 1798, Venice, Teatro La Fenice; with Luigi Marchesi
• Polissena in Pirro, re di Epiro by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, premiere: autumn 1798, Livorno , Teatro degli Accademici Avvalorati; with Luigi Marchesi and Gaetano Crivelli
• Title role in Ifigenia in Aulide by Giuseppe Mosca , Premiere: February 1st, 1799 in Rome , Teatro Argentina
• Mezio Curzio in Il ratto delle Sabine by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, Premiere: December 26th 1799, Venice, Teatro La Fenice
• Atamaro in Li sciti by Giovanni Simone Mayr, WP : February 21, 1800, Venice, Teatro La Fenice
• Cleopatra in La morte di Cleopatra by Sebastiano Nasolini , WP: May 21, 1800, Venice, Teatro La Fenice
• Title role in Clitennestra by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, Premiere: December 26th, 1800, Milan , Teatro alla Scala
• Fecennia in I baccanali di Roma by Giuseppe Nicolini , WP : January 21, 1801, Milan, Teatro alla Scala
• Semiramide in La morte di Semiramide by Marcos António Portugal , Premiere: December 23, 1801, Lisbon , Teatro de São Carlos ; with Girolamo Crescentini
• Title role in La Zaira by Marcos António Portugal, WP: February 19, 1802, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos; with Girolamo Crescentini
• Clelia in Il trionfo di Clelia by Marcos António Portugal, WP: Winter 1802, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos; with Girolamo Crescentini
• Title role in La Sofonisba by Marcos António Portugal, WP: Carnival 1803, Lisbon, San Carlos; with Girolamo Crescentini
• Jella in La pulcella di Rab by Valentino Fioravanti , WP : Carnival 1804, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
• Title role in La Merope by Marcos António Portugal, WP: Winter 1804, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
• Title role in Ginevra di Scozia by Marcos António Portugal, WP: Winter 1805, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
• Amelia in Il duca di Foix by Marcos António Portugal, premiere: winter 1805, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
• Vonima in La morte di Mitridate by Marcos António Portugal, WP : Carnival 1806, Lisbon, Teatro de São Carlos
• Giulia in La vestale by Vincenzo Pucitta , WP: May 3, 1810, London , King's Theater in the Haymarket ; with Diomiro Tramezzani .
• Rosselane in Il trionfo di Rosselane, ossia Le tre sultane by Vincenzo Pucitta, premiere: 1811, London, King's Theater in the Haymarket
• Title role in Ginevra di Scozia by Vincenzo Pucitta, WP: April 16, 1812, London, King's Theater in the Haymarket

literature

• Bernhard J. Docen: Madame Angelica Catalani in Munich. A rhapsody in Sunderganic hexameters . Munich 1818.
• Rebecca Grotjahn: Catalani, Angelica . In: The music in past and present (MGG), 2nd edition, person part Volume 4 (2000), Sp. 437-439.
• Kurt Honolka : The great prima donnas. From the baroque to the present . Verlag Heinrichshofen, Wilhelmshaven 1982, ISBN 3-7959-0279-7 .
• Raoul Meloncelli: Catalani, Angelica . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22 (1979) ( treccani.it ).
• Anastasio Minoja / Maximilian Hörberg (arr./Hrsg.): Instructions for complete training in singing (based on a manuscript by Angelica Catalani). Revision of the 2nd edition. Leipzig 1857: Verlag Maximilian Hörberg, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-00-023408-8 .
• Heinrich Satter: Angelica Catalani. Prima donna of emperors and kings . Verlag der Frankfurter Bücher, Frankfurt / M. 1958.
• Eberhard von Wintzigerode: Angelica Catalani-Valabrègue. A biographical sketch . Luckhardt Publishing House, Kassel 1825.
• Catalani, Angelica . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 3, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 860.

Web links

Commons : Angelica Catalani  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Angelica Catalani at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Raoul Meloncelli: Catalani, Angelica . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22, 1979, “Treccani” (Italian). Retrieved May 31, 2019
2. ↑ see below the list of roles for Catalani
3. ↑ Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, Nro. 31, Freytag, February 5th, Anno 1808, p. 1, as digitized version .
4. ↑ Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung, Nro. 180, Wednesday, July 29th, Anno 1808, p. 2f., As digital copy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
5. ↑ Jeremy Commons: “Marco Portogallo: La Semiramide”, booklet text for the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800–1810 (with Yvonne Kenny and others, and the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara : ORCH 103, p . 120–126, here: 121.
6. ↑ George T. Ferris: Angelica Catalani . In: Great singers , Volume I (“Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag, First Series”), D. Appleton & Co, New York 1889, pp. 132–170, here 149. Text archive - Internet Archive
7. ↑ Gerhard Kay Birkner, Angelica Catalani in Plön 1828. In: Nordelbingen Volume 84, 2015, pp. 214-240.
8. ↑ Meloncelli states: as to f '' '. Raoul Meloncelli: Catalani, Angelica . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22, 1979, “Treccani” (Italian). Retrieved May 31, 2019
9. ↑ According to Ferris, the circumference was g to f '' '. George T. Ferris: Angelica Catalani . In: Great singers , Volume I (“Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag, First Series”), D. Appleton & Co, New York 1889, pp. 132–170, here 135. Text archive - Internet Archive
10. ↑ George T. Ferris: Angelica Catalani . In: Great singers , Volume I (“Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag, First Series”), D. Appleton & Co, New York 1889, pp. 132–170, here: 142–143. Text archive - Internet Archive
11. ↑ "... per la splendida voce di soprano, strumento perfetto cui la natura aveva fatto dono tanto di flessibilità incomparabile quanto di una omogeneità pressoché perfetta in tutti i registri, ...". Raoul Meloncelli: Catalani, Angelica . In: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22, 1979, “Treccani” (Italian). Retrieved May 31, 2019
12. ↑ "... non priva di fascino", in: Raoul Meloncelli: CATALANI, Angelica, in: Dictionnaire Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22, 1979, online at "Treccani" (Italian; accessed on 31 May 2019)
13. ↑ ("... delle mezze voci per in su per in giù")
14. ↑ "... la sua voce forte ed agile forma il più bell'istrumento; ma le manca la misura e la filosofia musicale ... Fa delle mezze voci per in su per in giù, e tutto quello che fa con gran forza lo può fare con gran dolcezza, e pianissimo; ed ecco dove scaturisce tutto il magico effetto ", in: Raoul Meloncelli: CATALANI, Angelica, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 22, 1979, online in " Treccani " (Italian)
15. ↑ "This celebrated performer it is well known, that her voice is of a most uncommon quality, and capable of exertions almost supernatural. Her throat seems endued (as has been remarked by medical men) with a power of expansion and muscular motion by no means usual, and when she throws out all her voice to the utmost, it has a volume and strength that are quite surprising; while its agility in divisions, running up and down the scale in semi-tones, and its compass in jumping over two octaves at once, are equally astonishing. It were to be wished, ... that she was less lavish in the display of these wonderful powers, and sought to please more than to surprise; but her taste is vicious, her excessive love of ornament spoiling every simple air, and her greatest delight (indeed her chief merit) being in songs of a bold and spirited character, where much is left to her discretion (or indiscretion), without being confined by the accompaniment, but in which she can indulge in ad libitum passages with a luxuriance and redundancy no other singer ever possessed, or if possessing ever practiced, and which she carries to a fantastical excess. "See: Jeremy Commons:" Marco Portogallo : La Semiramide ", booklet text for the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800–1810 (with Yvonne Kenny and others, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara: ORCH 103, pp. 120–126, here: 124-125.
16. ↑ George T. Ferris: Angelica Catalani . In: Great singers , Volume I (“Faustina Bordoni to Henrietta Sontag, First Series”), D. Appleton & Co, New York 1889, pp. 132–170, here: 141–142. Text archive - Internet Archive
17. ↑ Jeremy Commons: “Marco Portogallo: La Semiramide”, booklet text for the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800–1810 (with Yvonne Kenny and others, and the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara : ORCH 103, p . 120–126, here: pp. 29 and 125.
18. ^ George T. Ferris: Henrietta Sontag . In: Great singers , ..., New York 1889, pp. 197–220, here: pp. 204–205 (English). Text archive - Internet Archive
19. ↑ Also in Holtei: Forty Years , IV, Berlin 1843/44, p. 33. Holtei simplifies something: “Elle est grande dans son genre, mais son genre est petit.” (“It is large in its area, but its area is small. ")
20. ^ Friedrich Beneke (1787–1865). Quoted in: Bodo Plachta (Ed.): Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797–1848). "But after a hundred years I want to be read". Exhibition cat. Wiesbaden 1997, p. 153.
21. ↑ The list is based on the information on opera performances in which the Catalani appeared in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna; Retrieved on August 20, 2019. To do this, under Eventi, in the Interprete field, enter the name "Catalani". There are also 3 operas by Vincenzo Pucitta, which are also taken from the list of performances of his operas on Corago ; please enter the name "Pucitta" in the Autore field under Eventi .
22. ↑ In the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800-1810 , with Yvonne Kenny u. a., as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry, Opera Rara : ORCH 103. In the sequel A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1801–1820 , an aria for Catalani's partner Diomiro Tramezzani from Pucittas Vestale can be heard.
23. ↑ Jeremy Commons: Booklet text on the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800-1810 (with Yvonne Kenny and others, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara : ORCH 103, pp. 26-30.
24. ↑ Jeremy Commons: Booklet text for the CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1800-1810 (with Yvonne Kenny and others, and the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara : ORCH 103, pp. 120–126.
25. ↑ See also: Jeremy Commons: Booklet text on CD set: A hundred years of Italian Opera - 1810-1820 (With Yvonne Kenny and others, as well as the Philharmonia Orchestra under David Parry), Opera Rara : ORCH 103, pp. 5–7.