Filippo Balatri

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Filippo Balatri on a caricature by Anton Maria Zanetti , 1726–1728 (?)

Filippo Balatri (real Dionisio Filippo Balatri ; born February 21, 1682 in Alfea ( Pisa ); † September 10, 1756 in Kloster Fürstenfeld ) was an Italian castrato singer ( soprano , later mezzo-soprano ), singing teacher, writer and monk who worked in Russia and Munich, among others . He left behind important autobiographical writings.

Life

Filippo Balatri says he was born in Alfea (Pisa). He was the third son of Antonio Francesco di Pietro Balatri, a member of an impoverished Florentine family and a member of the Order of St. Stephen . Filippo's mother Maria Teresa Peralique was French and in her youth she was court lady of Marguerite d'Orléans , the wife of Cosimos III. , Grand Duke of Tuscany . Filippo, like his brother Ferrante (* 1677), attended the St. Stephen's School and sang in the church choir . When he was about 11 years old, his father decided to have the musically gifted boy neutered by a surgeon in Lucca in order to preserve his promising soprano voice. According to the singer himself, an important reason for this fatherly decision was "the good salary and the generous retirement benefits of the castrati in the service of the St. Stephen's Order".

Balatri received his further musical education, as well as lessons in Latin and religion , in Florence . Here the Grand Duke had him sing in front of the Russian envoy Peter Alexejewitsch Golitsyn (1660–1722), with whom he was an extravagant "loan" from Cosimo III. to Peter the Great travels to Moscow via Venice , Vienna and Warsaw . Out of 200 people in Golitsyn's entourage, Balatri was the only musician and the first Italian castrato to come to Russia. On the instructions of the Grand Duke, he recorded his experiences meticulously in a diary .

After a few months in Golitsyn's house in Moscow, Balatri lived for a few years at the Tsar's court and sang for Peter the Great every day, for which he accompanied himself on the organ positive . His duties also included singing in front of the Russian nobility in their houses and he gave singing lessons to the Tsar's maitresse , Anna Mons (?) - with whom he secretly fell in love. He also accompanied the tsar on his travels and often had to sing without accompaniment, including in front of the "great Khan of the Tatars" - probably Ayuki-Khan , ruler of the Kalmyks on the lower Volga .

In 1701 Balatri left Russia and traveled again with the ambassador Golitsyn, initially to the imperial court in Vienna, where he stayed until the beginning of 1703 and continued his vocal training with the alto Gaetano Orsini . Then he returned to Pisa via Venice and Florence. In Florence he made his operatic debut in a small role in Albinoni's Pastorale Aminta (premiere: October 15, 1703).

In Pisa he sang from 1703 to 1713 as a soprano in the Chiesa dei Cavalieri. He was temporarily summoned to Florence in 1711 by Grand Duke Cosimo as an interpreter for the Russian ambassador, Prince Naryshkin .

After the death of his parents in 1713, Balatri traveled with an unidentified English "milord" via Paris to London . In Versailles he was allegedly received by Louis XIV , who was told about his experiences in Russia. In London he sang for Lady Burlington, wife of Handel's well-known patron Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington , and for the English nobility, but a planned concert for Queen Anne was prevented by the Queen's death. While preparing for this failed appearance, he is said to have met Handel. Balatri himself claims in his memoirs that he turned down the offer to appear in the London Opera , but a newspaper article from October 1714 states that he appeared in a pasticcio Arminio and in November he sang a supporting role in the opera Ernelinda ( by Gasparini  ?), alongside Diana Vico , Elisabetta Piloti Schiavonetti and Margarita de l'Espine .

In 1715 he had to prematurely break off his English stay in order to meet with his brother Ferrante and an envoy Cosimos III. on the return journey to Italy, via Düsseldorf and Munich. At the behest of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, on October 1 of the same year he accepted the offer of employment at the court of the Bavarian Elector Maximilian II Emanuel . There he earned the considerable sum of 3,500 guilders a year from 1719 , making him one of the best-paid singers in Munich.

He made his Munich operatic debut on October 12, 1716 as Orestes in Pietro Torris Astianatte . At the same time Balatri , who until then had mainly lived as a church and chamber singer, confessed in his memoirs that he was reluctant to appear in operas because it seemed sinful to him and not godly.

After an illness, the Bavarian elector granted him a home leave in Italy in 1718, where he sang to Benedetto Marcello in Venice and caused a sensation with a nightingale aria he composed himself. He also sang in private concerts in Bologna and in front of Violante Beatrix , the sister of Max Emanuel and widow of Ferdinando de 'Medici . At their request, he composed the music for a comedy . After a stay in Pisa, he returned to Munich with his brother Ferrante in 1719. There he sang in various operas by Torri: in the summer of 1720 the title role in Eumene and in October of the same year Demetrio in an opera L'amor d'amico vince ogni altro amore , alongside the famous alto Antonio Bernacchi and the Margherita Durastanti , one of Handel's favorite singers.

1721-22 Balatri accompanied Prince Elector Karl Albrecht on his Grand Tour to Florence and Rome . Back in Munich in October 1722 he participated in the festivities for the wedding of Karl Albrecht with Maria Amalia of Austria , whose singing teacher he subsequently became. Not long afterwards he sang at another princely wedding in Turin at the Teatro Carignano in an opera called Recimero (composer unknown).

Back in Munich he sang Merope (Carnival 1723) and Griselda (October 1723) in Torri's operas - in the latter alongside the young Faustina Bordoni and Bernacchi. Together with the soprano Elisabetta Casolani he had other appearances in Tito Manlio (Carnival 1724), in Porporas Damiro e Pitia (Autumn 1724) and in the Carnival in Porsena in 1725 . Thereupon he was invited to the imperial court in Vienna, where he sang for the birthday of the empress on August 28, 1725 in Caldaras Semiramide in Ascalona , again next to the Bordoni.

After further health problems he went on vacation to Italy from the beginning of 1726 to 1728, where he lived temporarily in Venice, Padua and Verona , made friends with his famous colleague Nicolini and heard and admired the young Farinelli . In the meantime he was at the Carnival in Rome in 1727 and sang Otone in Leonardo Vinci's opera Gismondo at the Teatro delle Dame , alongside Giovan Battista Minelli and Farfallino (Giacinto Fontana).

Since his brother Max Emanuel von Bayern had died in the meantime, on his return to Munich he moved to the chapel of his younger son Johann Theodor , Prince-Bishop of Freising and Regensburg , who was very musical, took singing lessons with Balatri and also played him personally with the house music could accompany on the harpsichord. Overall, the singer led a relatively peaceful life at the court of Johann Theodor.

The death of his brother Ferrante, with whom he had lived for so long but was now back in Italy, hit him particularly hard.

In 1733 Peter Jakob Horemans painted a well-known painting of the prince-bishop's court, in which he depicted a group of musicians in the center, with Filippo Balatri in a red robe sitting at the harpsichord .

Balatri sang in 1737 for the last time in the Munich Court Opera as secondo uomo in La costanza in trionfo ovvero L'Irene by Francesco Peli-Modenese.

The following year he made his detailed will and entered the Cistercian monastery Fürstenfeld as a novice in 1739 at the age of 57 . On 13 July 1741, he was in Ismaning for priests ordained. Three days later he became a monk and took the religious name Theodor - in memory of his former employer Johann Theodor, who had applied for a papal dispensation for him so that he could become a monk as a castrato. As brother Theodor he also had musical duties, became choir director of the monastery and gave music lessons at the monastery school . In 1741 his play Santa Margherita da Cortona was performed in a German translation in the monastery.

Brother Theodor alias Filippo Balatri died on September 10, 1756 in Fürstenfeld.

Appreciation

Filippo Balatri is not one of the most famous castrati in music history and was completely forgotten until the beginning of the 21st century. This is partly due to the fact that he worked primarily as a church singer and as a chamber singer at the Russian and Munich courts, even if he performed in operas mainly in Munich - and rarely elsewhere.

Not to be underestimated are his autobiographical writings an almost unique insight into the life of castrati of Baroque grant and in the customs of his time: his in quatrains rhyming memoirs Frutti del Mondo ... ( Bavarian State Library , Munich) and a not quite complete preserved autobiography in Prose Vita e Viaggi di FB ( Lenin Library , Moscow). In it, Balatri describes his unusual life story and his unhappy love stories with astonishing openness and humor. His memoirs are also of great interest as a contemporary document on life in Russia and at the court of Peter the Great around 1700.

Based on his memoirs and other sources, the writer Christine Wunnicke wrote the first biography on Filippo Balatri entitled The Tsar's Nightingale .

Writings by Filippo Balatri

  • Frutti del Mondo, esperimentati da FB, nativo dell'Alfea in Toscana (autobiography in verse), 2 volumes, 1725–35, manuscript, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
  • Vita e Viaggi di FB (autobiography in prose; incomplete), 9 volumes, 1725–32, Lenin Library, Moscow
  • Primer for a young castrato (lost)
  • Testament, 1737–38, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich
  • Santa Margherita da Cortona in Toscana, Istoria Sacra da rappresentarsi nel venerabil monasterio delli cisterciensi in Campo di Precipe ( Play about Saint Margharete of Cortona), 1741, Library of the Accademia Etrusca, Cortona

literature

  • Irene Brandenburg: Balatri, Ballatri, Filippo , in MGG online , 1999/2016 (full article only with subscription)
  • Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag (edition monacensia), Munich, 2010.

Web links

Commons : Filippo Balatri  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 13
  2. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 126
  3. ↑ In the title of his memoir Frutti del Mondo… . Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 7
  4. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 14
  5. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 15
  6. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 17
  7. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 18–22 and 25
  8. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 21
  9. ↑ a b Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 32–33
  10. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, pp. 39 ff, 67 ff, 72
  11. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 35
  12. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 43–44 and 52 ff
  13. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: Die Nachtigall des Zaren - Das Leben des Kastrat Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 68 (year 1701), p. 73-78 (travel), p. 80 (Orsini), p. 83 and 86 (year 1703)
  14. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 83 and 85–86
  15. ↑ WP = world premiere
  16. ^ Aminta (Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  17. ↑ a b Irene Brandenburg: Balatri, Ballatri, Filippo , in MGG online , 1999/2016 (full article only with subscription)
  18. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 91
  19. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 91-
  20. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 96 ff
  21. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 108
  22. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 109 (Burlington), 110 (Queen Anne)
  23. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 112
  24. ^ Ernelinda (Francesco Gasparini) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  25. ↑ a b Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 122
  26. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 132
  27. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 125 f
  28. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 127
  29. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 129
  30. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 129-131
  31. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 131
  32. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 132
  33. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 133-134
  34. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 136
  35. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 137-138
  36. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 138
  37. ↑ a b Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 140
  38. ^ Tito Manlio (Anonimo) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  39. ↑ Damiro e Pitia, o vero Le gare dell'amicizia e dell'amore (Nicola Porpora) in Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  40. ↑ Porsena (Anonimo) in Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  41. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 141–148 (144: Nicolini; 147: Farinelli)
  42. ↑ Gismondo, re di Polonia (Leonardo da Vinci) in Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  43. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 150
  44. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., pp. 152–154
  45. ↑ a b Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrati Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 155
  46. ^ La costanza in trionfo, o vero L'Irene (Francesco Peli) in the Corago information system of the University of Bologna .
  47. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, pp. 11 and 154
  48. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 11 and 156
  49. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrati Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, p. 11 and 159
  50. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The life of the castrato Filippo Balatri , ..., p. 158
  51. ↑ Christine Wunnicke: The Tsar's Nightingale - The Life of the Castrato Filippo Balatri , Allitera Verlag, Munich, 2010, pp. 7-10
personal data
SURNAME Balatri, Filippo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balatri, Dionisio Filippo (full name); Philippo Palatri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer (soprano, later mezzo-soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1682
PLACE OF BIRTH Alfea ( Pisa ) -
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 1756
Place of death Fürstenfeld Monastery