Giovanni Battista Rubini

Giovanni Battista Rubini lithograph by Josef Kriehuber , 1828

Giovanni Battista Rubini (born April 27, 1795 in Romano di Lombardia ; † March 2, 1854 ibid) was an Italian opera singer (tenor).

Life

Rubini comes from a simple but musical family. As a child, he learned to play the violin and sing with his family. His artistic career began as a chorister and violinist at the Teatro Riccardo (today Teatro Donizetti) in Bergamo and he then appeared on various stages in Italy in minor roles. In 1816 he was engaged in Naples by the famous opera impresario Domenico Barbaja , who was responsible for the enormous successes of Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini . Rubini contributed significantly to these successes in Naples, Milan and Vienna until 1831. He later sang alternately in Paris (autumn and winter) and London (spring). In 1821 he married the French singer Adelaide Chomel (1796–1874), who later called herself Comelli. Since 1843, after making a concert tour through Germany and Holland with Franz Liszt , he sang in St. Petersburg with great success . Tsar Nicholas I appointed him General Singing Director. However, he soon had to leave Russia because of the climate that damaged his voice. In his hometown he acquired extensive property and the title of duke and had a castle-like retirement home built. Today there is a memorial for Rubini. At the time of his death, he left an enormous fortune of 3.5 million francs.

Artistic personality

Rubini was as famous in his day as Enrico Caruso was in later days. At the beginning of the 19th century, the castrati finally resigned from the opera stage and a new tenoral style of singing, influenced by Rubini, dominated the operatic world. Thanks to his enormous range, Rubini advanced into the realm of contralto , and his singing exhibited a softness and sweetness that had never been heard before. He celebrated triumphs in Rossini's La Cenerentola , Otello and La donna del lago . He had a special artistic relationship with Vincenzo Bellini , who adapted the tenor roles of Bianca e Fernando , I Puritani , Il pirata and La sonnambula to Rubini's possibilities. His high tenor (tenorino) and his ease in the highest registers led to roles that are difficult to fill even today. He coined the early Belcanto style , which featured a mixture of chest resonance and a strong falsetto , a style of singing that is frowned upon today, but was valued as particularly cultivated in those years. Far before Benjamino Gigli he took up the sob in his expression palette. In Donizetti's Marino Faliero he appeared together with Giulia Grisi , Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache . As a singer, Rubini was an early representative of the romantic style of a Donizetti or Vincenzo Bellini. He was an exceptional bel canto interpreter and one of the most famous singers in Europe between 1820 and 1840. The CD by tenor Juan Diego Flórez pays homage to Rubini : Arias for Rubini (under Roberto Abbado , Decca: 2007)

literature

• Meyers Konversations Lexikon , 5th edition, 14th volume
• Stefan Zucker: Last of a Breed: Giovanni Battista Rubini Ruled as the Paragon of Virtuoso Tenors, King of the High F’s . In: Opera News . February 13, 1982.
• Henry Pleasants: Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854) . In: Opera Quarterly . No. 10.2, August, p. 101 ›‹ 104.
• Carlo Traini: Il cigno di Romano. Giovanni Battista Rubini, Re dei tenori , 1954
• Bruce Brewer: Il cigno di Romano - Giovanni Battista Rubini: a Performance Study Journal of the Donizetti Society vol. 4, 1980.
• Bruno Cassinelli, Antonio Maltempi, Mario Pozzoni: Rubini, l'uomo e l'artista , Cassa rurale ed artigiana di Calcio e di Covo, Romano di Lombardia 1994 (2 vv.)

Web links

Commons : Giovanni Battista Rubini  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Sito brasiliano dedicato a Rubini ( Memento from January 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
• James Harp: Rubini, the Tenor ( Memento of September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive )