Giuseppe Belli (singer)

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Giuseppe Belli in his first role as Segimiro (in Arminio von Hasse)
Giuseppe Belli as Licida in Hasse's L'Olimpiade
Giuseppe Belli as Licida in Hasse's L'Olimpiade

Giuseppe Belli , also Giovanni Belli (* before 1752 in Florence , † January 19, 1760 in Naples ) was an Italian opera singer ( castrato / soprano ) at the Saxon court .

Life

Belli had already been engaged by a rescript of July 21, 1752 with 1,400 thalers annual wages to replace the castrato Giovanni Bindi as secundo uomo , who had died in 1750. From January 1, 1753, he received 2200 thalers. He returned to Italy during the Seven Years' War and died in Naples in early 1760.

Note that the first name Giovanni is given in most secondary sources. This is obviously due to an oversight by Moritz Fürstenau , who was otherwise very precise and from whom most of the successors simply copied. Giuseppe is mentioned in the surviving original librettos. Since one can assume that the contemporaries probably knew better what the singer's first name was, it can be assumed that Giuseppe is correct.

During his time in Dresden he took part in the following opera performances by Johann Adolph Hasse :

  • Arminio (first time in Dresden in 1745, WA for the carnival in 1753) - as Segimiro (Belli's first engagement in Dresden!)
  • Solimano (February 5, 1753 in Dresden) - as Acomate
  • L'eroe cinese (October 7, 1753 in Hubertusburg) - as Minteo
  • Artemisia (February 6, 1754 in Dresden) - as Idaspe
  • Ezio (second setting, January 20, 1755 Dresden) - as Varo
  • Il re pastore (first version on October 7, 1755 in Hubertusburg; second version on October 7, 1762 in Warsaw) - as Agenore
  • L'olimpiade (first version on February 16, 1756 in Dresden; second version on December 26, 1764 in Turin) - as Licida

Ernst Ludwig Gerber says that he “moved everyone to tears” with his aria Consola il genitore des Licida. In 1756, in a letter to Gellert, Court Tax Councilor Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener called him the “divine” Belli, which must be kept in Dresden alongside the “immortal” Pilaja .

Both Belli and the singer Caterina Pilaja, however, went back to Italy and appeared again there, again in operas by Johann Adolph Hasse , who had also fled Dresden when the Prussians occupied it, and with whom both obviously also did Kept in contact. Belli first becomes tangible in the carnival season 1757–1758 at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice . Here Belli first sang the role of the title hero in the opera Sesostri by Baldassare Galuppi , which premiered on November 26, 1757. A little over a month later Belli sang the role of Sammete in the opera Le Nitteti by Hasse at the same theater (premiere January 4, 1758).

Johann Joachim Winckelmann reports in a letter to Francke dated September 30, 1758:

“In the evening I go to the operas, which are held in the cities of Italy all summer long. I think I'm in Dresden: Because the Pilaja is singing, and Lenzi and his wife are dancing. The beautiful, yes the most beautiful Belli sings to Lucca. "

According to the libretto, Giuseppe Belli sang the title role in Hasse's Achille in Sciro (after Metastasio), which premiered on November 4, 1759 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, in the carnival season 1759–1760 . Belli is also mentioned as the singer in the libretto for the performance of the completely newly composed (usually called the third version) opera Artaserse planned for January 20, 1760 in Naples . However, one day before the premiere, Belli died. He is said to have been stabbed by a jealous Venetian, as Winckelmann notes in a letter. On January 28, 1760, the funeral service took place in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini , at which numerous "Signori Virtuosi di Musica Napoletani" took part. The musical direction of the funeral was in the hands of the court conductor Giuseppe de Majo .

Winckelmann, who was in Italy at the time, was downright mourning the death of Belli. Since he again focuses on Belli's particular beauty in this letter, one might think that he shared a preference for the singer, as one might suggest to Rabener. In a letter to Baron von Stosch , Winckelmann wrote:

"The beautiful, yes the most beautiful Belli has died, as you will know ... I may be as sorry for him as she is."

After Fürstenau, Belli was also the “darling of the Dresden ladies” in Dresden.

literature

Web links

Commons : Giuseppe Belli  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Commons : Operas by Hasse  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ so z. B. to Eroe Cinese , Solimano , Artemisia , Ezio or Re Pastore or “The King Hidden in the Shepherd”.
  2. ↑ Consola il genitore at youtube.com
  3. ^ In Hasse's L'Olimpiade from 1756, first performance February 16, 1756 Dresden, act 3, scene 7
  4. ↑ The fact that Belli is said to have moved the audience to tears in L'Olimpiade is also reported by Eduard Bernsdorf: Neues Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst . Volume 1. Schaefer, Dresden 1856, p. 363 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ). The reference to Gerber can be found in Fürstenau.
  5. ↑ Christian Felix Weisse (ed.): Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener's letters. Dyck, Leipzig 1772, p. 249 f., January 31, 1756 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  6. ↑ Sesostri by Baldassare Galuppi , world premiere Teatro Grimani Venice - libretto.
  7. ↑ Le Nettiti , setting of Hasse, world premiere Teatro Grimani Venice - libretto . Incidentally, Caterina Pilaja also sang the role of Beroe in the same opera, but in the resumption of the opera at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence from September 5, 1758, cf. the libretto of the revival of Le Nettiti in the setting by Hasse at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence .
  8. ^ JJ Winckelmann: Letter to Johann Michael Francke (1717–1775) of September 30, 1758 from Florence, quoted from: J. Schultze, H. Meyer (Ed.): Winkelmann's Werke. Volume 9: Letters 1747–1761. Berlin: Schlesinger, 1824, p. 308 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
  9. ^ Libretto from the Hasse opera Achille in Sciro , Naples 1759
  10. ^ JJ Winckelmann: Letter to Hieronymus Dietrich Berendis (1720–1783) from February 21, 1761 from Rome, quoted from: Johann Joachim Winckelmann: Briefe: Kritisch-Historische Gesamtausgabe . Volume 2. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1954, p. 121 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  11. ^ Hans-Bertold Dietz: The Dresden-Naples Connection 1737-1763: Charles of Bourbon, Maria Amalia of Saxony, and Johann Adolf Hasse. In: International journal of musicology vol. 5, 1997, ISSN  0941-9535 , pp. 95–144, here p. 124 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  12. ^ JJ Winckelmann: Letter to Baron Philipp von Stosch (1691–1757) of February 6, 1759 [recte 1760] from Rome - quoted from: J. Schultze, H. Meyer (Ed.): Winkelmann's Werke. Volume 9: Letters 1747–1761 . Schlesinger, Berlin 1824, p. 336 ( digitized in the Google book search). Winckelmann erroneously dated the letter to 1759, cf. Johann Joachim Winckelmann: Letters: Critical-Historical Complete Edition , Volume 2. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1954, p. 393 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  13. ^ Moritz Fürstenau: Contributions to the history of music and theater at the Saxon court during the reign of August III. 1733-1763 . In: Leipziger Zeitung - Wissenschaftliche Beilagen, 1856, pp. 483–484 ( digitized in the Google book search)
personal data
SURNAME Belli, Giuseppe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Belli, Giovanni
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian opera singer (castrato / soprano) at the Saxon court
DATE OF BIRTH before 1752
PLACE OF BIRTH Florence
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1760
Place of death Naples