Niccolò Peretti

Niccolò Peretti (also: Niccola Peretti or Nicolaus Peretti ; * around 1730, † after 1781) was an Italian opera singer ( castrato / alto ), impresario and freemason .

Life

The exact dates of life of the Italian castrato Niccolo Peretti are unknown today. His artistic career, however, is documented through his work as a singer. Peretti first appeared in Venice , where the alto was active from 1745 to 1746 and made his debut in Girolamo Abos ' opera Artaserse . In 1749 he appeared in Turin , where he could be seen at the Teatro Regio until 1752 in roles from Davide Perez ' Il Farnace (Gilade) and Baldassare Galuppi's Il Dario . Two years later, Peretti became a member of the ensemble of the opera company of Giovanni Baptista Locatelli , which was known throughout Europe at the time . a. the young composer Christoph Willibald Gluck had also listened. Like other companies, Locatelli brought opera buffa and opera seria to cities without a permanent theater in the 18th century or gave guest performances, for example in St. Petersburg , Prague or Dresden . During these years Niccolo Peretti was accepted as a Freemason in Prague and later affiliated, probably as part of a guest performance in 1753, to the Freemason Lodge Minerva to the three Palms in Leipzig .

In Hamburg , another station, Peretti then left the Locatellis troupe to found his own Italian opera company and from then on called himself “Principal of the Hamburg Theater”. In 1755 the now impresario led his singers on a successful tour through Northern Germany with performances in Lübeck and Schwerin , where he a. a. Handel performed Tamerlano and even sang the title role as Altkastrat. His artists included the concertmaster Antonio Duri , the singers Dominica Lambertini , Anna Maluccelli , Agatha Sani and Luigi Palesi . In mid-April 1756, Peretti ended the guest performance of his troupe, which had performed two weekly performances, and went back to Hamburg. Here the society dissolved and Peretti did not reappear until 1757 in Amsterdam . His repertoire ranged from the knight Rinaldo in Handel 's opera of the same name (1710/1731), Tamerlan and Andronico, both from Tamerlano , another Handel opera (1724), to Ramiro in Cocchi's drama per musica Nitocri - regina d'Egitto ( 1751) and Ernesto in Galuppi's Il mondo della luna (1750).

In the 1760s Peretti came to London, where he made his first compositional appearance. Together with Thomas Arne , the composer of the still extremely popular Rule, Britannia! , he wrote the opera Artaxerxes in 1762 based on a libretto by Metastasio . The premiere of the play took place in the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the main role of Artaxerxes was written for the old castrat Niccolo Peretti by Arne. He experienced the likely climax of his career in London and shone in numerous title roles. In 1763 he sang together with the well-known Regina Mingotti in Bertoni's Cleonice regina in Siria , a year later he received the leading role in Gian Francesco de Majos Alessandro nell'Indie and also in Handel's Siroe re di persia Peretti sang the title role with Cosroe. During these years, Peretti also appeared several times at the Royal Theater in Dublin , where he also worked as a singing teacher and impresario. His most famous student, the tenor Michael Kelly , wrote about his teacher in his memoir, published in 1826: “Peretti [...] was a vero musico [...]; he told me the beautiful air 'In infancy our hopes and dreams' which was composed for him, and it made an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. He had a fine contralto voice and possessed the true portamento so little know in the present days. ”Peretti's appearances in his role, Artaxerxes, are documented until 1781, after which his trace is lost in the fog of history.

Peretti's mention in the memoirs ( History of My Life ) of Giacomo Casanova , who met the singer twice, in 1748 in Italy and most recently in London in 1763, should be listed as a curiosity : “There was a knock on my door and the alleged Alfani disappeared without my being necessary had to repeat my request. The new visitor was the new castrato who was to invite me to dinner on behalf of the Narici. I thought the invitation was amusing and laughingly accepted it. This castrato and comedian was named Niccola Peretti and claimed to be the grandson of a natural son of Pope Sixtus V , which can very easily be possible. Fifteen years later I will speak of him. "

literature

• Jane Moody, Daniel O'Quinn: The Cambridge companion to British theater, 1730-1830. University Press, Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-85237-1 .
• Carl Stiehl : History of the theater in Lübeck. Lübeck: Borchers 1902 ( digitized version )
• TJ Walsh: Opera in Dublin. 1705-1797. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1973.
• Otto Werner Förster (Ed.): Matriculation of the Freemason Lodge Minerva to the three palms 1741-1932. Taurus-Verlag, Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-9807753-2-1 .