Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of musical examples
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The Hobart management
- 2 The new managers take control
- 3 Sacchini and the revival of opera seria
- 4 Recruitment procedures and artistic policy
- 5 The King's Theatre in crisis
- 6 The recruitment of Lovattini
- 7 The English community in Rome
- 8 Lucrezia Agujari at the Pantheon
- 9 Caterina Gabrielli
- 10 Rauzzini's last season
- 11 The King's Theatre flourishes
- 12 The Queen of Quavers satire
- 13 Financial management
- 14 Opera salaries
- 15 The sale of 1778
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - The King's Theatre flourishes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables
- List of musical examples
- Acknowledgements
- A note on conventions
- Introduction
- 1 The Hobart management
- 2 The new managers take control
- 3 Sacchini and the revival of opera seria
- 4 Recruitment procedures and artistic policy
- 5 The King's Theatre in crisis
- 6 The recruitment of Lovattini
- 7 The English community in Rome
- 8 Lucrezia Agujari at the Pantheon
- 9 Caterina Gabrielli
- 10 Rauzzini's last season
- 11 The King's Theatre flourishes
- 12 The Queen of Quavers satire
- 13 Financial management
- 14 Opera salaries
- 15 The sale of 1778
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For the 1777–8 season which was to be her last, Brooke recruited two singers from Mannheim, Francesca Danzi (soon to be Madame Le Brun) and Francesco Roncaglia. Again, Burney may have been influential in the choice. When he visited Mannheim in 1772, he singled out Roncaglia as one of the vocal performers of the band who ‘deserve to be distinguished’. Roncaglia had the added advantage of being known to Bach, having sung in Temistocle (November 1772) and Lucio Silla (November 1774). Danzi was described by Burney as a singer of unusual promise: ‘Signora Francesca Danzi a German girl, whose voice and execution are brilliant: she has likewise a pretty figure, a good shake, and an expression as truly Italian as if she had lived her whole life in Italy; in short, she is now a very engaging and agreeable performer, and promises still greater things.’ Her recruitment, as usual with Brooke, was made at least a year in advance. When the Reverend Coxe wrote to Lady Pembroke on 3 February 1777, she had already been hired.
The choice of comic repertoire to supplement the major new opera seria productions by Sacchini and Bach shows the results of Brooke's previous correspondence with Ozias Humphry.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Opera and Drama in Eighteenth-Century LondonThe King's Theatre, Garrick and the Business of Performance, pp. 153 - 165Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001