Giuseppe Belli, also Giovanni Belli, also known as 'Il Cortonesino' (born 1732 [1] in Cortona; died 19 January 1760) was an Italian castrato-soprano singer at the Saxon court.
Giuseppe Belli, also Giovanni Belli, also known as 'Il Cortonesino' (born 1732 [1] in Cortona; died 19 January 1760) was an Italian castrato-soprano singer at the Saxon court.
In 1752 Belli replaced the castrato Giovanni Bindi who had died in 1750 as secundo uomo in Dresden. That was the beginning of his career. During the Seven Years' War he returned to Italy, and died in Naples at the beginning of 1760, when he was fatally stabbed one day before the premiere of Johann Adolph Hasse's new opera.
During his time in Dresden, he performed at the following operas by Hasse: [2]
Ernst Ludwig Gerber relates [3] that he "moved everyone to tears" with Licida's aria Consola il genitore. [4] [5] This aria was especially written for him by Hasse. [6] Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener called him in a letter to his friend "the divine" Belli. [7] Belli was also loved for his incredible beauty (by German men and women equally). He was tall (as all castrati were), lean, with pale complexion, face like an angel and big eyes. As Johann Joachim Winckelmann reports in a letter to his friend on 30 September 1758:
"In the evening I am going to the opera [....] I am in Dresden, for the Pilaja is singing, and Lenzi and his wife are dancing. The beautiful, indeed the most beautiful, Belli is going to sing today" [8]
But when the Seven Years' War started, he, Hasse and many other singers went to Italy. Belli remained in contact with Hasse and continued to sing for him. But one day before the premiere of Hasse's new opera (or rather, newly-rewritten opera) Artaserse , Belli died, stabbed by a jealous Venetian, as Winckelmann notes in a letter. [9] On 28 January 1760, the funeral service took place in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Naples, where numerous "Signori Virtuosi di Musica Napoletani" participated. The musical direction of the funeral service lay in the hands of the Court Kapellmeister Giuseppe de Majo. [10]
Winckelmann, who was in Italy at the time, was truly saddened by the death of Belli. In his letter, he again refers to the particular beauty of Belli: one might think that he shared a predilection for the singer, as might be suggested by Rabener. In a letter to Baron von Stosch he wrote about Belli's death:
"The beautiful, indeed the most beautiful, Belli has died, as you will know ... I mourn as much about him as she does." [11] [12]
According to Fürstenau [13] Belli was also the "favourite of the ladies in Dresden" (especially for his fine voice and beautiful face).
Johann Joachim Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. "The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history. He was one of the first to separate Greek Art into periods, and time classifications.
Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and a friend of librettist Pietro Metastasio, whose libretti he frequently set, Hasse was a pivotal figure in the development of opera seria and 18th-century music.
Antonio Lotti was an Italian composer of the Baroque era.
Johann Adam Hiller was a German composer, conductor and writer on music, regarded as the creator of the Singspiel, an early form of German opera. In many of these operas he collaborated with the poet Christian Felix Weiße.
Adam Friedrich Oeser was a German etcher, painter and sculptor.
L'Olimpiade is an opera libretto in three acts by Metastasio originally written for an operatic setting by Antonio Caldara of 1733. Metastasio’s plot vaguely draws upon the narrative of "The Trial of the Suitors" provided from Book 6 of The Histories of Herodotus, which had previously been the base for Apostolo Zeno's libretto Gli inganni felici (1695). The story, set in Ancient Greece at the time of the Olympic Games, is about amorous rivalry and characters' taking places to gain the loved one. The story ends with the announcement of two marriages.
Carlo Besozzi was an Italian oboist composer and member of an extensive family of oboists from the eighteenth-century Naples. Nephew of Gaetano Besozzi, he was employed in the orchestra of the Elector of Dresden and travelled extensively throughout Europe with his father, playing in London, Paris, Stuttgart and Salzburg, where he received good notices from Leopold Mozart.
Giuseppe Aprile was an Italian castrato singer and music teacher. He was also known as 'Sciroletto' or 'Scirolino'.
Moritz Ludwig Carl Ignaz Franz August Fürstenau was a German flautist and music historian. He left only a few works that gained little significance, but was extremely helpful as a theater historian.
Antonio Besozzi (1714–1781) was an Italian oboist and composer and also member of an extensive family of musicians from the eighteenth-century Naples. He composed several concertos for oboe and a few quintets, which he called "sonatas", for two oboes, two horns and a bassoon.
Adriano in Siria is a libretto by Italian poet Metastasio first performed, with music by Antonio Caldara, in Vienna in 1732, and turned into an opera by at least 60 other composers during the next century. Metastasio based the background of the story on late Classical works by Cassius Dio and Elio Sparziano.
Johann Adam was a German violist and composer of the Baroque era.
Artaserse is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian libretto adapted from that by Metastasio by Giovanni Boldini first shown in Venice on 11 February 1730.
Il re pastore is a 1751 Italian-language opera libretto written by Metastasio. It was first set by Giuseppe Bonno in 1751, but best known today in the version by Gluck (1756) and the Il re pastore of Mozart (1775).
Teresa Albuzzi-Todeschini was an Italian opera singer (contralto) who performed in Germany.
Solimano is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian-language libretto by Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca. Loosely based on an episode in the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, the opera premiered on 5 February 1753 at the Opernhaus am Zwinger in Dresden. The lavish production featured set designs by Giuseppe Galli Bibiena. The tenor Angelo Amorevoli sang the title role.
Giovanni Ambrogio Migliavacca was an Italian poet and librettist. A student and protégé of Metastasio, he was primarily active in the court theaters of Dresden and Vienna. His most successful work was the libretto for the opera Solimano, first set by Johann Adolph Hasse in 1753 and subsequently set by eighteen other composers in the following decades.
Il Ruggiero is an opera in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. It was first staged on 16 October 1771 for the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand Karl with Maria Beatrice d'Este in the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan. It was both Metastasio's last libretto and Hasse's last opera, as well as the thirty-second Metastasio libretto Hasse had set to music.
Santa Stella was an Italian soprano. She was also known as Santa Stella Scarabelli and after her marriage to Antonio Lotti on 12 February 1714 as Santa Lotti or La Santini.
Angelo Maria Monticelli was an Italian castrato, appearing in operas in Italy, Vienna, Dresden, and from 1741 to 1746 in London.
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