Giuseppe Belli, also Giovanni Belli, also known as 'Il Cortoncino' (born 1732[ citation needed ] 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 Cortoncino' (born 1732[ citation needed ] 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: [1]
Ernst Ludwig Gerber relates [2] that he "moved everyone to tears" with Licida's aria Consola il genitore. [3] [4] This aria was especially written for him by Hasse. [5] Gottlieb Wilhelm Rabener called him in a letter to his friend "the divine" Belli. [6] 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" [7]
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. [8] 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. [9]
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." [10] [11]
According to Fürstenau [12] 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.
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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.
Baron Philipp von Stosch or Philippe de Stosch etc. was a Prussian antiquarian who lived in Rome and Florence.
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Johann Adam was a German violist and composer of the Baroque era.
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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 18 other composers in the course of the next 50 years.
Attilio Regolo is an Italian-language opera seria by Johann Adolph Hasse based on the story of Marcus Atilius Regulus, a Roman general taken prisoner in Carthage who elects death rather than ransom. Pietro Metastasio wrote the libretto in 1740 for the birthday of the emperor Charles VI and supplied exacting notes to Hasse for its setting in music, despite the composer's having set several Metastasio librettos before. Hasse completed the score within three months, but the emperor's illness, then death, prevented the opera from being performed. It was not until 12 January 1750 that the premiere took place, at the Opernhaus am Zwinger in Dresden. The role of Regolo was taken by the castrato Domenico Annibali, while the role of Attilia was composed for Hasse's wife Faustina Bordoni.
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.
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