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Castrati and impresarios in London: two mid-eighteenth-century lawsuits

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 September 2012

Cheryll Duncan
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Abstract

Two King's Bench lawsuits in The National Archives of the UK contain new information about the activities of castrati working in mid-eighteenth-century London. Monticelli v. Sackville (1748) confirms Horace Walpole's testimony that singers employed by the Earl of Middlesex's opera company received enormous salaries. Manfredini v. Geminiani (1751) preserves details of a contract of employment between singer and impresario that went disastrously wrong for both parties. An account of the London careers of the main protagonists is supplied to contextualise the new information.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Opera Journal , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 43 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 See Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., Vice Chamberlain Coke's Theatrical Papers 1706–1715 (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1982), 65Google Scholar.

2 Ibid., 77 and xxiii.

3 Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., ‘Opera Salaries in Eighteenth-Century London’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 46/1 (1993), 26–83, at 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 The Prompter (18 March 1735); quoted in Milhous and Hume, ‘Opera Salaries’, 38.

5 Extensive work on equity lawsuits was carried out by Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D. in the 1990s; see, for example, their ‘Eighteenth-Century Equity Lawsuits in the Court of Exchequer as a Source for Historical Research’, Historical Research, 70 (1997), 231–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Burney, Charles, A General History of Music: From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, ed. Mercer, Frank, 2 vols. (London, 1935; rpt. New York, 1957), II, 839Google Scholar.

7 It has been suggested that the appointment, which paid an annual salary of 2,000 florins, was made as early as 1733; see Highfill, Philip H. Jr, Burnim, Kalman A. and Langhans, Edward A., A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, 16 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1973–93), X, 286Google Scholar. His only known appearances in Vienna were in 1748 and 1749; see Sartori, Claudio, I libretti italiani a stampa dalle origini fino al 1800, 7 vols. (Cuneo, 1990–94)Google Scholar, Indici II: Cantanti, 447.

8 For a detailed account of Middlesex as an impresario, see Taylor, Carole, ‘From Losses to Lawsuit: Patronage of the Italian Opera in London by Lord Middlesex, 1739–45’, Music & Letters, 68 (1987), 1–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Taylor, , ‘Handel's Disengagement from the Italian Opera’, in Handel: Tercentenary Collection, ed. Sadie, Stanley and Hicks, Anthony (London, 1987), 165–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Letter to Lord Lincoln, Sunday 13 September 1741; see Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, ed. Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis et al., 48 vols. (Oxford, 1937–83), XXX, 19. Also among the Italian travellers held up at Calais was the poet Francesco Vanneschi, who had recently been appointed librettist at the King's Theatre.

10 Sartori lists a ‘Faustina Tedeschi’ who may have been the same singer, but no first name is given for her in English sources; see I libretti italiani, Indici II: Cantanti, 631.

11 Letter from George Harris to James Harris dated 26 November 1741, in Burrows, Donald and Dunhill, Rosemary, Music and Theatre in Handel's World: the Family Papers of James Harris, 1732–1780 (Oxford and New York, 2002), 127–8Google Scholar. The Harris family were friends and supporters of Handel.

12 Letter to Thomas, Earl of Haddington, 19 December 1741, printed in Deutsch, Otto Erich, Handel: a Documentary Biography (London, 1955), 528Google Scholar; letter to Horace Mann, Thursday 5 November 1741 in Walpole, Correspondence, XVII, 190.

13 Letter from Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, Tuesday 9 February 1742; see Walpole, Correspondence, XVII, 334. Lady Conway and her husband were listed as subscribers for Middlesex's 1741–2 season; see Taylor, ‘From Losses to Lawsuit’, 23.

14 The London Stage 1600–1800, Part 3, 1729–1747, ed. Scouten, Arthur H., 2 vols. (Carbondale, 1961), II, 983Google Scholar.

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16 McGeary, Thomas and Cervantes, Xavier, ‘From Farinelli to Monticelli: an Opera Satire of 1742 Re-examined’, The Burlington Magazine, 141 (1999), 287–9Google Scholar.

17 No sources of Ceffalo e Procri survive, and Burney comments that ‘the Music was never printed’; see A General History, II, 840. Monticelli presumably took part in this production.

18 Letter to Horace Mann, Wednesday 7 July 1742; see Walpole, Correspondence, XVII, 487. Robert Walpole (Horace's father) had been Prime Minister until 6 February of that year.

19 Taylor, ‘From Losses to Lawsuit’, 11.

20 The latter enjoyed no fewer than seventeen performances that season, a number no doubt boosted by a new body of subscribers drawn from the Dilettanti Society; see Taylor, ‘From Losses to Lawsuit’, 14–15.

21 The Daily Advertiser for that date.

22 Letter to Horace Mann, 4 May 1743; see Walpole Correspondence, XVIII, 226.

23 The London Daily Post, and General Advertiser (6 March 1744).

24 The General Advertiser for 28 March does not specify the composer of Salve Regina, but it may have been by Hasse, whose setting had been performed as part of a concert at the King's Theatre on 26 April 1743.

25 Letter to Isabella, Countess of Denbigh; see Deutsch, Handel, 592. Although there was no opera at the King's Theatre that season, the pasticcio L'incostanza delusa played for ten nights at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket; see below, p. 53.

26 Taylor, ‘From Losses to Lawsuit’, 2 and 16.

27 Diary of George Harris, 1 February 1746; see Burrows and Dunhill, Music and Theatre, 222. There is a small discrepancy between Harris's title and the text Handel actually set in Samson; presumably he meant ‘Return, O God of Hosts!’, one of Micah's arias. Burrows and Dunhill imply that Monticelli sang the piece in translation, but it is more likely that what Harris heard was ‘Ah nò, non voler, mio ben’, a contrafactum of ‘Return, O God of Hosts!’ imported into the Handel pasticcio Rossane, which had been in Monticelli's repertory since 1743; see Dean, Winton, ‘Rossane: Pasticcio or Handel Opera?’, Göttinger Händel-Beiträger, 7 (1998), 143–55Google Scholar.

28 A General History, II, 845.

29 The General Advertiser for that date; Dean, Winton, Handel's Operas 1726–1741 (Woodbridge, 2006), 28Google Scholar.

30 Il trionfo della continenza (London, 1746), Act III scene 5 [Wordbook].

31 Burney, A General History, II, 839.

32 According to a letter from Thomas Steavens to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, dated 9 December 1748, Monticelli was supported in his cause by Lord Burlington; see Walpole, Correspondence, XX, 4–5 n16.

33 The National Archives (henceforth TNA): KB 122/228; Trinity 1748 (21 George II), rot. 748. Trinity was the last of four periods in the year in which the courts sat, the others being Michaelmas (October–November), Hilary (January–February) and Easter. Trinity term began a week and a day after Trinity Sunday, and normally ended on 14 July.

34 At the time Middlesex was MP for the constituency of Old Sarum, which he had held since December 1747; see www.historyofparliament.org/volume/1715-1754/member/sackville-charles

35 Redundant text is omitted from all quotations. The language of the assignment of breach departs somewhat from the standard formula because of Middlesex's parliamentary privilege; normally at this point the defendant would be accused of ‘contriving and fraudulently intending the said [plaintiff] in this behalf craftily and cunningly to deceive and defraud’, but the imputation is omitted here because ‘the lords have adjudged it a very high contempt and misdemeanour in any person to charge them with any species of fraud or deceit’; Impey, John, The New Instructor Clericalis, stating the Authority, Jurisdiction, and Modern Practice of the Court of King's Bench (London, 1782), 340Google Scholar.

36 It was usual to sue for more than the sum owed to allow for costs etc. to be taken into account.

37 Judgment was signed on 17 November following.

38 Charles Avison's Essay on Musical Expression With Related Writings by William Hayes and Charles Avison, ed. Dubois, Pierre (Aldershot, 2004), 39Google Scholar.

39 SirHawkins, John, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music, 2 vols. (New York, 1963), II, 915Google Scholar.

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41 The Daily Post (15 November 1731). On Saturday 11 December the same newspaper comments that ‘several Persons of Distinction and Gentry were at Mr. Geminiani's Consort in Panton-Street near the Hay-Market, which was received with great Applause, to the intire Satisfaction of all the Audience’.

42 London Daily Post, and General Advertiser (21 December 1741). Careri gives the date of the royal command performance as 19 March 1742; there was certainly a concert at the Little Theatre on that night, but evidently it was a benefit for Geminiani and not ‘By Command’; see NGD, IX, 639.

43 The London Evening Post (5 January 1742).

44 Letter of 12 February 1745 from the Fourth Earl of Shaftesbury to James Harris; see Burrows and Dunhill, Music and Theatre, 214.

45 ‘Brivio, Giuseppe Ferdinando’, NGD, IV, 403–4. Six of these arias were published by John Walsh as The Favourite Songs from the Opera Called L'Incostanza Delusa (London, 1745).

46 See Duncan, Cheryll, ‘Geminiani v. Mrs Frederica: Legal Battles with an Opera Singer’, in Geminiani Studies, ed. Hogwood, Christopher (Bologna, in press)Google Scholar.

47 The General Advertiser (2 April 1750). The concert was initially advertised for 6 April, but postponed in order to avoid competing with Handel's Samson at Covent Garden.

48 See ‘Manfredini, Francesco Onofrio’, NGD, XV, 752–3, and Grundy Fanelli, Jean, ‘The Manfredini Family of Musicians of Pistoia, 1684–1803’, Studi Musicali, 26 (1997), 187–232, at 220Google Scholar.

49 The General Advertiser for that date.

50 The General Advertiser for that date. The benefit had originally been planned for 25 April, but the date was changed ‘on Account of the Ball at Ranelagh being fix'd for that Day’; see The General Advertiser (21 April 1750). For Palma, see Highfill, Burnim and Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary, XI, 155. Another possibility is Felippe Palma, who was also active in London around this time.

51 The Bath Journal (22 October 1750). Francis Fleming (1715–78) was an Irish violinist who settled in Bath from 1732; see Kenneth Edward James, ‘Concert Life in Eighteenth-Century Bath’, PhD diss. (University of London, 1987), 606. According to the Earl of Bristol's account book for 1688–1742, Geminiani had visited Bath as early as October 1721; see West Suffolk Record Office, Hervey MS 941/46/13.

52 Libretti a stampa di Baldassare Galuppi (http://italian.opera.org/compositori). Sartori attributes the role to Manfredini only in 1758, when he sang in Verona; see his I libretti italiani a stampa, II, 392.

53 La forza d'amore (London, 1751) [Wordbook]. The published selection of music from the opera included songs by every member of the cast except Manfredini; see Le Delizie dell'Opere, vol. 6 (London, [1776]).

54 The General Advertiser (21 March 1751).

55 The General Advertiser for that date.

56 This was Barbandt's first known public appearance in London; see ‘Barbandt, Charles’, NGD, II, 685.

57 The Public Advertiser (6 April 1753).

58 The General Advertiser (24 January 1752).

59 The General Advertiser for that date. A number of instrumental soloists are also mentioned, including Giardini, Peter Pasqualini and the English oboist Thomas Vincent.

60 The General Advertiser for that date.

61 Bedford Estates Archive, temporary reference: NMR 19/30/2; see Cheryll Duncan, ‘An Eighteenth-century Singing Lesson’ [forthcoming].

62 In Moscow Manfredini took roles in Galuppi's Il conte caramella and Il mondo alla roversa, and established himself as a fashionable singing teacher; see ‘Locatelli, Giovanni Battista’, NGD, XV, 40, and ‘Manfredini, Vincenzo’, NGD, XV, 753. After leaving Russia he settled in Bologna, where he met the Mozart family on their visits to that city in 1770; see Anderson, Emily, ed. (rev. Stanley Sadie and Fiona Smart), The Letters of Mozart and his Family (London, 1985), 123 and 152Google Scholar.

63 TNA: KB 122/244, rot. 495. The scribe of the plea roll consistently spells Manfredini's given name as ‘Guiseppe’, which I have corrected in the transcriptions without further comment.

64 See The London Stage 1600–1800, Part 4, 1747–1776, ed. Stone, George Winchester Jr, 3 vols. (Carbondale, 1962), I, 116 and 175Google Scholar. For an account of Butler's other stage appearances, see Highfill, Burnim and Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary, II, 448.

65 In his answer Geminiani refers to promises and undertakings mentioned ‘secondly, thirdly, fourthly, fifthly and lastly’ in the bill, but his order does not appear to correspond to Manfredini's.

66 In light of this, Enrico Careri's view that Geminiani left Italy in 1714, ‘perhaps never to return’, should be qualified; see NGD, IX, 637.

67 This must have been in respect of Geminiani's previous operatic venture, L'incostanza delusa; see Duncan, Cheryll and Mateer, David, ‘An Innocent Abroad?: Caterina Galli's Finances in New Handel Documents’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 64/3 (Fall 2011), 495–526, at 514CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68 See Hill, Bridget, Servants: English Domestics in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1996), 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lane, Joan, Apprenticeship in England, 1600–1914 (London, 1996), Appendix 1, 249–51Google Scholar.

69 Rosselli, John, Singers of Italian Opera: the History of a Profession (Cambridge, 1992), chap. 5, ‘Training’, especially 92–7Google Scholar.

70 ‘Burney, Charles’, NGD, IV, 639.

71 The third session of the 1747 parliament began on 16 November 1749 and sat until the following 12 April (Maundy Thursday); see www.histparl.ac.uk for the period 1715 to 1754, and Cheney, C. R. (rev. Michael Jones), A Handbook of Dates (Cambridge, 2000), 204Google Scholar.

72 I am grateful to Professors Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume for sharing their thoughts on this matter.

73 ‘Next to the laws protecting copyright, the 1737 act has probably had the most profound influence on English literature of any official measure in the last three centuries’; see Liesenfeld, Vincent J., The Licensing Act of 1737 (Madison, 1984), 3Google Scholar. The full text of the act is given at 191–3.

74 The Queen Anne act is also designated as 13 Anne, c. 26. See the summary in Liesenfeld, The Licensing Act, 163; and Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., eds., A Register of English Theatrical Documents 1660–1737, 2 vols. (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1991), I, 493–4Google Scholar.

75 Text quoted from Thomas, David, ed., Theatre in Europe: a Documentary History. Restoration and Georgian England, 1660–1788 (Cambridge, 1989), 207–8Google Scholar.

76 TNA: KB168/13, s.v. Easter 1752 (25 George II), 20.

77 King, Richard G. and Willaert, Saskia, ‘Giovanni Francesco Crosa and the First Italian Comic Operas in London, Brussels and Amsterdam, 1748–50’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 118/2 (1993), 246–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 The General Evening Post (29 October–1 November 1748); Burney, A General History, II, 848.

79 Burney, A General History, II, 850; for Crosa's later career, see King and Willaert, 264ff.

80 Hawkins, A General History, II, 847.

81 Burney, A General History, II, 993–4.

82 See Duncan, ‘Geminiani v. Mrs Frederica’.

83 See The London Stage, Part 4, I, 135.