I found a big version of something I posted yesterday… another rock hair infographic.

isolar-2:

David Bowie as Jareth

Cher & Elton, 5min marker doodle.

If you like my art, you can find it also here.
Don’trepost it without crediting me.

3 great composers Farinelli never had worked with:

George Frideric Handel (Georg Friedrich Händel)
(1685-1759) _(source)

3 great composers Farinelli never had worked with:

1. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36)_(source)

(viaFarinelli by Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando - 3D model)

Co-stars & Rivals: CATERINA REGINA MINGOTTI

• _{Born: Naples, 16 Feb 1722}
  
• _{Died: Neuburg an der Donau, 1 Oct 1808}
  
• _{Voice:soprano}
  
• _{Personality: Regina Mingotti was an Italo-German singer. Her early life is known almost wholly from her account to Burney in 1772, which is inaccurate in at least one important respect. According to this, she was the daughter of a German officer in the Austrian service at Naples and was educated in a convent at Grätz in Silesia. She attributed her firm intonation to the abbess, who made her practise scales without keyboard accompaniment. According to Prota-Giurleo she was the sister of the composer Michelangelo Valentini, hence presumably Italian, and may have had an early, undocumented Italian career. Her first recorded appearances were in Hamburg from 1743 to 1747, as a leading member of a notable company run by the impresario Pietro Mingotti, whom she married but soon parted from. She scored an immediate success in Dresden (1747), where she was kept on by the Saxon court and studied with Porpora. She sang in Naples, Prague, Madrid, Paris and London, where she took over the management of the Kings Theatre together with the leader of the orchestra, Felice Giardini, and incurred much obloquy. Her retirement was spent at Dresden, then Munich, and finally Neuburg, where her son Samuel von Buckingham was inspector of forests; he was apparently born (in London) of a liaison with a Piedmontese nobleman. Burney called her perfect mistress of her art, always grand in her style though lacking in grace and softness; her practical musical intelligence, he wrote, was equal to that of any composer he had known. She was admired as an actress, particularly in the breeches roles she often sang.Her portrait in crayons, by Mengs, is in the Dresden Gallery. It represents her, when young, with a piece of music in her hand; and, if faithful, it makes her more nearly beautiful than it was easy for those who knew her later in life to believe her ever to have been. ‘She is painted in youth, plumpness, and with a very expressive countenance.’}
  
• _{One fact: In 1751 Mingotti went to Spain, where she sang with Gizziello in the operas directed by Farinelli, who was so strict a disciplinarian that he would not allow her to sing anywhere but at the Opera, nor even to practise in a room that looked on the street.}
  
• _{One quote: ‘She spoke three languages, German, French, and Italian, so well that it was difficult to say which of them was her own. English she likewise spoke, and Spanish, well enough to converse in them, and understood Latin; but, in the three languages first mentioned, she was truly eloquent.’ Charles Burney}
  
• _{One hit:Ah, se provar mi vuoi (Attilio Regolo)}
  
  

Co-stars & Rivals: ANTONIO MARIA BERNACCHI

• _{Born: 23 June 1685}
  
• _{Died: 1 March 1756}
  
• _Voice:alto
  
• _{Personality: Antonio Maria Bernacchi was an Italian castrato, composer, and teacher of singing. He studied with Francesco Antonio Pistocchi. His pupils included Farinelli, for a brief period during 1727, and the tenor Anton Raaff. Nowadays Bernacchi is best remembered for his association with the composer George Frideric Handel, in six of whose operas he sang. Bernacchi began his operatic career in Genoa in 1703. His appointment in 1714 as virtuoso to Prince Antonio Farnese led to widespread recognition throughout Europe, and he performed in operas by various famous composers of the day, including Hasse, Vinci, and Scarlatti. He was an especially frequent visitor to the theatres of Venice, appearing in more than twenty operas in that city between 1712 and 1724. In 1729 Handel took Bernacchi as his primo uomo for the second Royal Academy, in place of the departed Senesino. For Handel, Bernacchi created roles in Lotario (1729) and Partenope (1730). Despite his fine European reputation, Bernacchi’s success in England was mixed: though Charles Burney praised his intelligence as a singer, English audiences preferred Senesino. Though his natural musical gifts were not exceptional, he was renowned for technical virtuosity, especially in ornaments and cadenzas. He was accused of sacrificing expression to execution and adopting an instrumental style; his old master Pistocchi is said to have exclaimed: “I taught you to sing, and you want to play”. Bernacchi retired from the stage in 1738 and founded a famous singing school at Bologna. He died in 1756 in the city of his birth.}
  
• _{One fact: In 1727 at Bologna Bernacchi had a contest with the famous Farinelli in a performance of La Fedelta (the later title of Orlandini’sAntigona). Though the younger Farinelli dazzled the audience with an elaborate cadenza, Bernacchi sang an even more higly embellished and polished aria that carried the day. The two castrati were rivals, yet thet become good friends and sang together frequently. Bernacchi taught some of his secrets to Farinelli, and the latter arranged a fine memorial service for his colleague after his death.}
  
• _{One quote: Bernacchi has a vast compass, his voice mellow and clear, but not so sweet as Senesino, his manner better; his person not so good, for he is as big as a Spanish friar. (Mary Granvile)}
  
• _{One hit: Dal mio ben che tanto amai (Demetrio)}

Co-stars & Rivals:  M A R I A N N A B U L G A R E L L I

• _{Stage name: La Romanina}
  
• _Born:1684
  
• _{Died: 26 February 1734}
  
• _{Voice:soprano}
  
• _{Personality: Marianna Bulgarelli, also known as Maria Anna Benti, was an Italian soprano of the 18th century. Bulgarelli was born and died in Rome; hence her nickname, “La Romanina.” She was a popular and successful singer of opera seria, renowned for her acting ability in particular. The singer is best remembered as a patron of the youthful Metastasio, whose work she encouraged and helped to develop. At her request Metastasio gave up the law and composed his first melodramma, a lyric tragedy in three acts on the conflict of love and duty, called Didone abbandonata (1723, first performance 1724). In Bulgarelli’s salon Metastasio formed his lifelong friendship with the castrato male soprano Farinelli and came to know such composers as Nicola Porpora (from whom he took music lessons), Domenico Sarro, and Leonardo Vinci, who were later to set his works to music. Meanwhile La Romanina was growing older; she had ceased to sing in public; and the poet felt himself more and more dependent in an irksome sense upon her kindness. In September 1729 he received the offer of the post of court poet to the theater at Vienna. La Romanina unselfishly sped him on his way to glory. She took the charge of his family in Rome; and he set off for Austria. Bulgarelli probably died suddenly upon the road from Rome to Vienna in 1734, after reading Metastasio’s letter that dissuaded her from the projected visit in Austria. All we know is that she left him her fortune after her husband’s life interest in it had expired, and that Metastasio, overwhelmed with grief and remorse, immediately renounced the legacy. This disinterested act plunged the Bulgarelli-Metastasio household at Rome into confusion. La Romanina’s widower married again. Leopoldo Trapassi, and his father and sister, were thrown upon their own resources.}
  
• _{One fact: In honour of the birthday of the Empress of Austria, Metastasio composed Gli orti esperidi (1721), but kept his authorship secret. Gli orti esperidi, which was set to music by Nicola Porpora, and sung by Porpora’s pupil, the castrato Farinelli, won the most enthusiastic applause. The Roman prima donna, Marianna Bulgarelli, who played Venus in this serenata, spared no pains until she had discovered its author. and soon became enamoured of the poet.}
  
• _{One quote: La Romanina was a great actress, and Metastasio himself learned from her the most admirable theatrical situations, such as that of jealousy in scenes XIV and XV of the second act of Didone, which weer entirely the invention of the singer (Saverio Mattei)}
  
• _{One hit: Son fra l'onde in mezzo al mare (Gli orti esperidi)}

Co-stars & Rivals: G I Z Z I E L L O

• _{Real name: Gioacchino Conti}
  
• _{Born:Arpino, 28 Feb 1714}
  
• _{Died:Rome, 25 Oct 1761}
  
• _{Voice:soprano}
  
• _{Personality:Conti was one of the greatest of 18th-century singers. He was an exceptionally high soprano with a compass of at least two octaves (c’ to c’“) and the only castrato for whom Handel wrote a top C.His nicknames derived from Domenico Gizzi, who taught him singing. Conti’s début at Rome in Vinci’s Artaserse (1730) was a spectacular success. His subsequent career led him throughout Italy, as well as abroad. In 1736–37 he was in London, where he had been engaged by George Frideric Handel, with whom he would build a profitable collaboration. The press reported that he met with an uncommon Reception; the poet Gray admired him ‘excessively’ in every respect except the shape of his mouth, which ‘when open, made an exact square’. Gizziello sang at many premieres for the best and most famous musicians of his time, including Niccolò Jommelli, Baldassare Galuppi  and Johann Adolf Hasse. In 1749 he was invited by Farinelli to sing at Madrid with Mingotti; and stayed there three years. Conti always remained in good terms with Farinelli, who repeatedly invited him to Spain, terming him "Antiguo amigo” (longtime friend). From 1752 to 1755 he was employed by the Lisbon court theatre and sang in many operas, most of them by Perez; he is said to have narrowly escaped with his life from the Lisbon earthquake (1755), and was impressed with such a religious turn by the tremendous calamity, that he retreated to a monastery, where he ended his days (Burney), but not before he had imparted much sage and practical counsel to Guadagni. His retirement may, however, have been due to ill-health.} 
  
• _{One fact:  In character Conti was the antithesis of Caffarelli, being as gentle as the latter was overbearing. However, a colourful anecdote relates how Caffarelli, rode post-haste to Rome from Naples just to attend incognito Conti’s debut; and full of enthusiasm eventually yelled at him: “Bravo, bravissimo Gizziello, it’s Caffariello who’s telling you!”}
  
• _{One quote: Gizziello was ‘so modest and diffident, that when he first heard Farinelli, at a private rehearsal, he burst into tears, and fainted away with despondency’ (Burney)}
  
• _{One hit:Non sono sempre vane larve (Arminio)}
  

_{Farinelli in an advanced age - portrait by Corrado Giaquinto, Museo Diocesano, Molfetta (not sure about the date though)}

‘Mister Farinelli still lives and is in good health and spirits. I found him much younger in appearance than I expected. He is extremely tall and thin and has a youthful air and he seems by no means infirm’ (Charels Burney, 1773)

The brief history of Castrati - part three ^{_{(part one,part two)}}

Serious opera in the first two-thirds or so of the 18th century was dominated by a succession of famous castratos, of whom Nicolo Grimaldi (’Nicolini’), Antonio Maria Bernacchi, Francesco Bernardi (’Senesino’), Carlo Broschi (’Farinelli’), Giovanni Carestini, Gaetano Majorano (’Caffarelli’) and Gaetano Guadagni are only the best known. Such artists could command engagements in one European capital after another at unprecedented fees - in Turin the primo uomo’s fee for the carnival season was sometimes equal to the annual salary of the prime minister - while they also kept, as insurance, permanent appointments in a monarch’s chapel choir or a cathedral, and some of them performed there regularly.

Their achievements are now difficult to gauge. Their command of vocal agility -  of trills, runs and ornamentation, especially in the da capo section of an aria   was clearly central to their success. So, at least for some, was a phenomenally wide range: Farinelli is said to have commanded more than three octaves (from c to d’“), others more than two, though, like some modern sopranos and tenors, they were apt to lose the upper part of their range as their careers wore on. It would, however, be a mistake to regard leading castratos as vocal acrobats and no more. Command of pathetic singing - soft, laden with emotion, powered by controlled devices such as messa di voce - was highly regarded: it was, for instance, central to the reputation of Gasparo Pacchiarotti. Nor was acting ability ignored: Guadagni’s performance as Gluck’s original Orpheus was thought deeply affecting. The issue is clouded by the habit of commentators through most of the 18th century of bemoaning the supposed decadence of opera through an excessive cult of vocalism and ornamentation. This was in part a literary convention. The cult flourished, and was in practice forwarded by some of those who decried it.

Another contemporary habit that needs to be guarded against is that of mocking the castratos as grotesque, extravagant, inordinately vain near-monsters. This was in part a nervous reaction against a phenomenon experienced as sexually threatening twice over: the fact of castration was disconcerting in itself, yet according to legend (held by most modern medical opinion to be baseless, though perpetuated, along with much traditional obfuscation, in the 1995 film Farinelli) castratos could perform sexually all the better for the loss of generative power. In part the mockery visited upon castratos was roused by highly paid star singers in general, among whom they were the most prominent. Because of their musical education they often did well as teachers; some who had also had a general education acted in retirement, or even during their singing careers, as antiquarian, booksellers, diplomats, or officials in royal households.

The brief history of Castrati - part two _{(part one)}

From about 1680 the expectation, eventually the rule, was that the leading male part in a serious opera (primo uomo) should be sung by a castrato; there might be a less important secondo uomo part, also for a castrato, with tenors singing the parts of kings and old men. This was also the period when Italian opera came to be given fairly regularly both in Italy and in those parts of Europe under Italian musical influence - in the German-speaking countries and the Iberian peninsula, from about 1710 in London, from the 1730s in Sankt Petersburg. The best castratos therefore became international stars, welcomed and highly paid in all the leading courts and capital cities, with the notable exception of Paris (where, after Cardinal Mazarin’s attempts at importation in the mid-17th century, they were not allowed to appear in opera; some leading castratos gave concerts when they were passing through, and some much more modest ones remained on the king’s musical establishment as church singers until the Revolution).

The reasons for this new dominance of the castrato voice are interrelated. Italian composers of the period 1680 - 1720 began to write operas calling for more technically demanding coloratura singing; the range expected of leading singers widened, and the tessitura generally rose, as it was to go on doing (for both men and women) through most of the 18th century. Virtuoso castratos were now available in numbers in the service of princes who promoted frequent opera seasons: Giovanni Francesco Grossi (”Siface”) and Francesco Antonio Mamiliano Pistocchi were only the most prominent among a new group of star singers. It was still possible at this time for a famous castrato not to sing in opera at all, like Giovanni Battista Merola, active in Naples in the late 17th century, or, like Matteo Sassano (”Matteuccio”), whose career lasted from 1684 to 1711, to do so only occasionally. But from then on a famous castrato was in the first place an opera singer. Church choirs had increasingly to grant their best castratos leave to sing in opera.

Castratos occasionally appeared in comic opera but (outside Rome) normal voices were there the rule. In the newly refined genre of serious opera, on the other hand, the castrato voice with its special brilliance appears to have struck contemporaries as the right medium to convey nobility and heroism. Objections, when they came, were to the incongruity of castratos in general - or, on moral grounds, to their singing of womens parts - rather than to their appearance as heroes or lovers.