#vittoria tesi

Co-stars & Rivals: V I T T O R I A T E S I 

• _{Stage name: La Moretta, La Fiorentina}
  
• _{Born:Florence, 13 Feb 1700}
  
• _{Died:Vienna, 9 May 1775}
  
• _{Voice:contralto}
  
• _{Personality:Vittoria Tesi was an Italian opera singer and music teacher of the 18th century, endowed by nature with a strong, masculine contralto voice thus she created many travesti parts, In 1738 she refused for a time to sing any more of them on the grunds that ‘acting a male part is bad for her health’. Her operatic career began with performances at Parma and Bologna in 1716. By 1718 she was virtuosa di camera for the Prince of Parma at Venice. The following year she was at Dresden, singing for Antonio Lotti alongside Senesino and Margherita Durastanti, where she performed arias which are generally set for basses. By 1721 she was back in Italy for the Florentine Carnival, and for the next 26 years travelled Europe, with performances in Madrid and possibly Frankfurt. Italy, however, was the nation where she spent most of her time, dividing the years between its various cities. In 1725 in Naples, together with Farinelli, she premiered Hasse’s serenata Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra. Her career peaked in the late 1730s and 1740s, when she sang alongside such singers as Caffarelli; in 1744 she took the title role in Gluck’s Ipermestra and did the same in 1748 in his Semiramide riconosciuta, set to a libretto by Metastasio. This performance persuaded Metastasio of her merits, although previously he had been unenthusiastic, calling her a “grandissima nullità”. After successful performances in Niccolò Jommelli’s Achille in SciroandDidone abbandonata (1749), both set to Metastasian libretti, Tesi began to retire from the stage. In 1751 she became costume director at the Viennese court, where she remained for many years, teaching music as a particular favourite of Countess Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt. Among her pupils were Caterina Gabrielli and Elisabeth Teyber, and she is known to have met not only Casanova but also Mozart and his father.}
  
• _{One fact: Tesi is said tomarry a simple Italian guy, in order to fend off the advances of an undesired nobleman (according to Burney her husband was a “poor journeyman baker” who was picked off the street and paid fifty ducats for marrying the singer, “not with a view to their cohabiting together”.)}
  
• _{One quote: “She was perhaps the first actress who acted well while singing badly"(Sarah Goudar)}
  
• _{One hit:Attendi ad amarmi (Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra)}

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