Brigida Banti


Brigida Giorgi, better known by her husband's surname and her stage-name, as Brigida Banti was an Italian soprano.

Biography

Obscure beginnings

Her origins are rather obscure and the data on her birth are very dubious: she is thought to have been born in Crema, Lombardy, but some sources say she may have been born in Monticelli d'Ongina, a village in the province of Piacenza, which is located nearer to Cremona, in 1756 or possibly in 1758. She is the daughter of Carlo Giorgi, a street mandolin player; she too started her career as a street singer, either following her father around, or, according to different accounts, joining in with the double-bassist Domenico Dragonetti, when he was still a boy. The only established fact is that, in 1777–1778, on her travels around southern Europe, she reached Paris where a meeting with an important person in the profession completely was to change her life. However, sources are at variances as to the identity of that person. According to some of them, it was composer Antonio Sacchini, who quickly trained her and introduced to the Opéra Comique, while other sources suggest that she caught the attention of , the shortly to-be Director of the Académie Royale de Musique, and the Opéra ought to have been the theatre she was engaged for. Details about her Parisian sojourn are scant and uncertain. She moved to London at an undetermined date, and there she met dancer and choreographer Zaccaria Banti, whom she married in Amsterdam in 1779 and whose surname she adopted as her stage-name.

The great European career

After dropping round in Vienna in 1780, Banti decided to return to Italy when she was engaged at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice for the 1782–1783 carnival season. Her performances in the premières of Piramo e Tisbe by Francesco Bianchi, and Attalo, re di Bitinia by Giuseppe Sarti, as well as in a revival of Bertoni’s were very successful by all accounts, raising enthusiasm in a listener out of the ordinary, such as the Irish tenor Michael Kelly. After Venice, she later sang in Turin, Milan, in Venice again, and also, in 1786-1787, in Warsaw, where she performed in operas gy Giordani, Persichini and Tarchi. Finally, in the same 1787, she arrived at Teatro San Carlo in Naples, where she created the role of Sofonisba in Bianchi’s Scipione Africano, and also interpreted operas by Paisiello, Anfossi and Guglielmi. In 1789 Banti returned to Venice’s Teatro San Benedetto where she was the first protagonist of Anfossi’s Zenobia in Palmira, which became one of her favourite roles, as well as Semiramide, a character she created in Bianchi’s La vendetta di Nino, at the end of the following year. In June 1792 she took part in the inauguration of the new theatre La Fenice in Venice, opposite the castrato Gaspare Pacchierotti, in the first performance of Paisiello’s I giuochi d'Agrigento.
After a brief season in Madrid in 1793, from 1794 to 1802 she was engaged, as the leading soprano, at London’s King’s Theatre, where she made her début as Semiramide in La vendetta di Nino. There she met Lorenzo Da Ponte, who later reported she had been vulgar, impudent, dissolute and even a drunkard. Specifically, he said that she was "ignorant, foolish and insolent", and that she "took to theatre, where only her voice had led her, all habitudes, manners and morals of an impudent Corisca". He also credited her with a sexual relationship with William Taylor, manager of the King’s Theatre. After getting back to Italy in 1802 autumn, owing to Elizabeth Billington’s return to her country, she remained in demand on stage for some years both at La Scala and at la Fenice. With her health failing, her voice was getting more and more spoilt. She was forced to retire even though it would be very shortly before her premature death, in 1806. So marvellous and so powerful her very voice had been that her corpse was eventually subjected to an autopsy which revealed two extraordinarily large lungs. She has a painted tomb monument at the Certosa of Bologna.
Her son Giuseppe would publish a short biography of her, some sixty years later, in 1869.

Critical response

A real naturally talented phenomenon: this could be Banti’s summary description. Destitute of any musical education, she had a terrific ear and used to learn parts by heart just listening to their execution a couple of times. Her contemporaries, from the mentioned tenor Kelly, to the painter Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun, to the great connoisseur of singing, Lord Mount Edgcumbe, agreed in praising her qualities. Mount Edgcumbe, for instance, wrote in his “Musical Reminiscences”: Her voice was of most extensive compass, rich and even, and without a fault in its whole range – a true voce di petto throughout ". She possessed, in fact, an exceedingly powerful voice, with an exquisite timbre and such remarkable flexibility, that she could fearlessly confront any kind of coloratura.
Her singing style, according to sharpest comment by Vigée-Le Brun, was very similar to the castrato Pacchiarotti’s ; which meant she was able to excel at expressive intensity. In spite of her basic theoretical ignorance and her vulgar manners, Banti, owing to her natural talent, succeeded in growing a highly refined cantatrice and was able to shrink from outward appearance, from superficiality, and, in a word, from the decay of vocal taste which marked the 18th century’s second half. Thus, she took her firm stand by the side of those even-aged or younger singers that, by re-establishing the good singing habits of yore, paved the way for Rossini bel canto’s near developments.

Roles created and significant performances

The following is a list of significant performances of Banti’s career.
roleoperagenrecomposertheatrepremière’s date
EmirenaAttalo Re di Bitiniadramma per musica Giuseppe SartiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto26 December 1782
TisbePiramo e Tisbedramma per musicaFrancesco BianchiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto3 January 1783
IppodamiaBriseidedramma per musica Francesco BianchiTurin, Nuovo Teatro Regio27 December 1783
EmiraAmaionnedramma per musicaTurin, Nuovo Teatro Regio24 January 1784
AriannaBacco e Ariannafesta teatrale Angelo TarchiTurin, Nuovo Teatro Regio20 May 1784
AdelinaIl disertore francesedramma per musica Francesco BianchiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto26 December 1784
CleofideAlessandro nell'Indiedramma per musica Francesco BianchiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto28 January 1785
AriciaFedradramma per musicaGiovanni PaisielloNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo1 January 1788
DeboraDebora e Sisaraazione sacra per musica Pietro Alessandro GuglielmiNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo13 February 1788
ArmidaIl Rinaldodramma per musicaNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo4 November 1788
MarziaCatone in Uticadramma per musicaGiovanni PaisielloNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo1 January 1789
ErismenaMontezumapastiche Giacomo Insanguine, Josef Myslivecek, Gian Francesco de Majo,
Baldassarre Galuppi and Nicola Zingarelli		Venice, Teatro San Benedetto
ZenobiaZenobia di Palmiradramma per musica Pasquale AnfossiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto26 December 1789
EuterpeL'armoniacantataPasquale AnfossiVenice, Teatro San Benedetto11 January 1790
ZenobiaZenobia in Palmiradramma per musicaGiovanni PaisielloNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo30 May 1790
SemiramideLa vendetta di Ninodramma per musica Francesco BianchiNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo12 November 1790
CoraPizzarro nelle Indieopera seriaMarcello Bernardini “Marcello da Capua”Naples, Real Teatro San Carlo23 January 1791
EmiliaLucio Papiriodramma per musica Naples, Real Teatro San Carlo30 May 1791
BriseideBriseideoperaFerdinando RobuschiNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo13 August 1791
AntigonaAntigonaopera seriaPeter von WinterNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo4 November 1791
AchinoaGionataoratorio Niccolò PiccinniNaples, Real Teatro San Carlo4 March 1792
AspasiaI giuochi d'Agrigentodramma per musica Giovanni PaisielloVenice, Teatro alla Fenice 16 May 1792
AstasiaTarara o sia La virtù premiatadramma per musica Francesco BianchiVenice, Teatro alla Fenice26 December 1792
InesInes de Castrodramma per musicaGiuseppe Giordani "Giordaniello”Venice, Teatro alla Fenice28 January 1793
AlcesteAlceste ossia il trionfo dell' amor conjugaleopera seriaChristoph Willibald GluckLondon, King's Theatre in the Haymarket30 April 1795
AntigonaAntigonadramma per musicaFrancesco BianchiKing`s Theatre Hay-Market24 May 1796
EvelinaEvelina, or the Triumph of the English over the Romansserious operaAntonio SacchiniLondon, King's Theatre in the Haymarket10 January 1797
ZenobiaZenobiadramma per musica Richard Mount-EdgcumbeLondon, King's Theatre in the Haymarket22 May 1800
InesInes de Castrodramma serio per musicaVittorio TrentoLeghorn, Imperial Regio Teatro degli Avvalorati9 November 1803
Clearco I riti d'Efesodramma eroico per musicaGiuseppe FarinelliVenice, Teatro alla Fenice26 December 1803
Arsace Arsace e Semiradramma eroico Venice, Teatro alla Fenice