History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time: With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of EuropeEdwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
History
History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time: With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe
Edwards, H. Sutherland (Henry Sutherland)
Opera
Of Caffarelli a curious, and as it seems to me fabulous, story is told
to the effect that for five years Porpora allowed him to sing nothing
but a series of scales and exercises, all of which were written down on
one sheet of paper. According to this anecdote, Caffarelli, with a
patience which did not distinguish him in after life, asked seriously
after his five years' scale practice, when he was likely to get beyond
the rudiments of his art,--upon which Porpora suddenly exclaimed:--"Young
man you have nothing more to learn, you are the greatest singer in the
world." In London, however, coming after Farinelli, Caffarelli did not
meet with anything like the same success.
At Turin, when the Prince of Savoy told Caffarelli, after praising him
greatly, that the princess thought it hardly possible any singer could
please after Farinelli, "To night," exclaimed the sopranist, in the
fulness of his vanity, "she shall hear two Farinellis."
What would the English lady have said to this, who maintained that there
was but "_one_ Farinelli?"
At sixty-five years of age, Caffarelli was still singing; but he had
made an enormous fortune--had purchased nothing less than a dukedom for
his nephew, and had built himself a superb palace, over the entrance of
which he placed the following modest inscription:--
"Amphion THEBAS, ego domum."
"Ille eum, sine tu!"
wrote a commentator beneath it.
* * * * *
Guadagni was the "creator" of the parts of _Telemacco_ and _Orfeo_, in
the operas by Gluck, bearing those names. He sang in London in 1766, at
Venice the year afterwards, when he was made a Knight of St. Mark; at
Potsdam before the King of Prussia, in 1776, &c. Guadagni amassed a
large fortune, though he was at the same time noted for his generosity.
He has the credit of having lent large sums of money to men of good
family, who had ruined themselves. One of these impoverished gentlemen
said, after borrowing the sum of a hundred sequins from him--
"I only want it as a loan, I shall repay you."
"That is not my intention," replied the singer; "if I wanted to have it
back, I should not lend it to you."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: GABRIELLI.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
History of the Opera from its Origin in Italy to the present Time: With Anecdotes of the Most Celebrated Composers and Vocalists of Europe — John Shaqi
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