Benutzer:Haendelfan/Senesino

Senesino [Bernardi, Francesco] (b Siena; d ?Siena, by 27 Jan 1759). Italian alto castrato. His nickname was derived from his birthplace. He sang operatic roles in many Italian theatres: in Venice, 1707–8 (including operas by G.M. Ruggeri and G. Boniventi) and 1713–14 (in Lotti’s Irene Augusta and two operas by C.F. Pollarollo), Vicenza (1708, 1714), Bologna in 1709 (in Caldara’s L’inimico generoso) and in 1712, Genoa (1709–12), Rome (1711, in Pietro Ottoboni’s private theatre), Reggio nell’Emilia (1712–13, 1715, 1717), Ferrara (1712), Brescia (1714), Florence (1715), Naples (1715–17, where he sang in six operas, including A. Scarlatti’s Carlo re d’Alemagna and La virtù trionfante) and Livorno (1717). He was engaged for Dresden from 1 September 1717 at the huge salary of 7000 thaler and the use of a carriage, and he sang in Lotti’s Giove in Argo (1717), Ascanio (1718) and Teofane (September 1719, as Ottone). He was dismissed early in 1720 for insubordination at the rehearsals of Heinichen’s Flavio Crispo, when he refused to sing one of his arias and tore up Berselli’s part. Handel, who had been instructed to engage him for London, heard him in Teofane and opened negotiations; Senesino sent Riva a power of attorney to accept the Royal Academy’s offer of a contract for 3000 guineas and he joined the company for its second season in September 1720. He made his début at the King’s Theatre on 19 November in G. Bononcini’s Astarto and remained a member of the company until June 1728, singing in all 32 operas produced during this period. They included 13 by Handel, eight by Bononcini (including a revival of Crispo, singing the title role and the première of Griselda, singing Gualtiero, both in 1722) and seven by Ariosti (including Caio Marzio Coriolano, 1723, in which he sang the title role). Senesino’s success was spectacular from the start; Mrs Pendarves described him in Astarto as ‘beyond Nicolini both in person and voice’, and he was constantly eulogized in newspapers and private letters in such terms as ‘beyond all criticism’ (of his performance in Handel’s Giulio Cesare). However, his arrogant temper clashed with that of the imperious Handel as early as 1720, when according to Pablo Rolli the composer earned his resentment by calling him ‘a damned fool’.

After the break-up of the Academy in 1728 Senesino is said to have invested his London profits in a fine house in Siena with an inscription over the door that ‘the folly of the English had laid the foundation of it’. He sang in Paris in 1728, Venice in 1729 and Turin in 1730. He apparently gave Handel a cold reception when they met in Italy, but in August 1730 he was re-engaged by Handel and Heidegger for the second Academy, this time at a salary of 1400 guineas, and arrived in October as a replacement for Bernacchi. According to Lord Harcourt, continental judges thought Bernacchi the finer singer and were puzzled by Senesino’s English reputation. In the next three years he sang in four new Handel operas and many revivals, and in the first two London seasons of oratorio (1732–3), playing Ahasuerus in Esther (in English), Acis, and Barak in Deborah. His popularity was almost as great as before, but his increasing antipathy to Handel came into the open in June 1733, when a movement to set up a rival company was inspired by Senesino, Rolli and their partisans among the aristocracy. This became the so-called Opera of the Nobility, which occupied Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the following season and the King’s Theatre from autumn 1734, with Porpora as chief composer and Senesino, Farinelli, Bertolli, Montagnana and later Cuzzoni as the leading singers. In three seasons (1733–6) Senesino sang in five operas by Porpora and in operas by Bononcini, Hasse, Handel (Ottone), Sandoni, Veracini and Campi; his last new part was Apollo in Porpora’s serenata La festa d’Imeneo in May 1736. He was so moved by Farinelli’s singing in Hasse’s Artaserse that he forgot the character he was playing and embraced him on the stage; but ‘several masters, and persons of judgment and probity’ assured Burney that Senesino made a profounder impression in London than Farinelli or any of his successors. When he left, a song called The Lady’s Lamentation for the Loss of Senesino haunted the theatre bills for several years.

Senesino sang in Rimini and Turin in 1737, in several operas in Florence in 1737–9 and privately in a duet with the future Empress Maria Theresa. In the summer of 1739 he refused an invitation to Madrid on grounds of age, but was engaged for the winter season in Naples at a salary of 800 doubloons (3693 ducats). Although Charles de Brosses was enchanted by his singing and acting, the public condemned his style as old-fashioned. His last known performances were in Porpora’s Il trionfo di Camilla at the S Carlo in 1740. A final glimpse of him is caught in March of that year, when Horace Walpole met him returning to Siena in a chaise: ‘We thought it a fat old woman; but it spoke in a shrill little pipe, and proved itself to be Senesini’. His porcine features appear in many caricatures by A.M. Zanetti and Marco Ricci in the Cini collection and at Windsor Castle, and in mezzotints by A. van Halcken (1735, after Hudson) and Elisha Kirkall (after Goupy). An engraved caricature by J. Vanderbank shows Senesino in a scene probably from Ariosti’s Coriolano (for illustration see BERENSTADT, GAETANO). Evidence of his death comes from the diary of the Florentine Nicolo Susier, who on 27 January 1759 noted that the death of ‘Antonio [sic] Bernardi detto il Senesino’ had been reported from Siena (see R.L. and N.W. Weaver).

Senesino’s quality as an artist may be estimated from the series of superb parts Handel composed for him. Of his 20 roles in Handel’s operas, 17 were original: Muzio Scevola, Floridante, Ottone, Guido in Flavio, Julius Caesar, Andronico in Tamerlano, Bertarido in Rodelinda, Luceius in Scipione and the title roles in Alessandro, Admeto, Riccardo Primo, Siroe, Tolomeo, Poro, Ezio, Sosarme and Orlando. He also sang Radamisto, Arsace in Partenope and Rinaldo, with earlier music supplemented or transposed. His compass in Handel was narrow (g to e″ at its widest, but the g appears very rarely, and many of his parts, especially in later years, do not go above d″), yet he was equally renowned for brilliant and taxing coloratura in heroic arias and expressive mezza voce in slow pieces. Quantz’s statement that he had ‘a low mezzo-soprano voice, which seldom went higher than f″’ probably refers to his earliest years. Although the impresario Zambeccari wrote slightingly in 1715 of his acting and delivery of recitative, in both respects he was regarded as outstanding in London. Hawkins said that ‘in the pronunciation of recitative [he] had not his fellow in Europe’, and Burney quoted the opinion of many who heard him that he was unsurpassed in the accompanied recitatives of Giulio Cesare and Admeto. According to the same writer his best style was ‘pathetic, or majestic’, but his ‘articulate and voluminous voice’ could bring off the most difficult divisions. Perhaps the best all-round judgment is that of Quantz: He had a powerful, clear, equal and sweet contralto voice, with a perfect intonation and an excellent shake. His manner of singing was masterly and his elocution unrivalled. Though he never loaded Adagios with too many ornaments, yet he delivered the original and essential notes with the utmost refinement. He sang Allegros with great fire, and marked rapid divisions, from the chest, in an articulate and pleasing manner. His countenance was well adapted to the stage, and his action was natural and noble. To these qualities he joined a majestic figure. His private character by all accounts was very different, marred by touchiness, insolence and an excess of professional vanity. His intrigues were largely responsible for the split with Handel in 1733. Early in 1724 he insulted Anastasia Robinson at a public rehearsal, ‘for which Lord Peterborough publicly and violently caned him behind the scenes’.

Bibliography

BDA

SartoriL

‘Herrn Johann Joachim Quantzens Lebenslauf von ihm selbst entworfen’, in F.W. Marpurg: Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik, i (1754/R), 197–250; repr. in W. Kahl: Selbstbiographien deutscher Musiker des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Cologne, 1948/R), 104–57; Eng. trans. in P. Nettl: Forgotten Musicians (New York, 1951), 280–319 ( OPENURL )

L. Cellesi: ‘Un poeta romano e un sopranista senese’, Bollettino senese di storia patria, new ser., i (1930), 320–23 ( OPENURL )

R.L. and N.W. Weaver: A Chronology of Music in the Florentine Theater, i: 1590–1750 (Detroit, 1978) ( OPENURL )

A. Mazzeo: I tre ‘Senesini’: musici ed altri cantanti evirati senesi (Siena,1979) ( OPENURL )

Winton Dean