Brigida Banti

Brigida Banti (; c. 1757–1806), best 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 (who was to become her favourite composer), 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 by 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 (who exerted a strong artistic influence upon her throughout her career), 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. She also met and worked with Haydn in 1795. Haydn had written the concert aria ('New Scene') 'Berenice che fai' for her. Haydn was initially disappointed in her singing saying that “she sang very scanty”. However the premiere of the aria alongside Haydn’s London Symphony was really successful.

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 and she was forced to retire albeit 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 Despite a lack of classical or theoretical training, Banti's performance was well-received by her contemporaries. Lord Mount Edgcumbe wrote of her in his book 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".

Her singing style, according to Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, was very similar to the castrato Pacchiarotti in its "expressive intensity".

Roles created and significant performances The following is a list of significant performances of Banti's career (either world or local premieres).