FAUSTINA AND CUZZONI.
Cuzzoni made her retreat, and Faustina remained in possession of the field of battle.
However, Faustina, after the failure of the Academy in the following year, herself returned to Italy, and met her rival at Venice in 1729, and again, in 1730. Cuzzoni returned to London in 1734, and sang at the Opera in Lincoln's-Inn Fields, established under the direction of Porpora, in opposition to Handel. She visited London a third time in 1750, when a concert was given for her benefit; but the poor little syren was now old and infirm; she had lost her voice, and even the enemies of Faustina would not come to applaud her. This stage queen had a most melancholy end. From England she went to Holland, where she was imprisoned for debt, being allowed, however, to go out in the evenings (doubtless under the guardianship of a jailer) and sing at the theatres, by which means she gained enough money to obtain her liberation. Having quite lost her voice, she is said to have maintained herself for some time at Bologna by button-making. The manner of her death is not known; but probably she had the same end as those stage-queens mentioned by the dramatic critic in Candide: "On les adore quand elles sont belles, on les jette a la voirie quand elles sont mortes."
The career of Faustina on the other hand did not belie her auspicious name. In 1727, at Venice, she met Hasse, whose music owed much of its success to her admirable singing. The composer fell in love with this charming vocalist, married her, and in 1730 accepted an offer from Augustus, King of Poland, and Elector of Saxony, to direct the Opera of Dresden. Here Faustina renewed her successes, and for fifteen years reigned with undisputed supremacy at the Court Theatre. Then, however, a new Cuzzoni appeared in the person of Signora Mingotti.
MINGOTTI.
Regina Valentini, a pupil and domestic at the Convent of the Ursulines, possessed a beautiful voice, but so little taste for household work, that to avoid its drudgery and the ridicule to which her inability to go through it exposed her, she resolved to make what profit she could out of her singing. Old Mingotti, the manager, was willing enough to aid her in this laudable enterprise; and accordingly married her and put her under the tuition of Porpora, the future opponent of Handel, and actual rival of Hasse. In due time Mingotti made her first appearance at the Dresden Opera, when her singing called forth almost unanimous applause; we say "almost," because Hasse and some of his personal friends persisted in denying her talent. The successful débutante was offered a lucrative engagement at Naples, where she created the greatest enthusiasm by her performance of the part of Aristea in the Olimpiade, with music by Galuppi. Mingotti was now the great singer of the day; she received propositions from managers in all parts of Europe, but decided to return to the scene of her earnest triumphs at Dresden. This was in 1748.
Haase was then composing his Demofonte. He knew well enough the strong, and thought he had remarked the weak, points in Mingotti's voice; and, in order to show the latter to the greatest possible disadvantage, provided the unsuspecting singer with an adagio which rose and fell upon the very notes which he considered the most doubtful in her unusually perfect organ. To render the vocalist's deficiencies as apparent as possible, he did the next thing to making her sing the insidious adagio without accompaniment; for the only accompaniment he wrote for it was a pizzicato of violins. Regina at the very first rehearsal, understood the snare, said nothing about it, but studied her adagio till she sang it with such perfection that what had been intended to discover her weakness only served in the most striking manner to exhibit her strength. The air which was to have ruined Mingotti's reputation brought her the greatest success she had ever obtained. Her execution was so faultless that Faustina herself could find nothing to say against it. A story is told of Sir Charles Williams, the English Minister at the Court of Dresden, who had taken a prominent part in the Hasse and Faustina cabal, and had been in the habit of saying that Mingotti was doubtless a brilliant singer, but that in the expressive style and in passages of sustained notes she was heard to disadvantage—a story is told of this candid and gentlemanly critic going to Mingotti after she had sung her treacherous solo, and apologizing to her publicly for ever having entertained a doubt as to the completeness of her talent.
Hasse remained thirty-three years in the service of the Elector and made the Dresden Opera the first in Europe; but in 1763 the troubles of unhappy Poland having begun, he retired with Faustina on a small pension to Vienna and thence to Venice, where they both died in the year 1783, Hasse being then eighty-four years of age and his wife ninety.
The most celebrated of the other singers at the Royal Academy of Music were Durastanti and Senesino, both of whom were engaged by Handel at Dresden, and appeared in London at the opening of the new establishment. In 1723, however, Cuzzoni arrived, and Durastanti, acknowledging the superior merit of that singer, took her departure. At least the acknowledgment was made for her in a song written by Pope, which she addressed to the audience at her farewell performance, and which ended with this couplet:—
"But let old charmers yield to new;
Happy soil, adieu, adieu!"