During these two years, Pavesi, Generali, Cordella, and Mercadante, wrote for Tamburini. The troubles of 1820 causing the theatres of Naples to be closed, he went to Florence, where he was attacked by a serious indisposition, which checked for a time his career of fame. From Florence he went to Leghorn for the Carnival; and from thence to Turin. In the autumn of 1822 he appeared on the immense stage of La Scala, at Milan, and met here with Mlle. Marietta Gioja, a singer of much merit and most agreeable figure, to whom he was soon after married. Passing through Venice, on his road to Trieste, where he was engaged for the Carnival, he was stopped by a mandate too powerful and too flattering to be resisted, that he might assist at two representations of Il Matrimonio Segreto, in presence of the Emperors of Germany and Russia, and at the concerts given to them and their court.
He afterwards proceeded to Venice to fulfil his engagement there, whence he went to Sicily, and remained two years at Palermo. A singular story is told of him during his residence in that city, where a custom prevails of allowing, during the first day of the Carnival, the audience at the theatres to interrupt and drown the performance by every sort of discordant noise. The prima donna, offended at this licence, refused to perform her part; the people were furious; and Tamburini, who had once before allayed the storm by his ready wit, now undertook to go through the scene in the dress of Elisa, and in the high tones of his clear falsetto, which he is said to have done with the most perfect success, contriving even to perform the duet, with which the scene concludes, by rapidly changing from the high notes of the female part to the deep and full tones of his own natural voice. He gave another proof of the versatility of his talent at Naples, where the principal woman having, through sudden illness, lost her power of singing, he went through the whole aria while she leaned motionless on his shoulder. After he quitted Palermo, he entered into an engagement with Barbaja for four years, during which he appeared at Milan, at Vienna, and at Genoa, for the opening of the Carlo-Felice. He was then recalled to Naples by Barbaja, with whom he had renewed his engagement. After two years of uninterrupted success at Naples, he came to London; thence he proceeded to Paris, where he made his débût on the 7th of October, 1832, in his favourite part of Dandini in La Cenerentola.
Tamburini is a good actor; his figure is manly, and his exterior is altogether noble and prepossessing; his acting is full of spirit and gaiety. His voice is a fine baritone, well defined, extending from A to F, occasionally reaching G
, and sometimes descending to G
. I might have allotted to him the two full octaves without reserve, but I prefer to retrench the semitone, above and below, that I may give to his voice and tone the full praise it merits. It is round, rich, and clear, of wonderful flexibility, and such astonishing firmness, that it is impossible to suspect any note is passed over unperceived. He has the neatness and precision of execution that Ber and Barizel have acquired on the clarionet or bassoon. The tone is equal in its whole extent, taking and holding F
with as much ease as a tenor voice would do, or running over the notes with a vivacity unheard of till now; while its pathetic tones, in the cavatina from La Straniera, Mai tu vieni o misera, move the hearer even to tears. The parts of Dandini and of Figaro show his comic powers, his good taste, and the astonishing rapidity of his articulation. No singer has yet displayed so much grace in the andante from La Cenerentola, Come un Ape. The part of Valdeburgo, in La Straniera, and of Uberto in l’Agnese of Paer, have taught us to appreciate his pathetic powers, and even to the insignificant part of Faraone, in Mosè, he has given a degree of importance which does honour to his powers. Such brilliant successes could not fail to induce our directors of the Italian Opera in Paris to engage Tamburini for the ensuing season.