<< > If I am not mistaken, all of the 24 Italian Songs and Arias were
> originally written for men to sing. Even those that are clearly love
> songs to men. Women did not sing in public during the time most of
> these songs were written if my memory serves me correctly. >>
I strongly suspect that this idea is not accurate! I can't disprove it, but
here's some of the evidence I've uncovered:
I finally found my copy of "Old Yeller" (the 24 Songs & Arias), which
includes the composers' dates.
Per la gloria d'adorarvi Giovanni Bononcini 1670-1747
Amarilli, mia bella Giulio Caccini 1546-1618
Alma del core
Come ragggio di sol
Sebben crudele Antonio Caldara 1670-1736
Vittoria, mio core Giacomo Carissimi 1605-1674
Danza, danza fanciulla gentile
Vergin, totto amore Francesco Durante 1684-1755
Caro mio ben Giuseppe Giordani 1744-1798
O del mio dolce ardor Christoph W. von Gluck 1714-1787
Che fiero costume Giovanni Legrenzi 1626-1690
Pur dicesti, o bocca bella Antonio Lotti 1667-1740
Il mio bel foco Benedetto Marcello 1686-1739
Non posso disperar S. De Luca 15?? 16??
Laciatemi morire Claudio Monteverdi 1567-1643
Nel cor piu non mi sento Giovanni Paisiello 1740-1816
Se tu mami, se sospiri Giovanni Pergolesi 1710-1736
Nina att. to Pergolesi
Gia il sole dal Gange
Le Violette
Si Florindo e fedele Alessandro Scarlatti 1659-1725
Pieta Signore Alessandro Stradella 1645?-1682?
Tu lo sai Giuseppe Torelli 1650-1703
From The Great Singers by Henry Pleasants, here are dates of some of the
earliest prima donnas--the pre-eminent female singers of their day:
Faustina Bordoni made her debut in Venice in 1716.
Francesca Cuzzoni was born about 1700 in Parma.
Vittoria Tesi was born in Florence in 1700.
Gertrud Schmeling (Mara) was born in 1749.
Pleasants indicates that the castrati sometimes gave singing lessons to well
born young women--including Bordoni. He also states that there were many
other female singers on the stage from the earliest days of Italian opera.
They shared the stage with--and were held to the same vocal standards--as the
castrati. Those listed above are simply the most successful and the most
thoroughly documented.
He quotes Discorso sopra la musica by Vincenzo Giustiniani, dated 1628, which
describes the singing of the ladies of Mantua and Ferrara: "they vied with
each other not only in regard to the timbre and training of their voices, but
also in the design of exquisite passages delivered at opportune points but
not in excess. Furthermore, they moderated or increased their voices, loud or
soft, heavy or light, according to the demands of the piece they were
singing; now slow, breaking off with sometimes a gentle sigh, now singing
long passages legato or detached, now groups, now leaps, now with long
trills, now with short, and again with sweet running passages sung softly, to
which sometimes one head an echo answer unexpectedly. They accompanied the
music and the sentiment with appropriate facial expressions, glances and
gestures, with no awkward movements of the mouth or hand or body which might
not express the feeling of the song. They made the words clear in such a way
that one could hear even the last syllable of every word, which was never
interrupted or suppressed by passages or embellishments."
Sounds like very accomplished singers who were carefully trained to sing in
public!
Pleasants also quotes a satirical treatise from 1720: "The singers, male and
female, are to keep their dignity above all things...the prima donna must
always raise one arm, then the other, constantly changing her fan from one
hand to the other...if she perform the part of a man she must always be
buttoning one of her gloves, must have plenty of patches on her face, must
very frequently, on entering the stage, forget her sword, helmet, wig..."
This suggests to me that there was a long history of women singing, perhaps
not in the church, but in court concerts, private musicales, etc. Perhaps we
don't know as much about the women singers of the time because women had
fewer rights, opportunities, were less valued, etc. than men.
Judy
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