Among the celebrated operatic singers of the age, most of them more or less connected with Mozart, were the following:—
The sopranos included from about 1740 Regina (Valentini) Mingotti (d. 1807); from 1747 the extraordinary coloratura artist Catterina Gabrielli (d. 1796); from 1764 Lucrezia Agujari (Colla) (d. 1783), with a range to c in altissimo; from 1768 the Portuguese Luiza Rosa de Aguiar Todi (d. 1833); from about 1770 Gertrud Elisabeth (Schmeling) Mara (d. 1833), who was probably the greatest of all; from 1774 Francesca Gabrielli (d. 1795); from 1777 Antoinette Cécile (Clavel) 'Saint-Huberty' (d. 1812), who was more actress than musician; from 1779 Brigitta (Giorgi) Banti (d. 1806), who sang by ear only, but very ably; from 1782 Amélie Julie Candeille (Simons) (d. 1834), who sang only in France; from 1782-3 Elizabeth (Weichsel) Billington (d. 1818), who was famous in England and Italy; and from 1791 Margarete (Hamel) Schick (d. 1809), who was known only in Germany. Mara and Todi gave rise to a great partisan dispute in Paris.
Prominent among the evirati from 1763 was Giuseppe Aprile (d. 1814), the composer of songs, duets and solfeggi, and a good teacher; from about 1769 Gasparo Pacchiarotti (d. 1821); from 1773 Luigi Marchesi (d. 1829); and from 1783 Girolamo Crescentini, the last celebrated artificial soprano.
Other male singers were from 1762 the tenor Valentin Adamberger (d. 1804); from 1772 the great bass Ludwig Fischer (d. 1825); from 1780 the tenor Matteo Babbini (d. 1816); and from 1783 the tenor Luigi Bassi (d. 1825).
158. The Singspiel and the Artistic Song.—In the early 18th
century the German singspiel lay almost dormant, but from
about 1760 it began to reappear in Germany and Austria as a
popular type of much influence. Its cultivation proceeded from
two centres, the one in Saxony and Prussia, the other at Vienna.
In both cases it was obviously stimulated by the success of analogous
forms elsewhere, such as the French comic operetta and
the English ballad-opera.
The singspiel is properly a play made up of spoken dialogue with interspersed solos, duets and part-songs in a style not far away from the folk-song or its near relatives. Although in nature not a consistent musical type, it was capable of artistic unity and effectiveness. Its power lay in its simple tunefulness and its ready adaptation to comic characters and scenes. Its topics were nearly always taken from common life and its treatment filled with local color. Its revival was one symptom of the reaction against the artificiality of the Italian opera, and, being taken up by original and resourceful writers, who knew how to appeal to the popular sentiment of northern Europe, it exerted a large and healthy influence, though presently its individuality was lost in the rise of the romantic opera.
