The Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music

Volume 16 (2010) No. 1

Launching the Career of a secondo uomo in Late Seventeenth-Century Italy

Colleen Reardon*

Abstract

Giovanni Battista Tamburini was one of many second tier singers who had a long career on the operatic stages of Italy. What sets him apart is a rich cache of letters between him and his patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, as well as the correspondence the cardinal maintained with Tamburini’s teacher, Bernardo Sabadini. This rare access to three points of view—singer, teacher, and patron—not only offers insight into the psychology of training and promoting a singer, but it also deepens our knowledge of theatrical life at the courts of Parma and Piacenza and of the activities of more famous performers. Most important, it illuminates the acuity and intelligence of Francesco Maria de’ Medici, whose activities as a patron have long been overshadowed by those of his nephew Ferdinando.   

1. Introduction

2. Early Years

3. Operatic Training

4. Instruction in Social Graces

5. Relationships with Other Singers

6. Private Life

7. Operatic Roles

8. Launching a Career

9. Epilogue

Acknowledgments

References

Appendix

For two days now, the Duke of Sesto and a beautiful woman he keeps for pleasure have been going to the opera, and in their box, in front of everyone, they cry out “Bravo.” The woman is nicknamed “the little trumpet,” and she favors me over everyone else, perhaps because a trumpet likes the company of a drum.¹

1. Introduction

1.1 So wrote an aspiring Sienese opera singer to his patron in April 1697. That singer, Giovanni Battista Tamburini, whose last name resembles the Italian word for “drum” (tamburo), was clearly trying to show off his wit to the man who was paying for his education. Tamburini’s benefactor was Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici, whose sponsorship of music and musicians has long been overshadowed by that of his nephew, Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici. Tamburini was Francesco Maria’s favorite contralto castrato and lifelong project; he had the good fortune to attract the cardinal’s protection during a time when more and more Italian cities began to stage opera on a regular basis and when singers who could perform such works were in great demand. Tamburini was not one of the greatest stars of the age, whose golden throats guaranteed them leading roles in court and public opera all over Europe. Instead, he was a journeyman singer: an accomplished musician with a well-trained, attractive voice, ready to travel to wherever his talent and sponsorship could find him an appropriate part. That Tamburini and his patron were successful in their endeavors is demonstrated by the fact that the castrato was able to sustain a long professional career on the operatic stages of Italy.²

1.2 What sets Tamburini apart from so many other singers of his stature is the documentary trail that he left behind. In addition to librettos dating from 1690 through 1719, Tamburini can be traced through payment registers, accounts, and letters preserved in both Siena and Florence. Most important among these are the regular dispatches that the castrato sent Francesco Maria from 1697 to 1700. Tamburini provided his patron with a steady stream of gossip about singers, patrons, and productions in Rome, Parma, Piacenza, Turin, Genoa, and Livorno, and described his own intensive apprenticeship in Parma as well as his experiences with the rough-and-tumble world of operatic recruiting. Also extant are some of the letters that Tamburini’s teacher, Bernardo Sabadini, director of music at the Farnese court in Parma, wrote to the cardinal about the singer’s vocal progress and personal life during this period. Finally, we have the minute, the rough drafts for the formal written replies from the cardinal to Sabadini.³ This kind of documentation is, to my knowledge, quite rare, for it gives us access to three points of view—student, teacher, and patron—as we follow the training of the promising castrato over a period of three years. The letters help us reconstruct the relationship among the three; they also allow for a frank appraisal of how Sabadini’s training and Francesco Maria’s active patronage and behind-the-scenes maneuvers assured Tamburini’s success in the operatic world.

2. Early Years

2.1 Giovanni Battista Tamburini was born in Siena to a family of modest means on October 9, 1669; his parents took him to be baptized on the same day.⁴ Sometime in late 1683, around the time he turned fourteen, the then fatherless Tamburini joined the Siena Cathedral choir at a salary of 4 lire a month and was castrated in order to “set him on the path” toward a musical career.⁵ His progress after the operation must have pleased the chapel master, because during Tamburini’s first six years of service at the Duomo his salary quickly grew. By September 1689 he was receiving L. 18 a month, which put him among the higher-paid singers at the cathedral. He retained this salary right through 1695, when he left the institution.⁶

2.2 From the age of fourteen to the age of twenty-six, Tamburini received his primary musical education at Siena Cathedral, which had a long tradition of excellence in such matters.⁷ The man most responsible for developing Tamburini’s talents was Giuseppe Fabbrini, who took over as music director in 1685 and worked at the cathedral (and at other institutions in the city) until his death in 1708. He was responsible for cultivating a number of fine performers who went on to have operatic careers. Any singer who entered the Siena Cathedral choir at a young age and stayed on through early adulthood could expect to emerge with a solid foundation in vocal production as well as excellent sight-singing skills.⁸

2.3 The records are silent about when Tamburini first came to the attention of Francesco Maria de’ Medici. It may have occurred as early as 1683, when the cardinal became governor of Siena, or it might have happened just before 1690. It seems likely that Francesco Maria arranged for the castrato’s operatic début because the twenty-one-year-old singer first mounted the stage in two works presented in Florence by the Academy of the Infuocati during Carnival of 1690: La Rosaura and Il Lisimaco (TCC nos. 1, 2). Tamburini débuted for his hometown audience in a revival of Alessandro Scarlatti’s L’onestà negli amori in spring of 1690 and also performed in the 1691 and 1695 Sienese revivals of Scarlatti’s L’Aldimiro and Pirro e Demetrio (TCC nos. 3, 4, 5).⁹ In the latter production, a broadside issued in Tamburini’s honor compliments his “marvelous” performance as Clearte, who “pours out his pain in piteous song,” identifying the castrato as a “virtuoso of the Most Serene and Most Reverend Cardinal of Tuscany.”¹⁰    

2.4 The production of Pirro e Demetrio marked the end of Tamburini’s Tuscan education. Francesco Maria de’ Medici clearly thought that the young man had absorbed all that his native region had to offer and was ready for more intensive and specialized instruction, because in October 1695 he sent him off to Rome.¹¹ We do not know who taught Tamburini during his first year in the Eternal City. In late 1696, however, Francesco Maria commissioned the great singer Domenico Cecchi, known as Cortona,¹² who was traveling through Rome on his way to Naples, to ask the composer Bernardo Sabadini if he would be willing to train a young man under the cardinal’s patronage. Sabadini accepted in early November, and from that point until mid-1700 he was Tamburini’s voice teacher.¹³

3. Operatic Training

3.1 Tamburini’s fervent wish, expressed in a letter of January 12, 1697, was to be more than a “mediocre singer” (musicarolo). In other words, unlike some other performers of the seventeenth century, singing well was not a means to an end, but an end in itself.¹⁴ Tamburini’s letters virtually never address specific methods that any of his voice teachers utilized although they do shed some light on his training schedule and repertory. Tamburini’s lessons initially focused on sacred music, probably because that was the repertory that could be most readily performed in Rome. In the letter cited above, Tamburini boasted to his patron that the French Cardinal Janson Forbin liked him better than anyone else in Rome except a certain “Pasqualino,”¹⁵ and the castrato speculated that the cardinal had formed this opinion after hearing a psalm setting for solo voice that his first teacher had him perform in the church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina.¹⁶ Francesco Maria, however, wanted his protégé trained in opera, and he probably thought Sabadini, a composer who was in Rome in late 1696 to prepare two operas for performance at the Capranica during Carnival, was the right man for the job.¹⁷ This is not to say that other genres were off-limits, for we hear of Tamburini performing cantatas, oratorios, masses, and motets while under Sabadini’s tutelage, but these were clearly secondary assignments intended to keep him in practice when not performing theatrical works.¹⁸

3.2 Tamburini’s Roman sojourn lasted only through Carnival of 1697. By mid-March, Sabadini had returned to Parma, taking Tamburini with him. The castrato noted that the city was “perfect for solitude and for those who, like me, have to study, because there is no danger that one could be amused by the trite and melancholy novelties of this court.”¹⁹ Indeed, one of the benefits of Parma, from the cardinal’s point of view, might have been precisely the lack of distractions one could find in a larger city such as Rome. During his first year in Parma, Tamburini had to reassure his patron more than once that he would not become arrogant and that he would not abandon his lessons. In October of 1697, for example, he informed the cardinal in a somewhat exasperated tone that he knew his vocalises. “If I still had to learn my scales,” Tamburini stated, “I would learn to sing only at the Last Judgment.”²⁰ Earlier that year, he had used vulgar terms to describe all those who believed that he was not studying assiduously enough, and he advised the cardinal to trust in Sabadini’s accounts, as well as those of his fellow singers.²¹ Even if we can trust Tamburini’s reports about his devotion to practice, his frequent avowals that he was not getting a big head are belied by his delight in informing his patron about sonnets printed up in his honor or about an audience’s insistence that he repeat all his arias.²²

3.3 Sabadini might have actually provoked the cardinal’s anxieties over his protégé’s study habits and attitude by expressing his own worries about those issues in one of his early letters.²³ We cannot know whether Sabadini, like every private music teacher since the beginning of time, was truly worried that Tamburini was not devoting enough time to practicing or whether he was using this tactic to shield himself from criticism should his student not perform up to standards.

3.4 To give Sabadini his due, he appears to have been an excellent pedagogue, at least in the eyes of his student. Tamburini noted that Sabadini was “born to teach,” and at one point he lamented that he would be a much better singer if only he had been studying with Sabadini instead of with his first teacher in Rome.²⁴ It is possible that Tamburini’s admiration for his teacher grew out of the fact that he was Sabadini’s only student. Even if this were not the case, Sabadini made sure that the castrato felt the full blast of his devotion, especially in the earliest months of their association. In this enterprise, Sabadini had the help of his brother, who took charge of the castrato when the music director was otherwise engaged. Tamburini refers to general assistance that Sabadini’s brother rendered him in Rome and notes that it was the brother who accompanied him around the city and to a performance in Reggio Emilia during the first months of his sojourn in Parma.²⁵

3.5 As for the actual instruction, it appears to have been quite intense, as was the norm.²⁶ In April of 1697, Sabadini assured the cardinal that Tamburini had talent, but that his voice was in “great need of practice.”²⁷ And Sabadini made sure Tamburini got it, for the singer reported having two lessons a day for two to three hours at a time. Sabadini probably spent a great deal of time during these hours-long sessions coaching Tamburini in the arias he wrote especially for the singer’s appearances on the operatic stage.²⁸ Occasionally, Sabadini reviewed basic skills with his student. “Sometimes my teacher will have me sing scales to make sure my technique is secure,” wrote the singer, as if this activity were normally the responsibility of the student outside formal lessons.²⁹ Stage movement and acting might have also been addressed, for in a letter from late 1697 Sabadini commented that Tamburini’s acting style was at that time more refined than it had been earlier in the year.³⁰

3.6 In addition, it seems Tamburini was also expected to help out when other singers came to town. In a letter from September 1697, Tamburini informed Francesco Maria that the Duke of Parma wanted to give him the supervision of the women singers coming to Parma for an opera to be performed later that autumn. Tamburini stated he would refuse that assignment and would ask instead to take care of the other castrati. It is not clear if he was expected simply to show his fellow artists around and make sure they had all they needed or if some musical instruction was part of his responsibility. During these months at least, the operas under preparation featured music by Sabadini; perhaps Tamburini was expected to familiarize the newly arrived singers with the score.³¹

3.7 Most teachers advised their students to listen to first-rate vocalists as part of their training, and Sabadini was no exception. In May 1697 Sabadini sent his student on a field trip to Reggio Emilia to hear Antonio Ferrini and Margherita Salicola perform.³² In April 1698 Tamburini followed his teacher to Piacenza to hear the opera Il trionfo di Camilla, regina de’ Volsci, which featured a dazzling cast of stars (see 5.4 below). More important, though, the castrato had the chance to work with some of the most talented performers, male and female, then gracing the operatic stages of Italy. In La virtù trionfante dell’inganno, Tamburini’s first operatic outing at Piacenza, the cast boasted the noted Neapolitan castrato Matteo Sassani, known as Matteuccio, as well as the highly regarded Maria Maddalena Musi, nicknamed “La Mignatta” (TCC no. 6). This was a foretaste of a career that would have the Sienese castrato sharing the stage with the greatest singers of the time.

4. Instruction in Social Graces

4.1 Tamburini’s education did not stop with lessons in vocal technique, repertory, and stage deportment. Like a number of other castrati, Tamburini was not from a patrician family, and part of the cardinal’s strategy in sending him to Parma might have been to polish his manners. The cardinal advised him down to matters of appropriate dress: Tamburini responded to a question from his patron about clothes by informing him that he dressed like an abbot, except when traveling to Piacenza and Reggio. On those occasions he wore “country clothes”—a dark twill suit.³³ Francesco Maria also wanted his protégé to adopt the right attitude with members of the aristocracy: to be at ease without being conceited. At first, Tamburini found it difficult to strike the right balance. His letters brim with enthusiasm when members of the nobility complimented him; at least once he repeated the accolades word for word to his patron.³⁴ Such a warm reception, as well as his position as the cardinal’s “virtuoso” perhaps gave Tamburini an inflated sense of self that landed him briefly in trouble on a visit home in August 1698. Fabio Spannocchi, one of Francesco Maria’s regular correspondents from Siena, dryly told the cardinal that Tamburini was lucky to be under Medici protection because he had angered a number of noblemen by refusing to take off his hat to them in acknowledgement of their superior position in society. Shortly thereafter, perhaps in recognition of the fact that professional success did not trump breeding in status-conscious Siena, he assumed a more “courteous” demeanor.³⁵

4.2 Tamburini’s touchiness regarding his social standing also emerged during his first year in Parma. In 1697, for example, the court musicians there were gambling with some foreign gentlemen, and Tamburini was watching. One gentleman asked Tamburini why he was not playing; Tamburini stated it was because he did not know how. The court tenor Giuseppe Scaccia, however, commented sotto voce, “With what money?” The remark so enraged the castrato that he rushed out and then returned to the game with a bank draft for 200 doble.³⁶ Tamburini showed Scaccia the draft and declared that Scaccia had better be willing to wager the same sum. He furthermore announced that the lowest stable hand or dishwasher in the employ of Francesco Maria de’ Medici would have 200 doble to spend on gambling. All the gentlemen complimented him on his spirit, and the story made the rounds of the city. Indeed, Tamburini was anxious to tell his patron everything because Matteuccio, who had been present during the incident, was due to travel to Florence and intended to regale the Cardinal with an account. Tamburini wanted to confess before the cardinal found out that he had forged a bank draft to make his point.³⁷

5. Relationships with Other Singers

5.1 Tamburini’s little dust-up with Scaccia was of short duration; the Sienese castrato chose at some point to mend his fences. In a letter written in August 1697, Tamburini told his patron that he and Scaccia got along very well and had developed a bond, notwithstanding the gambling incident. In that same letter, Tamburini also responded to a suggestion that he was not devoted enough to his studies by telling his patron to ask either Sassani or Musi about his performance in Piacenza, for he would be sure to receive a pleasing report, as indeed the cardinal later did.³⁸ Tamburini seems to have been careful to cultivate friendships with well-known male and female singers who shared the stage with him, and Francesco Maria helped in this process of creating professional ties for his protégé.

5.2 The case of Matteo Sassani is instructive. Tamburini first met Sassani in April 1697 in Piacenza when the two castrati performed together in Sabadini’s opera La virtù trionfante dell’inganno (TCC no. 6). In June of the same year, Sassani appeared in Parma at the church of San Francesco during a devotional novena. Sabadini asked his student and the famous castrato to climb up to the organ loft and sing together, clearly on the spur of the moment. Afterward, Sassani talked at length to Tamburini about his gratitude to Francesco Maria for intervening on his behalf so that he might sing in Bologna.³⁹ The two men would sing together again in Florence for an April 1705 performance of the oratorio La costanza trionfante nel martirio di Santa Lucia, with music by Giuseppe Maria Orlandini (TCC no. 34).⁴⁰ The Sienese castrato described Matteuccio as a “dearest friend,” and certainly the Neapolitan soprano was relaxed enough in Tamburini’s company (or smart enough to know that anything he told Tamburini would eventually reach Francesco Maria’s ears) to voice his reluctance to leave northern Italy in order to go to Spain and to write to him later about the same issue.⁴¹

5.3 Tamburini also came into contact with another of the great castrato singers of the day, Cortona. It was Cortona who had, at Francesco Maria’s request, talked to Sabadini about taking on Tamburini as a pupil. The cardinal’s strategy here might have been to bring Tamburini to Cortona’s notice. When Cortona came to Parma, Tamburini worked to ingratiate himself with the singer. Tamburini was in the good graces of Count Alessandro San Vitali, the duke’s chamberlain, and this relationship paid off in November of 1697 when San Vitali provided him “six royal plates of food” from the duke’s kitchen. With such bounty in hand, Tamburini was able to invite Cortona and another singer, Barbara Riccioni, to dine with him, a gesture that procured him “great honor without spending any money,” as he bluntly noted. The lunch happened to fall during the run of L’Atalanta, in which Tamburini had a role (TCC no. 7). Cortona attended the opera that night and it might well have been his memory of the princely meal that prompted Cortona, after the curtain had fallen that evening, to compliment Tamburini on his great improvement since opening night.⁴²

5.4 Matteuccio and Cortona figure prominently in a letter concerning a performance of Il trionfo di Camilla, regina de’ Volsci staged in Piacenza in April 1698.⁴³ Tamburini’s accounts of the performances show him at his most diplomatic. The cast featured two strong female roles, Camilla and Lavinia, each of whom falls in love with a political enemy: Camilla, with Prenesto, and Lavinia, with Turno. Cecchi and Barbara Riccioni (“La Barbara”) took the roles of Turno and Lavinia, which they had performed at the opera’s premiere in Naples two years previously. Sassani and Maria Domenica Pini (“La Tilla”) sang the roles of Prenesto and Camilla. Audience members coming to the opera wore red ribbons if they were fans of Matteuccio and Pini and yellow ribbons if they were instead partial to Cortona and Riccioni. Tamburini reported that three quarters of the audience wore yellow ribbons and furthermore confessed to his patron, “I admire them all and to be tactful, I pretend to be neutral, but I am on the ‘yellow’ side.”⁴⁴ In an earlier letter, he noted that “the greater glory, both in acting and singing, goes to Cortona, so much that even those who are partial to Mattueccio must of necessity applaud Cortona.”⁴⁵ Even his friendship with Matteuccio did not trump what Tamburini saw as Cortona’s superior vocal ability.

5.5 The names of many other singers, male and female, dot Tamburini’s letters during these years, but he only occasionally commented on their vocal prowess. We know, for example, that Tamburini went to Reggio Emilia to hear Ferrini and Salicola perform, but his letter to Francesco Maria included only the story about a lance falling to the stage while Ferrini was singing and barely missing him; word was that Ferrini had slapped around a carpenter and this was the carpenter’s revenge.⁴⁶ He also recounted at length what he heard about the motives for the murder of Francesco Grossi, known as Siface; interestingly enough, they centered on Siface’s arrogance concerning performance contracts rather than his sexual misconduct.⁴⁷ Tamburini gossiped most freely about his female colleagues and their behavior offstage. In spring of 1698, for example, he hoped to be able to regale the cardinal with accounts of clashes involving the singers Pini and Riccioni, who were both scheduled to perform Il trionfo di Camilla in Piacenza, and who did not like each other.⁴⁸ During the run of that opera, he informed Francesco Maria that the Florentine court singer Pini “pleased the audience greatly with her style of singing,” but he immediately followed up his compliment with a comment about the expensive gift she received from her current admirer, the Marchese Valfuentes, grandee of Spain.⁴⁹ When Tamburini was performing in La virtù trionfante dell’inganno (TCC no. 6), he attributed the visit of the Duca D’Arcola not to his love of opera, but rather to his pleasure in conversing with Musi, one of the cast members.⁵⁰ Late in 1697, Tamburini reported the arrival of the Bolognese singer “La Linarola” for a performance of L’Atalanta (TCC no. 7) and observed that if her voice matched her beauty, she would be marvelous. He furthermore lamented his disgrace that it was only onstage and in character that he would have the chance to wed her; he doubted he would see her offstage, as swarms of gentlemen would be buzzing about her. In fact, he told the cardinal that he intended to keep his distance from her and “do it” instead with a beautiful, young Bolognese castrato.⁵¹ Despite the apparent sexual nonchalance expressed here, Tamburini’s fascination with the private lives of his female colleagues apparently masked an attraction to them that would later cause him a great deal of pain and trouble.

5.6 Tamburini was only infrequently uncharitable about the musical talents of his fellow artists in his letters to Francesco Maria, but when he did write disparaging remarks, they were generally aimed at other castrati. A sentiment of schadenfreude emerges in a letter of September 1697, where Tamburini recounts the gossip that the singer “Niccolino” (Nicola Paris) had brought to Parma from Florence regarding Raffaello Baldi’s bad behavior at Pratolino, which was capped off by the loss of his voice. Tamburini smugly expressed the hope that the cardinal would never hear of him losing his voice or forgetting what he had learned.⁵² In 1699 Tamburini reported that another “Niccolino,” Nicola Grimaldi, who was coming to Parma to perform, was “a good virtuoso, but without a voice, and he has the leading role.”⁵³ Tamburini might have meant to indicate a temporary condition of Grimaldi’s instrument, perhaps caused by sickness or overwork, or he might have simply been jealous of the singer and anxious about his own abilities. Tamburini’s self-doubt emerges most clearly in late 1700, when he complained to the cardinal that his role in Il trionfo di Camilla (TCC no. 18) gave him little opportunity to stand out, as Baldi and Giuseppe Canavese, another Florentine court singer, had the best parts. “Now it’s true that in the second opera, I have the leading role” (TCC no. 19), Tamburini continued, “and if Canavese doesn’t ruin it for me, I hope to cover myself in glory with the many arias Contini has written for me.”⁵⁴ Tamburini was clearly worried that Canavese would outsing him, and it could be that his habit of boasting about his performances in his letters was a way to compensate for his own insecurities. It is unfortunate that the cardinal’s death in 1711 put an end to the correspondence from and about Tamburini in the Medici archives, for in spring of 1712 the contralto castrato was in Ferrara to sing the role of Argonte in Apostolo Zeno’s drama Teuzzone (TCC no. 51). It would have been most interesting to hear Tamburini comment on the lead singer, his countryman Francesco Bernardi, who had made his operatic début in Siena at the age of thirteen and who was shortly to go on to fame and fortune as the great “Senesino.”⁵⁵

6. Private Life

6.1 One of the first issues that must be addressed regarding Tamburini’s personal life is the nature of his relationship with his patron. Francesco Maria de’ Medici was a noted voluptuary with a taste for young men.⁵⁶ Tamburini would not have been the first castrato in a sexual relationship with a powerful patron, and the cardinal might have prized Tamburini for more than his voice when the singer was young.⁵⁷ Once Tamburini went off to study in Rome and Parma, however, the two appear to have met very infrequently. Indeed, in November of 1703, when the singer was at loose ends—his teacher had gone to Venice and he had no engagement for the season at that time—he inquired about coming to Florence. The cardinal issued an immediate and brusque veto to this plan.⁵⁸ Nonetheless, the informal tone of Tamburini’s letters and his sexual frankness in certain passages (his reference, for example, to the beautiful Bolognese castrato) allow us to infer that he and Francesco Maria were once in an intimate relationship. Although the cardinal’s ardor may have cooled as Tamburini grew older, he continued to support the singer’s artistic endeavors.

6.2 We catch only a few glimpes of Tamburini’s immediate family in the correspondence. In spring of 1697, Tamburini asked the cardinal for permission to send some of the money he earned to “his relatives in Siena”; later that year, he wrote of his mother, whose health had suffered greatly as a result of the earthquakes that shook his hometown in 1697.⁵⁹ In late 1698 Tamburini was trying to arrange a marriage for his sister and asked Francesco Maria, as governor of Siena, to provide a job for the man who would take her as wife. The cardinal obliged, and Tamburini saved up his earnings to pay a dowry and then traveled to Siena to witness her wedding in 1699. This is the last we hear of either mother or sister in the castrato’s letters.⁶⁰

6.3 Perhaps the most interesting events in Tamburini’s personal life emerge in two stories, the first of which tells us much about his determination not to be a “mediocre singer.” In mid-September of 1698, Tamburini was forced to jump from a runaway carriage, receiving quite a few bruises and contusions in the process. Within a few days, he and his teacher traveled to Genoa, which was mounting two operas featuring Sabadini’s music (TCC nos. 9, 10).⁶¹ Tamburini was scheduled to sing in the first work, which opened in mid-October. Sabadini reported to Francesco Maria that Tamburini’s singing impressed the impresarios to such a degree that they wanted him to perform in the second opera as well. The swelling from the accident was so bad, however, that the castrato could not move his arm. Sabadini consulted with three doctors, who agreed that Tamburini had dislocated his shoulder; they managed to restore its function, at least partially, but in doing so they caused “more than a little pain” for the singer. Yet through all this, Tamburini managed not to miss a single performance.⁶²

6.4 Tamburini refused a further medical intervention on the arm, notwithstanding Sabadini’s insistence, but another story demonstrates just how much pressure his teacher and patron thought it their right to impose upon the castrato’s most intimate affairs. It was on April 10, 1699, that Tamburini mentioned in an offhand way two female singers who were coming to Piacenza to sing in an opera: Vittoria Tarquini (“La Bombace”) and a certain “Checca Bologniese,” who we can identify as the contralto Francesca Vanini.⁶³ Less than a week later, Tamburini was trying to quash rumors; he hotly informed his patron that Tarquini was teasing him about being in love with Vanini, which he insisted was not true. He informed his patron of his absolute indifference: “I have written you because I am averse to love affairs, and although it is true that this woman finds me appealing, I try to ignore her.”⁶⁴

6.5 Only a month later, Sabadini told the cardinal quite a different story: Tamburini was mad about Vanini; he took the opportunity of an engagement at Casalmaggiore, north of Parma, to travel all the way to Mantua (without permission) to see her. Sabadini tried everything to discourage this youthful love affair and to remind Tamburini of his duty, but to no avail—he needed the cardinal’s help.⁶⁵ The immediate solution was to pack Tamburini off to Florence for the summer where he could be under the eagle eye of his patron, to have him learn a part for the September performances of Faramondo at Pratolino (TCC no. 14), and to hope that time and distance would lessen his ardor.⁶⁶ That tactic failed, however, for in November 1699 Tamburini was still very attached to Vanini. When he was passing through Genoa on his way to Turin, he could not resist going to the opera to hear her perform. Antonio Francesco Carli, one of the singers in the production, gave Francesco Maria a flowery account of what occurred during and after that performance:

It seemed, upon [Tamburini’s] arrival, that the scenery took on a more lustrous glow from his golden suit. Francesca Vanini, a virtuosa of the Most Serene [Duke] of Mantua was doubly blinded; she was with me at that point, as we were waiting to go on stage together. The encounter between the two was stiff as they gazed upon each other. She changed color, and he turned red. In silence and confusion, she was the first to drop her gaze and turn away. Then we were called to our duty, and I observed Tamburini in Urbano Fieschi’s box; he was pretending to be nonchalant, but since love’s flame cannot be hidden, it burned brighter in his breast from the nearness of his beloved, as anyone could see. Then Tamburini went to Giovanni Stefano Durazzo’s box to tamp down his amorous passion. When the curtain fell, Vanini was, as usual, surrounded in her rooms by a horde of admirers, and poor Tamburini followed in their footsteps and that night lodged with Nicolino of Naples, as he usually does. When he arrived at Nicolino’s apartment, which is in the same building where we all stay, he went to visit all the female singers except Vanini. Day broke, and from his casements he fixed his eyes on the diva’s windows, but his gazes were in vain. During his entire sojourn in this city, Vanini never reciprocated his affection; she who on other occasions had granted his every wish. On Thursday, early in the morning, he continued his journey to Turin, and the heavens, perhaps taking pity on his ardor, accompanied him with a downpour of rain.⁶⁷

This incident suggests that Francesco Maria might have done more than just remove his favorite castrato to Florence when the love affair was fresh. One wonders if the cardinal, perhaps through her patron, Duke Ferdinando Carlo of Mantua, had a hand in directing Vanini to squelch any warm feelings she might have had for Tamburini or suffer the professional consequences. Notwithstanding Vanini’s changed attitude toward him, Tamburini’s feelings persisted for some time. Shortly after leaving Genoa for Turin, he wrote the cardinal begging him to extend his patronage to Vanini, the “poor little thing.”⁶⁸ And as late as December 1700, an unknown correspondent, reporting on Tamburini’s success in an opera at Livorno (TCC no. 18), wrote that “Tamburini pleased the audience much more than Raffaellino and comports himself well, but it is said that he is in love with Checca.”⁶⁹

7. Operatic roles

7.1 Francesco Maria de’ Medici seems to have had a good grasp of Tamburini’s vocal abilities, and it appears that he shepherded his protégé carefully through the initial stages of his career. Tamburini was initiated into the world of opera, as expected, by playing small parts. His first roles—Gilbo in La Rosaura and Corebo in Il Lisimaco—were actually comic characters, comedy having a long tradition in the Tuscan theatrical environment (TCC nos. 1, 2).⁷⁰ It is worth noting that the comic part he played in Siena, Lisardo in Scarlatti’s L’Aldimiro, was a role originally sung by a baritone (TCC no. 4).⁷¹ Indeed, it seems that the contralto castrato and the baritone voice often took the same roles, or that roles assigned to one were interchangeable with the other voice type. In a letter of 1697, Tamburini noted that the impresario who had wanted him to sing in Milan engaged in his place the Florentine baritone Pietro Mozzi, because he could not find contraltos.⁷²

7.2 During his apprenticeship in Parma, Tamburini graduated to performing more important parts. As we shall see below, talent and patronage must be given equal credit for this development. As a mature singer, Tamburini had the opportunity to play his largest roles in operas staged in Tuscan territory where the Medici influence was strong: Florence, Pisa, and the singer’s hometown of Siena (TCC nos. 20, 21, 24, 25, 32, 45, 46). He also was cast in an important role in Mantua, another court on the ducal circuit with close ties to the Medici (TCC no. 30) and in Naples, when an opera with a contingent of artists under Tuscan grand ducal protection was mounted there in summer of 1708 (TCC no. 37).⁷³ In 1702 Francesco Maria probably allowed Tamburini to accept the small role of Gismondo in Venceslao (TCC no. 28) in order to give him the prestige of performing at the Grimani theater in Venice with luminaries such as Giovanni Buzzoleni and Diamante Maria Scarabelli.⁷⁴ Francesco Maria’s relationship with the Grimani might have also influenced Tamburini’s casting in prominent parts for the Neapolitan productions of Carnival 1708–9: L’Agrippina, Il Maurizio, and Il Teodosio, all three dedicated to Vincenzo Grimani, then viceroy in Naples (TCC nos. 40, 41, 42).⁷⁵ The Tuscan connection also appears to have been operating in some of the last productions in which the singer can be documented: those staged in Fano in 1716 and 1717–8 and in Recanati in 1719, where Tamburini found himself cast with Raffaello Baldi, the Florentine court singer whose vocal troubles Tamburini had commented on so many years earlier (TCC nos. 54, 55, 57, 59, 60).

7.3 Clearly, then, the apprenticeship with Sabadini in Parma was intended as a stepping stone to a larger professional presence for Tamburini on the operatic stages of Italy. Throughout this period, as earlier, Francesco Maria was orchestrating his protégé’s progress, and here we turn back to examine how the cardinal applied his influence at a critical juncture to ensure that Tamburini could have a steady career as an operatic singer.

8. Launching a Career

8.1 One of the more interesting facets of the extant correspondence concerns the business of recruiting singers for operatic productions. In his early years, Tamburini was not allowed to be his own agent; everything had to be cleared through his teacher and his patron. Francesco Maria used his friends and allies to help in this effort, and negotiations were a complex and delicate dance in which money, opportunity, and the elusive quality of honor were in play.

8.2 In early 1697, while still in Rome and shortly after assuming the role of Tamburini’s teacher, Sabadini turned down an opportunity for his student to sing at the Capranica. This is somewhat odd, as Sabadini composed one of the operas and revised or adapted the music of the other opera scheduled for performance at that venue. Was Sabadini worried that Tamburini was not yet up to the challenge? Was he concerned because his success could be attributed to his former teacher and not to himself? All we know is that Sabadini refused to allow Tamburini to take the engagement and that he must have had the cardinal’s blessing to do so. As soon as Sabadini refused the invitation from the Capranica, the renowed librettist Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (Sabadini’s collaborator on the second Capranica opera)⁷⁶ and the music-loving Contestabile Filippo Colonna II were asking for Tamburini’s services at the Tordinona. It was the Cardinal del Giudice (certainly in the role of proxy for Francesco Maria) who informed Tamburini that he would never allow the castrato to perform in what he described as the “dreadful, feeble work” being prepared at that theater.⁷⁷ Sabadini was also concerned that the very tight time frame would not allow Tamburini to shine. And Tamburini commented that, having turned down 100 doble at the Capranica, he would not have been pleased to sing as part of a weaker cast at the Tordinona.⁷⁸

8.3 The experience in Rome sums up the factors that influenced singers’ decisions about whether to take an offered part or not. Who the other cast members were figured high among these considerations. Tamburini begged the cardinal over and over to allow him to take an engagement in Milan for the 1698 season because all the great virtuosi of the day were already engaged to sing there. The company a singer kept was not, however, the only matter of importance.

8.4 Money was also crucial, and negotiations could go on for months with no guarantee of a successful outcome and while other opportunities passed by. During July and August of 1697, Tamburini was trying to negotiate (with the cardinal’s permission) a contract with the impresario Abbate Bielate for an operatic performance in Genoa. Tamburini requested 70 doble if the abbot paid his travel and expenses. The abbot responded that he did not want to think about travel, food, or the servant Tamburini proposed to bring along but he did offer the singer a place to stay. Tamburini’s price then went up to 80 doble. Bielate could not pay 80 doble, so Tamburini lowered his price to 70 doble. The abbot offered the castrato 60 doble, and Tamburini agreed to write to the cardinal for permission to perform. Tamburini was still waiting for a response in early September when he heard that the opera would not be staged, ostensibly because of the lack of singers and a dispute over a box. Later in September, Tamburini had the real story: the operatic enterprise had fallen apart after the abbot had run off with a woman.⁷⁹

8.5 The kind of role offered was unquestionably paramount. In 1697, after Tamburini was ensconced in Parma, Sabadini asked Francesco Maria to allow the castrato to perform a role in Piacenza during the month of April; another singer had been scheduled to sing, but his patron had decided to send him to Reggio Emilia instead. Taking a role that another performer had turned down for something better was not something many singers would agree to, as it might reflect badly on their honor and reputation, both to be jealously guarded at all times. Indeed, just a year later, in 1698, Tamburini wrote the cardinal that he was glad to have turned down a part in an upcoming performance of Camilla in Piacenza; Cecchi had seconded his decision, noting that the part offered no chance for the castrato to excel and might have instead damaged his standing in the north.⁸⁰ In 1697, however, Tamburini’s circumstances were different: he was still relatively unknown. Even so, Sabadini had to offer the cardinal incentives for allowing his protégé to take the role. Sabadini explained “it would be an opportunity for the singer to advance himself in the profession”; he furthermore noted that the part was “not bad” and he promised to assist the castrato.⁸¹ Since Sabadini was the composer of the opera, he could no doubt adjust Tamburini’s part to show him off to best advantage. It was in this context that Sabadini made the remark about Tamburini’s voice needing “great exercise.” The cardinal allowed Tamburini to take the part for a modest salary of 25 doble,⁸² probably so that he could make his northern début in a company of good singers (the cast included Sassani and Musi), garner some attention, and perhaps attract offers for future seasons (TCC no. 6).          

8.6 The plan worked; Tamburini sang well and immediately received offers to sing in Milan, Genoa, and Brescia. Here is where the letters from all three parties allow us to untangle a web of conflicting motives and desires. In early May 1697 Francesco Maria replied to a now-lost letter from Sabadini and informed him that he was willing to have Tamburini sing outside of Parma, but that Sabadini should refuse any offers of principal parts, for the cardinal would suspect that Tamburini was in a cast of inferior singers. He told Sabadini that when the opportunity arose for Tamburini to sing a secondary but not minor role (parte di mezzo) in an opera with a cast of excellent singers, then he would defer to Sabadini’s judgment.⁸³

8.7 At this point Sabadini was stuck in Parma, as his own patron, Duke Francesco I Farnese, had refused to allow him to go to Rome for the 1697–8 Carnival season. Sabadini may have been either slightly jealous of Tamburini’s Milanese offer or simply loath to part with his talented student when he informed the cardinal that it was better for Tamburini to have no engagements than to go off and perform far from his teacher. As he noted, the lesson was more important than the performance.⁸⁴ Tamburini was telling the cardinal another story: he truly wanted to go to Milan, where an all-star cast, including Nicola Paris, Francesco Pistocchi, and Vittoria Costa (among others), had been assembled, and where Francesco Maria himself, it appears, had already made tentative provisions for him to sing.⁸⁵ Sabadini bolstered his own position by telling the cardinal that the Duke of Parma wanted to “make use of his services” and that Tamburini would certainly have a chance to perform.⁸⁶ Francesco Maria appears to have used Sabadini to get to the Duke of Parma. He played his hand in June, while the offer from Milan was still alive. He informed Sabadini that if the Duke of Parma intended to use Tamburini in an opera, he would allow his protégé to stay in town, but if the castrato would be singing only a cantata or an oratorio, then he would rather send him to Milan.⁸⁷ Sabadini made sure his employer saw the letter.⁸⁸ Duke Francesco Farnese understood the message, and in late June 1697 Sabadini was able to report that the duke was very pleased that Francesco Maria had conceded Tamburini for Carnival.⁸⁹

8.8 And so instead of singing, as Sabadini noted, the third or fourth part in an opera in Milan, Tamburini was cast in two important secondary roles in Parma. He played Aminta in the pastoral opera L’Atalanta performed in autumn of 1697 and Arideo in Furio Camillo during Carnival of 1697–8. Sabadini was the sole composer of L’Atalanta, whereas Furio Camillo featured music by Giacomo Perti and Sabadini (TCC nos. 7, 8). In both productions, it seems, the composer made sure that Tamburini’s arias especially suited his voice and that all the music was arranged to show him off to the best advantage.⁹⁰ The Carnival production was graced with numerous scene changes and machines, and the scenery was the work of the famous designer Ferdinando Galli-Bibiena. Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici’s diplomatic maneuvers had obtained exactly the kind of roles he wanted for his favorite singer.

9. Epilogue

9.1 We can never know the extent of Tamburini’s talent. Certainly, he must have had a pleasing voice, for otherwise he would not have been able to sustain a career for very long. A diary entry for the performance of the oratorio La costanza trionfante nel martirio di Santa Lucia in Florence in 1705 provides perhaps the most impartial judgment on Tamburini’s abilities (TCC no. 34). The document notes that Sassani, who sang the part of Saint Lucy, “astonished and amazed everyone,” that Canavese performed “with great valor,” and that Tamburini “also did rather well.”⁹¹ That is, Tamburini could hold the stage with the most excellent voices of the day, but he was not at their level. It goes without saying, then, that Tamburini depended upon his patron to create the conditions necessary for him to make his way in the world of opera at the turn of the eighteenth century. As we have seen, Francesco Maria probably engineered Tamburini’s operatic début in Florence, and he was clever enough to arrange for Tamburini to study voice with a composer who could write with the castrato’s abilities in mind. When Sabadini took off for Madrid in mid-1700, the cardinal sent Tamburini to Bologna to continue his vocal training with Carlo Antonio Benati (after rejecting Sabadini’s suggestions that the castrato study with either Antonio Bissoni in Parma or Giacomo Perti in Bologna).⁹² He also took care of Tamburini in other ways: he paid him a yearly annuity through 1705 and provided him with clothes.⁹³ Francesco Maria gave up his cardinal’s beret in 1709 in a disastrous attempt to save the Medici family from extinction, but he never deserted his favorite singer. His patronage saved Tamburini from jail when the singer was caught with a loaded gun in a crowded marketplace near Bologna in 1710.⁹⁴ Tamburini’s crush on Vanini and the outcome of that affair suggest that protection came at a price, although this might have been a blessing in disguise given the prevailing societal attitudes concerning relationships between castrati and women.⁹⁵ Tamburini was able to profit from the cardinal’s connections during his prime years, singing in some of the most important centers in Italy, including Venice and Naples.

9.2 It is clear what Tamburini received from this arrangement. Less evident are the reasons why Francesco Maria de’ Medici chose to champion a singer who he knew was best suited for secondary roles. I speculated that Tamburini might have at one time been Francesco Maria’s lover. It is possible, therefore, that the cardinal’s patronage was inspired by a lingering, strong affection for Tamburini. Then, too, Francesco Maria might have enjoyed the power he evidently wielded over the eager-to-please castrato. It should also be noted that, aside from serving as an agent in the court of Parma and reporting on political events, Tamburini kept the cardinal (and the Florentine court) up-to-date on operatic enterprises, musical styles, and the movements of singers.⁹⁶ He seemed, furthermore, to have some grasp of his patron’s non-musical tastes: in one letter, he offered the cardinal a young, tall moor from Venice and in another, he wanted to let both the cardinal and Grand Prince Ferdinando know about an art collection including works by Correggio and Parmigianino that could be purchased at a very low price.⁹⁷ Any number of singers, however, might have served just as well in these capacities and might also have been capable of setting the stage on fire with their vocal prowess.

9.3 Perhaps we should seek the motive for patronage in Francesco Maria’s character. According to a contemporary account of his life, he lived in the moment and was fond of jests and games. The wildest young men in Florence congregated at his villa at Lappeggi to play and exult, much to his delight. Women dressed as men and young men dressed as women in order to serve at table, on the dance floor, and in bed. When the tallest, most magnificent tree in his garden detracted from all the other plants he wanted his guests to admire, the cardinal had it chopped down. Another notable incident involved a joke Francesco Maria played on the courtiers and noblemen who came daily to Lappeggi to pay him their compliments and eat at his expense. One day, he bought a young donkey and asked his cook to prepare it as a meal. After all had eaten and sung the chef’s praises, Francesco Maria had the donkey’s bloody head and hoofs brought to the table.⁹⁸

9.4 Games of all kinds were an important part of patrician social life, and what mattered was not content but style. As Roger Freitas has so elegantly stated, “in the world of courtly pastimes it was the quality of wit that was most often prized and admired.”⁹⁹ Perhaps Francesco Maria treated patronage as another kind of aristocratic entertainment. If so, it might have amused him to see just how far his power and connections could promote the career of a good but second-tier singer. It is also possible that his support of Tamburini was a witty response to Grand Prince Ferdinando’s sponsorship of top-flight vocalists (that is, “anything you can do, I can do just as well, even with material of lesser quality”). Or perhaps Francesco Maria saw Tamburini as one of the “shorter plants” in his garden and delighted in showing that he was worthy of admiration in his own right.¹⁰⁰

9.5 Whether it was spurred by affection, display of authority, ludic behavior, or some combination thereof, Francesco Maria’s gamble paid off. After his stalwart’s protector’s death in early 1711, Tamburini was taken under the aegis of the Tuscan court (TCC nos. 48, 49, 57) and then found a new patron in Queen Maria Casimira of Poland (TCC nos. 52, 54, 55). Right through 1719, he worked steadily in the regional theaters of Ancona, Fano, and Recanati (TCC nos. 53–60).

9.6 The case of Giovanni Battista Tamburini suggests the power that patient, persistent, and intelligent sponsorship could exert on the career of singer who lacked the kind of voice that made impresarios and audiences swoon. Whatever his motives, Cardinal Francesco Maria de’ Medici emerges as a most discerning patron for Tamburini because he knew the castrato’s strengths and his limitations. Although his influence may have garnered some prime parts for his favorite singer, he understood that Tamburini was best suited for parti di mezzo—secondary roles. Tamburini certainly worked assiduously to perfect his instrument, but it was Francesco Maria who furnished the means for him to become more than a mere musicarolo in the Siena Cathedral choir.

Acknowledgments

My thanks, as ever and always, to Nello Barbieri, who dedicated many hours to the archival transcriptions and to their translations in English, and whose occhio di lince caught many mistakes and infelicities in the initial drafts. Any mistakes that remain are my own.

I also want to thank Francesca Fantappiè. While in Italy during the academic year 2011–2, I was fortunate to make her acquaintance. Neither of us were aware that we had both worked with correspondence of Francesco Maria de’ Medici, had both found Tamburini’s letters (among other things), and had both submitted articles on the singer to press. In June 2012, Francesca Fantappiè graciously sent me proofs of her article, “Dalla corte agli impresari. Giovan Battista Tamburini: Strategie di carriera di un contralto tra Sei e Settecento,” which has just appeared in Musica e storia 17, no. 2 (August 2009): 293–352. Fantappiè delves much more deeply than I into Tamburini’s later career, his roles, and his relationship with the Medici court. I urge anyone with an interest in this material to read her article.

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