Lily Bayer
Vittoria Tesi Interview
1. Question:
So Vittoria, tell me about where you lived? What was it like?
Answer:
Well, I was born on February 13, 1700. Obviously, it was a long time ago, but I grew up just like any other normal kid. I grew up in Florence, Italy. Really nothing exciting happened in my childhood. I real found my passion for opera when I was older and more mature.
I studied in Florence with F. Redi. After studying for a while in Florence I continued my studies in Bologna. My career took off 1716 in Parma and in the same year I got to sing at the opera theatre Formagliari in Bologna. This was a dream come true and I never suspected that I would have sung in Bologna. I was even called to the court of Dresden for the wedding of Crown Prince Frederick Augustus.
2. Question:
What events in your life made you so passionate about opera?
Answer:
I really became passionate for Opera when I got the privilege to sing for very significant people. I realized I had avery unique voice at a pretty young age. I was a contralto singer, which means I have the lowest female vocal range. In 1722 I got the privilege to sing in Milan, where I was called "The Queen of the song." My passion for opera was getting very serious. I was traveling all around, singing and entertaining people.
I had been in Naples and Venice Italy for a pretty long time, so in 1749 I decided to settle in Vienna. That Let me have a stable home and opera career. I got to live in the palace of Prince Joseph Friedrich of Sachsen-Hildburghausen. He was very fond of music and it was a pleasure to live with him. That made me feel proud of my job and I felt very accomplished.
3. Question:
What role did mentors play in helping you develop interests and talents you have as an artist?
Answer:
I had a couple of mentors that I looked up to as I was trying to become an opera singer. My mentors really helped me to realize how much I wanted to be an opera singer. The passion they had for their job made me want to work harder. I was able to sing along side Caffarelli, which was a dream come true. I never would have even thought I would have sung along side some of the most famous singers, artists, and composers.
I learned so much from him and I was amazed at the amount of talent he had. Senesino and Margherita Durastanti were huge inspirations in my life and I was able to sing beside them for Antonio Lotti. Senesino was a celebrated Italian contralto contralto castrato and he is especially known for his long collaboration with the composer George Frideric Handel. My career was blossoming before my eyes. I really looked up to Mozart, but you didn't? It was the amazing moment when I was able to meet him and his father.
4. Question:
What was the world of art like in your particular art field when you entered?
Answer:
There so many good opera singers back in my day. I had a lot of people to look up to, which is very fortunate for me. I was mesmerized by other singers. The first opera house actually opened in 1705 by George Frideric Handel. He was in his 20's when he opened the house and it became a huge success. In the following year he traveled to Italy which is where I became most interested in his work and interested in Opera.
By the mid 1800 century the conventions of of Italian opera have settled in a pattern stultifying unreality, with lots of castrato singers. I wasn't the only opera singer in Italy, in fact there were many singers, but I had an incredible vocal range that not every operatic singer had. There was an amazing Italian poet that I looked up to ad so did many others in my work, Pietro Metastasio. Every hack composer turns first to him. He lived in Venice, which I was very frillier with, and he demanded for an Italian opera in the court theatre.
5. Question:
How did the major cultural, economic, and political situations of the time impact your work?
Answer:
I traveled a lot throughout my life so I don't exactly know what type of cultural, economic, and political situations there were. But there was the War of the Spanish Succession. It saw control of much of Italy pass from Spain to Austria. That led to culminating in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. My Career had just started at that time. I was performing at Parma and Bologna. My career sparked a peak in the 1730's and 1740's and that was when the Spaniards regained Naples and Sicily which then followed the Battle of Bitonto in 1738.
The Battles and Treaty's didn't exactly effect my work. I retired from the stage in 1749 and was living in Venice with my husband. I married a barber. His name was Casnedi. Even though I was married it didn't stop me. A marriage nor a war could have stopped me from living my life. I received great wealth and in 1729 I spent a lot of money to buy some property with my husband.
6. Question:
What were your major accomplishments and the methods you used in your art?
Answer:
My major accomplishments were being on stage with my role models. I had extreme success performing in Niccolò Jommelli's Achille in Scriro and abbandonata. Mind you this was in 1749 so I was in the middle of my career. They both set to Metastasian libretti where is when I retired. Even after retiring I still had major success with becoming a costume director in 1751 at the Viennese court. I remained there for many years and I even pursued a long lost dream of teaching music.
I became a teacher and taught music for many years as a favorite of Countess Maria Theresia Ahlefeldt. My students were a success in among themselves. Caterina Gabrielli and Elisabeth Teyber were two students I was very proud of and they always were amazing to teach. The methods I used in my art were vey simple. I came to the conclusion that you just have to work hard. I learned so much thanks to the people who taught me. I got to meet Mozart and his father and I wouldn't have been able to do that without the hard work I put into my job.
7. Question:
What were the key opportunities you had that led to turning points in your life and art?
Answer:
I was able to sing with some very famous opera singers. I was so amazed and shocked when I was able to perform with such talented people. My career really took off from there. After my first couple performances with some crucial people in the opera world I started realizing how much I loved singing and being on stage. The people I was able to sing with helped me become successful and got me to a point in my life where people actually knew my name.
Ange and Sarah Goudar, writers of very impressive music, called me "perhaps the first actress who recited well while singing badly." (Holmes C. Williams. 1993) To have very important, sophisticated people comment on my work was such big achievement and amazing turning point in my life. Both Charles Burney and Quantz praised me for my acting ability which made me feel so appreciative and blessed to have the opportunities I did. Charles Burney was an amazing music historian, composer, and musician. He also had to very talented kids who were also writers, Frances and Sarah Burney.
8. Question:
What hardships or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to be an artist?
Answer:
I wasn't allowed to go home when I was in Naples. Ladies that ran the Opera house didn't let me leave and it was very frustrating. They wanted to keep me, but I had to go home. After a long time I finally persuaded the ladies to let me go home. I was stuck in the opera house with a Margherita Gualandi, a very talented a professional opera singer.
We were the best and most talented opera singers and they didn't want us to leave. Margherita voice was said that it deteriorated sincere her performance in Prague during the 1728-1729 season. Margherita and a couple of other women petitioned to the Statthalterei of September 1734. The women's motivation was urgent financial necessity. More opera singers came to Prague, which was where the opera company was located, after the opera company was collapsed.
9. Question:
What personal stories best illustrate how you became successful in your art?
Answer:
An Austrian composer, violinist and silvologist, Dittersdorf, handed down an anecdote about me, which provided proof of the extravagance of my ability of singing. Naples had acquired a very rare parrot, so Dittersdorf brought the extraordinary bird to Vienna.The bird was placed in the room where guests were entertained. So, one evening I was visiting a large company, which consisted of very high ranked people and at one point in the night the conversation turned on the parrot and its arts. They started discussing the parrots talents. "Listen to him now!" ( Freeman E. Daniel, 1992) One of the people in the company interjected.
The Kapellmeister who composed the work had made his appearance in Madrid, was jokingly talking to the parrot and the parrot spoke with a slight accent. "Oh, I beg your pardon," (Freeman E. Daniel, 1992) interjected the thesis. They asked the parrot questions and he answered all the questions correctly and appropriately. I arranged them in such a way that must have seemed as if the bird possessed a human intellect. This helped my career because people thought that the bird was a smart bird and was convinced that I knew how to teach birds to speak.
10. Question:
How did your art impact the world of art?
Answer:
My art, I feel, is very inspirational and it can also be a soothing, comforting, stress relieving job. Some people are just born with the talent and it is very soothing. People who came to my shows to watch me sing come for entertainment and its our job to entertain them. The art of being an opera singer is stressful, but it can be the best job ever, in my opinion. I love to and if I get a chance to sing in from of people to help them and soothe their ears it is my pleasure.
People praised my singing and acting ability. I had so many encouraging people around me. I was able to meet so many wonderful people that encouraged me. I know for a fact that if I wouldn't have met the people I did in my life time my job would not have been as amazing as it was. I became a very wealthy and extremely successful opera singer. I was able to pursue my dream and after I was finished I was able to settle down and teach others what I knew.
Bibliography:
Websites:
http://www.haendel.it/interpreti/old/tesi.htm. Arsaces/ Vittoria Tesi, April 30, 2005
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittoria_Tesi. Vittoria Tesi/Wikipedia, April 29, 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senesino. Senesino/Wikipedia, July 4, 2015
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab36. History of Opera, October, 2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Italy_(1559–1814). History of Italy (1559-1814)/Wikipedia, October 24, 2015
http://www.new.ox.ac.uk/ange-goudar-–-scoundrel-against-ballet-pantomime. Jośe Sasportes
Books:
Holmes C. William. Opera Observed. Chicago: The University Of Chicago Press, 1993.
Freeman E. Daniel. The Opera Theatre of Count Franz Anton Von Sporck In Prague. New York: Pendragon Press, 1992.
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