¹ Durante, Sergio, ‘Il cantante’, in Storia dell’opera italiana, ed. Lorenzo Bianconi and Giovanni Pestelli (Turin, 1987), IV: 349–415Google Scholar. See also Rosselli, John, ‘From Princely Service to the Open Market: Singers of Italian Opera and their Patrons, 1600–1850’, Cambridge Opera Journal 1 (1989), 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosselli, , Singers of Italian Opera: The History of a Profession (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar.

² Durante provides a wide bibliographical survey of studies on singers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among the earliest encomiastic writings on prominent singers he cites Le glorie della Signora Anna Renzi romana (Venice, 1644); Crudeli, Tommaso, In lode del signor Carlo Broschi detto Farinello, musico celebre (Florence, 1734)Google Scholar; Rime di vari autori in lode della celeberrima signora Faustina Bordoni Hasse ([Venice], 1739); and Sacchi, Giovenale, Vita del cavaliere don Carlo Broschi (Venice, 1784)Google Scholar.

³ The definition of opera as a conglomeration of voices is borrowed from Reinhard Strohm, ‘Zenobia: Voices and Authorship in Opera Seria’, in Johann Adolf Hasse in seiner Epoche und in der Gegenwart: Studien zur Stil- und Quellenproblematik, ed. Szymon Paczkowski and Alina Žórawska-Witkowska (Warsaw, 2002), 53–81. Strohm discusses the centrality of the singer to opera in several studies, including ‘Aspetti sociali dell’opera italiana del primo Settecento’, Musica/Realtà 2 (1981), 117–41. Among the most recent and relevant studies is Suzanne Aspden’s book, The Rival Sirens: Performance and Identity on Handel’s Operatic Stage (Cambridge, 2013).

⁴ Studies focusing on singers’ vocal and dramatic qualities and their impact on the compositional process are too numerous to be listed here. Among the earliest is Daniel Heartz’s ‘Raaff’s Last Aria: A Mozartian Idyll in the Spirit of Hasse’, Musical Quarterly 60 (1974), 517–43. Others include LaRue, Carl S., Handel and his Singers: The Creation of the Royal Academy Operas (1720–1728) (Oxford, 1995)Google Scholar; Brandenburg, Daniel and Seedorf, Thomas, eds., ‘Per ben vestir la virtuosa’: Die Oper des 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhunderts im Spannungsfeld zwischen Komponisten und Sängern (Schliengen, 2011)Google Scholar; Aspden, Rival Sirens; and Howard, Patricia, The Modern Castrato: Gaetano Guadagni and the Coming of a New Operatic Age (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ On Berenstadt’s and Senesino’s variety of interests see Lindgren, Lowell, ‘La carriera di Gaetano Berenstadt, contralto evirato (ca. 1690–1735)’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 19 (1984), 36–112Google Scholar; and Avanzati, Elisabetta, ‘Aspetti inediti di Francesco Bernardi detto il Senesino: notizie e curiosità sulla sua vita privata tra Londra e Siena’, in Lo stile della trasgressione. Arte, architettura e musica nell’età barocca a Siena e nella sua provincia, ed. Felicia Rotundo (Siena, 2008), 145–152Google Scholar. Important examples of singers acting as theatre managers are Farinelli’s directorship of the court theatre in Madrid between 1747 and 1758 and Regina Mingotti’s management of the King’s Theatre in mid-eighteenth-century London. On Mingotti’s less well-known case, see Burden, Michael, Regina Mingotti: Diva and Impresario at the King’s Theatre, London (Farnham, 2013)Google Scholar.

⁶ Senesino received 7,000 thaler, against the combined fee of 10,500 for the composer Antonio Lotti and his wife, the soprano Santa Stella, and the exclusive use of a carriage, which he eventually shared with Berselli. See Fürstenau, Moritz, Zur Geschichte der Musik und des Theaters am Hofe zu Dresden (1861–2; reprint 1971), 105Google Scholar. According to John J. McCusker’s evaluation of the thaler at £0.12 (£0.13 in 1766) in Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775 (London, 1978), 7,000 thaler would imply a salary of £840 for Senesino.

⁷ Agricola, Johann Friedrich, Anleitung zur Singkunst (Berlin, 1757), ed. Erwin R. Jacobi (Celle, 1966)Google Scholar; English translation by Baird, Julianne C., Introduction to the Art of Singing by Johann Friedrich Agricola (Cambridge, 1995), 221Google Scholar. On Senesino’s dramatic experiences see Bucciarelli, Melania, ‘From Rinaldo to Orlando, or Senesino’s Path to Madness’, in Handel, ed. David Vickers (Farnham, 2010)Google Scholar; first published in D’une scène à l’autre: L’opéra italien en Europe, vol. 1: Les pérégrinations d’un genre, ed. Damien Colas and Alessandro Di Profio (Wavre, 2009), 135–55.

⁸ Poisson, Jean, Réflexions sur l’art de parler en public (1717)Google Scholar. According to Fürstenau (Zur Geschichte der Musik, 140–1), actors Grandval, Belletour and d’Erval may have also been in Dresden at that time.

⁹ Of the five extant letters from Senesino to Riva found at the Autografoteca Campori in Modena, four have been referred to in the relevant literature. Short excerpts have been known, in either Italian or English translation, at least since Giulio Bertoni’s article, ‘Giuseppe Riva e l’Opera italiana a Londra’, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 89 (1927), 317–24, which reported on Senesino’s requests for 3.000 guineas and his recommendation of Durastanti and Salvai to Riva. Burrows, Donald, in his recent George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents, vol. 1: 1609–1725 (Cambridge, 2014)Google Scholar, has transcribed and translated four of Senesino’s five letters to Riva. The letter dated Siena 1 July 1720, however, lacks several paragraphs (following Elizabeth Gibson, The Royal Academy of Music 1719–1728: The Institution and its Directors (New York, 1989)). A fifth letter, dated Dresden 28 March 1720, is transcribed and translated in this article for the first time. Furthermore, although Bertoni had already referred to the fact that Riva had been chasing after Senesino for two years prior to Handel’s negotiations commencing, and Riva’s correspondence had also been quoted by Deutsch, Lindgren and Gibson, it is still common to read in Handel’s reference literature (following Mainwaring’s Memoirs from 1760) that it was Handel who hired or opened negotiations with Senesino in Dresden, after hearing him in Teofane (see, for example, the entry by Winton Dean on ‘Senesino’ in Grove Music Online, and by Vickers, David and Vitali, Carlo in The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, ed. Annette Landgraf and David Vickers (Cambridge, 2009))Google Scholar. The Riva correspondence also includes one letter from Berselli and several from Stefano Benedetto Pallavicini, court poet in Dresden throughout the Italian opera company residency and until his death in 1742. Seven of these letters are from 1720 and relate to the hiring of Senesino, Durastanti, Berselli and Salvai. It is clear that Pallavicini acted as an advisor and intermediary between the singers and Riva. For a transcription and translation of these letters, see Lindgren, Lowell and Timms, Colin, ‘The Correspondence of Agostino Steffani and Giuseppe Riva, 1720–1728, and Related Correspondence with J.P.F. von Schönborn and S.B. Pallavicini’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 36 (2003), 1–173CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Lindgren, Lowell, ‘Venice, Vivaldi, Vico and Opera in London, 1705–1717: Venetian Ingredients in English Pasticci’, in Nuovi Studi Vivaldiani, ed. Antonio Fanna and Giovanni Morelli (Florence, 1988), 633–666Google Scholar; Strohm, Reinhard, ‘Wer entscheidet? Möglichkeiten der Zusammenarbeit an Pasticcio-Opern’, in ‘Per ben vestir la virtuosa’, 62–79Google Scholar.

¹¹ Veracini signed contracts on behalf of the court with Durastanti and Tesi in Venice on 25 February 1719; see Hill, John Walter, ‘Veracini in Italy’, Music & Letters 56 (1975), 262Google Scholar.

¹² Fürstenau, Zur Geschichte der Musik, 105.

¹³ Żórawska-Witkowska, Alina, ‘Esperienze musicali del principe polacco Federico Augusto in viaggio attraverso l’Europa (1711–1719)’, Studi musicali 20 (1991), 163Google Scholar.

¹⁴ In a letter dated 16 March 1716, now held in the Theatersammlung Rainer Theobald, Berlin, Rinaldo D’Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio, wrote to the Prince of Daun, viceroy of Naples, to express his disappointment at the news that both singers were engaged to sing in Naples at that time, and asked for the temporary release of at least Berselli, who had been a regular guest at the Fiera since 1713. I would like to thank Dr Rainer Theobald for permission to refer to this letter, and Reinhard Strohm for alerting me to the existence of this document and for providing me with a digital copy of it. Berselli and Senesino had sung in Reggio the year before, in Gasparini’s Il tartaro nella Cina, which also starred Margherita Durastanti. Berselli had also performed in Fiore’s Il trionfo di Camilla (Reggio, 1713, with Senesino and Durastanti); and Gasparini’s Eumene (Reggio, 1714, with Durastanti).

¹⁵ Rolli to Riva, 12/23 September 1720. Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria (hereafter I-MOe) Autografoteca Campori. Translated in Burrows, George Frideric Handel, Collected Documents, 511–13.

¹⁶ In London Berselli sang in Arsace (Orlandini–Amadei), an opera proposed by Senesino, Mutio Scevola (Amadei Act I, Bononcini Act II, Handel Act III) and Ciro (Bononcini). It is likely that Berselli decided to leave London because of the ill effect the climate had on his health and voice. In a letter to Riva from Dresden, dated 9 March 1720, Berselli sends a ‘procura’ (power of attorney) to conclude the contractual agreements and asks for a clause in the contract that allows him, with due notice, to break the contract after one season. Pallavicini, in his letter of 9 March 1720 (which was sent to Riva together with Berselli’s letter and power of attorney), mentions Berselli’s worries about ‘l’aria di Londra’.

¹⁷ For a study of the Haymarket’s difficult situation in 1717, see Rosenfeld, Sybil, ‘An Opera House Account Book’, Theatre Notebook 16 (1962), 83–88Google Scholar. A broader and more complete perspective on Heidegger’s management is offered by Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., ‘Heidegger and the Management of the Haymarket Opera, 1713–17’, Early Music 27 (1999), 65–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Berenstadt to Zamboni, 5 November 1717. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms Rawl. 130, c.61. Quoted in part (in Italian) in Lindgren, Lowell, ‘La carriera di Gaetano Berenstadt’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 19 (1984), 45Google Scholar. The English translation quoted here is by Lindgren in his masterful study of the Zamboni correspondence: ‘Musicians and Librettists in the Correspondence of Gio. Giacomo Zamboni (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Rawlinson Letters 116–138)’, Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 24 (1991)Google Scholar, 1–194.

¹⁹ Berenstadt to Zamboni, Dresden, 3 December 1717; Lindgren, ‘Musicians and Librettists’, 20.

²⁰ Berenstadt to Zamboni, Dresden 1 July 1718; Lindgren, , ‘Musicians and Librettists’, 24Google Scholar. See also by the same author, ‘Handel’s London – Italian musicians and librettists’, in The Cambridge Companion to Handel, ed. Donald Burrows (Cambridge, 1997), 78–91, which summarises well the reasons why London was then such an attractive destination for Italian singers.

²¹ Berentadt would sing in London again from December 1722 (Floridante) to May 1724 (Aquilio Consolo). See Lindgren, , ‘La carriera di Gaetano Berenstadt’, 55Google Scholar.

²² Public Records Office, Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, 7/3, ff. 59–60; quoted in Milhous, Judith and Hume, Robert D., ‘New Light on Handel and the Royal Academy of Music in 1720’, Theatre Journal, 35 (1983), 152CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ See I-MOe Campori (Carteggio Riva, Camp.1643–1644=gamma.Z.4.3–4). The letter is transcribed in full in the Appendix (no. 1).

²⁴ Bernardi to Riva, Dresden, 15 September 1718 (I-MOe Campori). See Appendix for a full transcription and translation of this letter (no. 1). Senesino was clearly aware of the difference between the ‘guinea’ and the ‘pound sterling’. The ‘guinea’ was first minted in 1663 with a nominal value of 20 shillings, but owing to fluctuations in the value of gold against local European currencies, the actual purchasing power of the guinea coin (so called because originally machine-struck from gold originating in Guinea) varied considerably. In 1717, by Royal proclamation the value was fixed at 21 shillings, and it seems that it remained stable there until 1814. During the 1720s and 1730s, the guinea was worth a 5 per cent premium over the pound sterling. The difference does add up. A fee of 1,000 guineas for Senesino would have brought an extra 50 pounds, which would be worth well over 10,000 pounds in present-day buying power. I would like to thank Robert Hume for this important piece of information. See also McCusker, Money and Exchange.

²⁵ We do not have figures concerning singers’ fees for Heidegger’s last season of 1716–17 but, as Judith Milhous reminds us, the cast included Nicolini and he was used to a salary of 800 guineas per season (plus additional payments). Milhous, Judith, ‘Opera Finances in London, 1674–1738’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 37 (1984), 580CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ The surviving accounts for 1716–17 have been studied by Rosenfeld, Sybil, ‘An Opera House Account Book’, Theatre Notebook 16 (1962), 83–88Google Scholar. See also Milhous, , ‘Opera Finances in London’, 577–582Google Scholar; and Milhous, and Hume, , ‘Opera Salaries in Eighteenth-Century London’, Journal of the American Musicological Society 46 (1993), 26–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Bernardi to Riva, Dresden, 8 March 1720 (I-MOe Campori), also quoted in Bertoni, , ‘Giuseppe Riva e l’Opera italiana a Londra’, 319nGoogle Scholar. Berselli’s power of attorney was also sent to Riva at this time, on 9 March 1720, together with a letter from the singer and another letter from Pallavicini; see note 16 above.

²⁸ In his letter to Riva (26 September 1720), Rolli confirms that Senesino had a brother with him when he arrived with Berselli and Salvai. Letters in the Avanzati-Bernardi Private Archive in Siena apparently suggest that both of Senesino’s brothers were in London with him at some stage: Giovanni Carlo, also a castrato, and Gaetano, who accompanied him as a butler (Gaetano seems to have accompanied him to Dresden too): Elisabetta Avanzati, private communication (March 2008). See also Avanzati, ‘Aspetti inediti’. The references to a brother of Senesino (likely to be the castrato Giovanni Carlo) are numerous in the diary of the Florentine physician Antonio Cocchi, a member of the ‘Italian circle’ in London that included, among others, Bononcini, Rolli, Durastanti, Riva and Sandoni. Cocchi’s unpublished diary is held at the Biblioteca Biomedica (Medicina), complesso ospedaliero di Careggi, Florence (R.207.24.I/II). Cocchi was in London between 1723 and 1726.

²⁹ Giuseppe Boschi, with his wife Francesca Vanini, had been hired in London in 1710–11 to sing in Etearco and in Handel’s Rinaldo. He joined the Dresden company in 1718.

³⁰ Lindgren, , ‘La carriera di Gaetano Berenstadt’, 45Google Scholar.

³¹ Although it seems that as ‘Ma[ste]r of the Orchester with a Sallary’ (Minutes of the Royal Academy of Music Directors’ meeting, 30 November 1719. Burrows, George Frideric Handel, Collected Documents, 450) Handel did not have a position of great power at first within the Royal Academy of Music, he was undoubtedly the most prominent and well-connected composer in London at that time and one with a solid track record of Italian operas, in both Italy and London. He was certainly the most qualified to act as artistic director and may well have harboured ambitions of control over the repertory since the inception of the Royal Academy.

³² Valentini had asked for £150, but had to settle for £100. See Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers 1706–1715, ed. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume (Carbondale, 1982), nos. 39 and 45. See also Lindgren, ‘Venice, Vivaldi, Vico’; and Hume, Milhous and, ‘Opera Salaries’, 28–29Google Scholar.

³³ Lindgren reports (from the Vice Chamberlain Coke’s theatrical papers) that 50 guineas went to the Venetian secretary Francesco Cornaro, presumably for providing musical material from Venice and Rome, and 50 to Peter Motteux who adapted the text (part of this may have gone to Charles Dieupart who composed ‘what Recitative and other Music was necessary’). Lindgren, , ‘Venice, Vivaldi, Vico’, 638Google Scholar, fn17.

³⁴ Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Theatrical Papers, 136.

³⁵ Quoted in Milhous and Hume, ‘Opera Salaries’, 30. As the authors explain, contracts and exact figures are not extant; we only possess Swiney’s proposals to Nicolini for a further three years for 800 guineas per annum, the proceeds of a benefit performance, and the additional £150 for the ‘fair Score’. Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Papers, n. 74, 120.

³⁶ Lindgren, , ‘Venice, Vivaldi, Vico’, 644Google Scholar, 646, 656–66.

³⁷ Vice Chamberlain Coke’s Papers, n. 93, 155–6, and n. 96, 159.

³⁸ Giovan Carlo Bernardi, brother of Senesino, sang the role of Mitrane in the 1715 Florence production, alongside his brother (in the primo uomo role of Arsace), Durastanti (as Statira, the prima donna role), Lucinda Diana Grifoni (Rosmiri), Berselli (Megabise) and Gaetano Mossi (Artabano). Salvi’s libretto is based on Corneille’s tragedy, Le Comte d’Essex.

³⁹ According to Lowell Lindgren, Polani acted as Salvai’s manager: Lindgren, ‘Handel’s London: Italian musicians and librettists’, in Burrows, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Handel, 80. Polani may have been in London since at least 1717, as Berenstadt’s letters to Zamboni imply. He had been associated mainly with the Venetian theatre of San Fantin between 1704 and 1717, where he produced several pastoral operas. For more on Polani see Talbot, Michael, Six Chamber Cantatas for Solo Voice (Middleton, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Rolli to Riva, 23 September 1720 (I-MOe Campori). I discuss the production of Arsace in another study (in preparation).

⁴¹ McLauchlan, Fiona, ‘Lotti’s “Teofane” (1719) and Handel’s “Ottone” (1723): A Textual and Musical Study’, Music & Letters 78 (1997), 352Google Scholar.

⁴² Bernardi to Riva, Dresden, 16 February 1720 (I-MOe Campori). See Appendix (no. 2).

⁴³ The report is published in English translation in ‘The Life of Herr Johann Joachim Quantz, as Sketched by Himself’, translated in Bruno Nettl, Forgotten Musicians (New York, (1951)), 293.

⁴⁴ Avanzati, , ‘Aspetti inediti’, 146Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Bernardi to Riva, Dresden, 28 March 1720 (I-MOe Campori). A full transcription is given in the Appendix (no. 4).

⁴⁶ The surname of the singer Matteo Berselli is consistently spelled ‘Berscelli’ in Senesino’s correspondence.

⁴⁷ ‘Favorita da V.S.Ill.ma colla stim.ma sua Carta de’ 9. non ho mancato d’indirizzare prontam.te l’inchiusami al S.r Senesino, il quale proseguiva con fatica il suo viaggio mercé il pessimo tempo, che gli è toccato. Ciò ch’ella mi accenna delle difficoltà insorte dopo la conclusione del negozio, confronta colle nuove scritte qua da M.r Hendel ad un suo corrispond.te, dalle quali sebbene in parte sospette veniva a comprendersi esservi nell’Accad.a una specie di scisma.’ Pallavicini to Riva, Dresden, 26 April 1720 (I-MOe Campori).

⁴⁸ McGeary, Thomas, The Politics of Opera in Handel’s Britain (Cambridge, 2013), 158–159CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁹ In addition to Durante’s and Rosselli’s studies, already mentioned, see, for example, the chapter ‘Singers’ in Glixon, Beth L. and Glixon, Jonathan E., Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice (New York, 2006), 173–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mamone, Sara, ‘Most Serene Brothers-Princes-Impresarios: Theater in Florence under the Management and Protection of Mattias, Giovan Carlo, and Leopoldo de’ Medici’, Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 9/1 (2003)Google Scholar (online at www.sscm-jcsm.org); and especially Holmes, William C., Opera Observed: Views of a Florentine Impresario in the Early Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 1993)Google Scholar. The ‘Fondo Notarile-Atti’ at the Archivio di Stato in Venice is a rich reservoir of documents concerning the legal disputes of singers and other personnel. Some of these documents are relatively well known to scholars of Venetian opera. See, for example, Vio, Gastone, ‘Una satira sul teatro veneziano di Sant’Angelo datata “febbraio 1717”’, Informazioni e studi vivaldiani 10 (1989), 103–130Google Scholar. For evidence of similar disputes in London, see Duncan, Cheryll, ‘Castrati and Impresarios in London: Two Mid-Eighteenth-Century Lawsuits’, Cambridge Opera Journal 24 (2012), 43–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ Metastasio’s letters are printed in vols. 3–5 of Bruno Brunelli, ed., Tutte le opere di Pietro Metastasio, 5 vols. (Milan, 1943–54). More specifically, see Savage, Roger, ‘Staging an Opera: Letters from the Cesarian Poet’, Early Music 26 (1998), 583–595CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also in Opera Remade (1700–1750), ed. Charles Dill (Farnham, 2010), 17–29.

⁵¹ Antonio Conti to Madame Caylus, 18 December 1729 (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, MSS fr. App. 58, p. 148), cited in Eleanor Selfridge Field, The Calendar of Venetian Opera: A New Chronology of Venetian Opera and Related Genres, 1660–1760 (Stanford, 2007), 405.

⁵² Francesco Zambeccari to his brother Alessandro, Milan 2 March 1729 (Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, sezione Musicale (hereafter I-Bu), ms 92).

⁵³ Francesco Zambeccari to his brother Alessandro, 3 September 1715 (I-Bu Ms 92). Scarlatti’s Tigrane ovvero L’egual impegno di amore e di fede was performed in Innsbruck later in 1715 and in Livorno the following year.

⁵⁴ Biancardi was forced to leave Naples in 1706 following the discovery of a large gap in the bank balance of the Banco dell’Annunziata, where he worked as a cashier. His arrival in Venice in 1710 under the name of Domenico Lalli marked the beginning of a new life and a long successful career as a librettist and impresario in the theatres of Venice.

⁵⁵ For a thorough exploration of this process, see Strohm, Reinhard, ‘The Neapolitans in Venice’, in Dramma per Musica: Italian Opera Seria of the Eighteenth-Century (New Haven, 1997), 61–80Google Scholar; originally published in ‘Con che soavità’: Studies in Italian Opera, Song, and Dance, 1580–1740, ed. Iain Fenlon and Tim Carter (Oxford, 1995), 79–114. Here Strohm also highlighted the role of the successful Nicolini-Bulgarelli partnership in this process.

⁵⁶ Certainly both Bulgarelli and Durastanti were prominent singers in their own right. While Bulgarelli’s role in Metastasio’s career and opera production is better known through Metastasio’s own letters, Durastanti’s career still awaits full investigation. We know that she proposed Amore e mestà to the Royal Academy of Music together with Senesino, while Cocchi’s diary, Rolli’s letters and other evidence all show that her house soon became the hub of the ‘Italian circle’ in London.

⁵⁷ Desler, Anne, ‘Nicolini and Metastasio’s Meteoric Rise To Fame’, paper presented at the 16th Biennial International Conference on Baroque Music, Salzburg, 9–13 July 2014Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Armellini, Mario, ‘L’Olimpiade del Metastasio ristretta in due atti, Luigi Gatti, Domenico Cimarosa ed il dramma per musica a fine Settecento’, in Domenico Cimarosa: un ‘napoletano’ in Europa, ed. Paologiovanni Maione and Marta Columbro (Lucca, 2004), 29–158Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ On the likelihood that Guadagni recommended Bach to the Teatro Regio in Turin for the 1761 setting of Artaserse, see Butler, Margaret, ‘The Misadventures of Artaserse (Turin, 1760): J. C. Bach’s First Italian Opera from Production to Performance’, in Revaluing Theatrical Heritage, Selected Papers from Kortrijk, Belgium, January 2013, ed. Bruno Forment (Leuven, forthcoming)Google Scholar; also in Essays on J. C. Bach, ed. Paul Corneilson (Aldershot, forthcoming 2015).

⁶⁰ See, for example, Hunter, David, ‘Senesino Disobliges Caroline, Princess of Wales and Princess Violante, of Florence’, Early Music 30 (2002), 214–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar; or Holmes, Opera Observed. Holmes examines three episodes involving three uncompromising well-known singers, one of them being Senesino in his later years. These episodes called for Albizzi’s negotiation skills and brought Holmes to the conclusion that ‘in each case ego, greed, and deception seem to have been the motivating factors behind the actions of these singers’ (4).

⁶¹ For a scientific discussion of castration and its effects on the male body and voice, see Gullo, Giuseppe, ‘La fabbrica degli angeli. I: La voce, l’aspetto fisico e la psiche dei castrati attraverso un approccio medico integrato’, Hortus Musicus 3 (2002), 50–55Google Scholar. In two subsequent articles Gullo focuses specifically on the vocal physiognomy of the castrato in comparison with treble voices, falsettists and other ‘immature’ voices (‘La fabbrica degli angeli. II: Dalla medicina ad una nuova estetica della voce del castrato’, Hortus Musicus 3 (2002), 80–2), and on the iconography of the castrato (‘La fabbrica degli angeli. III: Per una iconografia scientifica del castrato’, Hortus Musicus 3 (2002), 34–8). For a specific reflection on the likely psychological effects of castration, see also Peschel, Enid Rhodes and Peschel, Richard E., ‘Medicine and Music: The castrati in Opera’, Opera Quarterly 4 (1986), 21–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶² The five letters from Francesco Bernardi to Giuseppe Riva are ordered here chronologically. The date given is New Style, with Old Style in brackets. Additions are placed in square brackets. Capital letters and punctuation from the original are retained in the transcriptions. I have used Donald Burrows’s translation of letters nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5 (or part of them) printed in George Frideric Handel: Collected Documents, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2013) as a starting point for my own translations, in which I have tried to render the original text as faithfully as possible while clarifying obscure, idiomatic or problematic passages. Letter no. 4 is transcribed and translated here for the first time. I would like to thank Philip Riordan and Anne Desler for their assistance in resolving several linguistic conundrums.

⁶³ Possibly ‘S.Ill’, that is, ‘Signoria Illustrissima’.

⁶⁴ The passage is not clear and it may refer to the possibility of a proportional fee based on the income from the subscription.

⁶⁵ Burrows transcribes ‘molto’.

⁶⁶ In this letter Senesino asks for a fee of 3,000 guineas, presumably for two years. The fee for 1,000 guineas he had asked for in his previous letter to Riva in 1718 (no. 1) was likely to refer to a planned season for 1718/1719, which never materialised.

⁶⁷ Burrows transcribes ‘molto’ instead of ‘motto’ and therefore his translation reads as: ‘for whom you have done much with the Royal Academy’.

⁶⁸ Burrows translates ‘tener l’una con sicurezza’ with ‘he can engage the one conclusively’. It seems quite clear that Senesino is referring here neither to Berselli nor Salvai but to Riva’s responses.

⁶⁹ The letter is torn in two places, before ‘bilare’ and before ‘ici’.

⁷⁰ It is unclear what the ‘until the prescribed time’ refers to; it might refer to the time by which Senesino was originally required to arrive in London (i.e., October). It may also mean ‘at the right time’ ‘duly’ (‘a tempo debito’).

⁷¹ Burrows omits the first nine lines, as well as other passages throughout, and begins with ‘non vedo l’ora’. The letter is transcribed here in its entirety.