Venanzio Rauzzini: An Italian Musician in Britain

Venanzio Rauzzini (1746–1810) enjoyed a significant and varied musical career in Britain that lasted from 1774 until his death. During this time, he variously sang in Italian opera performances in London, composed instrumental and vocal music, directed a concert series in Bath for thirty years, and was one of the most respected singing teachers in Britain. As a foreigner, a Catholic and a castrato, Rauzzini was someone who was “other,” both socially and physically. Unlike the visiting operatic castrati who preceded him, Rauzzini was the first castrato singer to make Britain his permanent home, rather than returning to the Continent after his performing days were over. That he would achieve a position of cultural leadership in Britain was both unprecedented and unexpected. In the process, he became a target of distrust and suspicion by those who could not envision a castrato in a leadership role. The implications of Rauzzini’s varied career are considerable, and reveal how the changing social and political demographics of Britain affected not only how concert music was perceived by its audience, but also what music should be performed and by whom. This paper explores some of the resulting tensions experienced by Rauzzini during his British career, especially during the late years of the eighteenth century, and the early years of the nineteenth when Britain was involved in the Napoleonic Wars. Rauzzini came to Britain in 1774, after accepting a contract to sing the primo uomo roles in the 1774–75 season of Italian operas at the King’s Theatre in London. His pedigree as a singer was impressive. He made his operatic debut in Rome in 1765, and quickly progressed to other theatres on the Italian peninsula before entering into the service of Elector Maximilian III in Munich in 1766. He remained in Munich until 1772, although he was given leave to perform in Venice and Vienna, where he enjoyed conspicuous success. Charles Burney heard Rauzzini in Munich when Burney visited there in 1772. Burney was much impressed by the singer who was then only twenty-six years of age: “he is a charming performer; his taste is quite modern and delicate; the tone of his voice sweet and clear; his execution of passages of the most difficult intonation amazingly neat, rapid, and free: and his knowledge of harmony is far beyond that of any great stage-singer I ever knew: he is likewise a very good person, and, I am told, is an excellent actor.” One of Rauzzini’s most significant Continental accomplishments was the creation of the role of Cecilio in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera, Lucio Silla, in Milan on 26 December 1772. The seventeen- year-old Wolfgang had waited to compose Rauzzini’s arias until the singer was in the city, so that he could judge the singer’s voice, and secure his approbation. One might imagine that even the young Mozart felt some slight trepidation when composing for a singer who was, himself, an established composer. The two young men appear to have developed a congenial working relationship, and Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote to his wife on 28 November that “Wolfgang has only composed the first aria for the primo uomo, [“Il tenero momento”] but it is superlatively beautiful and he sings it like an angel.” Indeed, the younger Mozart was so pleased with Rauzzini’s singing that he composed the exquisite motet, Exultate jubilate, for Rauzzini to perform in Milan’s Church of San Antonio on 17 January 1773. Whether or not Charles Burney had been consulted about Rauzzini as a potential primo uomo for the King’s Theatre remains unconfirmed, although Frances Burney’s journals reveal that the Burney family …