Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (), who performed under the stage name Farinelli (; 24 January 1705 – 16 September 1782), was an Italian castrato singer, composer, and musician. He was a soprano with a range from approximately F3-D6, and is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of opera.
Early years Broschi was born in Andria (in what is now Apulia, Italy) into a family of musicians. As recorded in the baptismal register of the church of San Nicola in Andria, his father Salvatore Broschi was a composer and maestro di cappella of the Andria Cathedral, and his mother, Caterina Barrese, was a citizen of Naples. The Duke of Andría, Fabrizio Carafa, a member of the House of Carafa, one of the most prestigious families of the Neapolitan nobility, honoured Maestro Broschi by taking a leading part in the baptism of his second son, who was baptised Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola. [In later life, Farinelli wrote: "Il Duca d'Andria mi tenne al fonte" ("The Duke of Andria held me at the font")], though this may only have been meant in a figurative sense. In 1706 Salvatore also took up the non-musical post of governor of the town of Maratea (on the western coast of what is now Basilicata), and in 1709 that of Terlizzi (some twenty miles south-east of Andria).
From 1707, the Broschi family lived in the coastal city of Barletta, a few miles from Andria, but at the end of 1711, they made the much longer move to the capital city of Naples, where, in 1712 Carlo's elder brother Riccardo was enrolled at the Conservatory of S. Maria di Loreto, specialising in composition. Carlo had already shown talent as a boy singer, and was now introduced to the most famous singing teacher in Naples, Nicola Porpora. Already a successful opera composer, in 1715 Porpora was appointed at the Conservatory of S. Onofrio, where his pupils included such well-known castrati as , Felice Salimbeni, and Gaetano Majorano (known as Caffarelli), as well as distinguished female singers such as Regina Mingotti and Vittoria Tesi; Farinelli may well have studied with him privately.
Salvatore Broschi died unexpectedly on 4 November 1717, aged only 36, and perhaps the consequent loss of economic security for the whole family provoked the decision for Carlo to be castrated. As was often the case, an excuse had to be found for this operation, and in Carlo's case, it was said to have been necessitated by a fall from a horse. It is, however, also possible that he was castrated earlier, since, at the time of his father's death, he was already twelve years old, quite an advanced age for castration.
Under Porpora's tutelage, his singing progressed rapidly, and at the age of fifteen, he made his debut in a by his master entitled . The text of this work was the first by the soon-to-be-famous Pietro Trapassi (known as Metastasio), who became a lifelong friend of the singer. Farinelli remarked that the two of them had made their debuts on the same day, and each frequently referred to the other as his ("dear twin").
In this Serenata "Angelica e Medoro", the two leading roles were entrusted to two highly acclaimed singers: Marianna Benti Bulgarelli (aka "la Romanina") and Domenico Gizzi, Soprano castrato at the Royal Chapel of Naples.
The derivation of Broschi's stage name is not certain, but it was possibly from two rich Neapolitan lawyers, the brothers Farina, who may have sponsored his studies.
Farinelli quickly became famous throughout Italy as ("the boy"). In 1722, he first sang in Rome in Porpora's Flavio Anicio Olibrio, as well as taking the female lead in Sofonisba by Luca Antonio Predieri. (It was common practice for young castrati to appear en travesti). All these appearances were greeted with huge public enthusiasm, and an almost legendary story arose that he had to perform an aria with trumpet obbligato, which evolved into a contest between singer and trumpeter. Farinelli surpassed the trumpet player so much in technique and ornamentation that he "was at last silenced only by the acclamations of the audience" (to quote the music historian Charles Burney). This account, however, cannot be verified, since no surviving work which Farinelli is known to have performed contains an aria for soprano with trumpet obbligato.
Career in Europe
In 1724, Farinelli made his first appearance in Vienna, at the invitation of Prince Luigi Pio di Savoia, director of the Imperial Theatre. He spent the following season in Naples.
In 1726, Farinelli performed in Parma and Milan, where Johann Joachim Quantz heard him and commented: "Farinelli had a penetrating, full, rich, bright and well-modulated soprano voice, with a range at that time from the A below middle C to the D two octaves above middle C. ... His intonation was pure, his trill beautiful, his breath control extraordinary, and his throat very agile, so that he performed the widest intervals quickly and with the greatest ease and certainty. Passagework and all kinds of melismas were of no difficulty to him. In the invention of free ornamentation in adagio, he was very fertile." Quantz is certainly accurate in describing Farinelli as a soprano - since several arias in his repertoire require a sustained C6 - these include "Fremano l'onde" in Pietro Torri's opera Nicomede (1728) and "Troverai se a me ti fidi" in Niccolò Conforto's La Pesca (1737)see F Haböck: Die Gesangkunst der Kastraten (Vienna, 1923), pp 209, 227. His low range apparently extended to F3, as in "Al dolor che vo sfogando", an aria written by himself and incorporated in a pasticcio called Sabrina, and as in two of his own cadenzas for "Quell' usignolo innamorato" from Geminiano Giacomelli's Merope.this opera was premiered in 1734; Farinelli's ornaments and cadenzas may date from 1737 (according to Haböck), or from as late as 1753, when these ornamented versions were sent by him to the Empress Maria Theresa, in a manuscript now preserved in the National Library of Austria in Vienna [A-Wn 19111], and printed by Haböck on pp 140 ff of Die Gesangkunst der Kastraten; his edition of "Navigante che non spera", from Leonardo Vinci's Il Medo (1728), on pp 12 ff of the same publication, takes the vocal line down to C3, but this has recently been shown to have been an error on his part, with the voice placed an octave too low: see Desler, Anne (2014) Il novello Orfeo' Farinelli: vocal profile, aesthetics, rhetoric. PhD thesis, Glasgow University, p 24
Farinelli sang at Bologna in 1727, where he met the famous castrato Antonio Bernacchi, twenty years his senior. In a duet in Orlandini's Antigona, Farinelli showed off all the aspects of the beauty of his voice and refinements of his style, executing a number of passages of great virtuosity, which were rewarded with tumultuous applause. Undaunted, Bernacchi repeated every trill, roulade, and cadenza of his young rival, but performing all of them even more exquisitely, and adding variations of his own. Farinelli, admitting defeat, entreated Bernacchi to give him instruction in ("ultra-refined graces"); Bernacchi agreed.
In 1728, as well as performing in Torri's Nicomede at the Munich court, Farinelli performed another concert before the Emperor in Vienna. In 1729, during the Carnival season in Venice, he sang in two works by Metastasio: as Arbace in Metastasio's Catone in Utica (music by Leonardo Leo) and Mirteo in Semiramide Riconosciuta (music by Porpora). In these important drammi per musica, performed at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo of Venice, at his side sang some other singers of the first rank: Nicola Grimaldi, detto Nicolino (a mezzo-soprano castrato, who had earlier performed for Handel), the female soprano Lucia Facchinelli, another castrato Domenico Gizzi ("Virtuoso della Cappella Reale di Napoli"), and the bass Giuseppe Maria Boschi.
During this period, it seemed Farinelli, loaded with riches and honours, was so famous and so formidable as a performer that his rival and friend, the castrato Gioacchino Conti ("Gizziello") is said to have fainted from sheer despondency on hearing him sing. George Frideric Handel was also keen to engage Farinelli for his company in London, and while in Venice in January 1730, tried unsuccessfully to meet him.
In 1731, Farinelli visited Vienna for a third time. There he was received by the Emperor Charles VI, on whose advice, according to the singer's first biographer, Giovenale Sacchi, Farinelli modified his style, singing more simply and emotionally. Sacchi's source for this must have been Charles Burney's notes on his visit to Farinelli in 1770, published in London in 1773 in The present state of music in France and Italy..., here pp. 215-216. After further seasons in Italy and another visit to Vienna, during which he sang in oratorios in the Imperial chapel, Farinelli came to London in 1734.
Farinelli in London In London the previous year, Senesino, a singer who had been a part of George Frideric Handel's "Second Academy" which performed at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, quarrelled with Handel and moved to a rival company, the Opera of the Nobility, operating from a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This company had Porpora as composer and Senesino as principal singer, but it had not been a success during its first season of 1733–34. Farinelli, Porpora's most famous pupil, joined the company and made it financially solvent.
He first appeared in Artaserse, a with music by his brother Riccardo and Johann Adolph Hasse. He sang the memorable arias "Per questo dolce amplesso" (music by Hasse) and "Son qual nave" (music by Broschi), while Senesino sang "Pallido il sole" (music by Hasse). Of "Per questo dolce amplesso", Charles Burney reported: "Senesino had the part of a furious tyrant, and Farinelli that of an unfortunate hero in chains; but in the course of the first air, the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage-character, ran to Farinelli and embraced him in his own". "Son qual nave", on the other hand, was composed by Riccardo Broschi as a special showpiece for his brother's virtuosic skills. Burney described it thus: "The first note he was taken with such delicacy, swelled by minute degrees to such an amazing volume, and afterwards diminished in the same manner to a mere point, that it was applauded for full five minutes. After this, he set off with such brilliancy and rapidity of execution that it was difficult for the violins of those days to keep pace with him." In 1735 Farinelli and Senesino also appeared in Nicola Porpora's Polifemo.
Both the cognoscenti and the public adored him. The librettist Paolo Rolli, a close friend and supporter of Senesino, commented: "Farinelli has surprised me so much that I feel as though I had hitherto heard only a small part of the human voice, and now have heard it all. He has besides, the most amiable and polite manners ....". Some fans were more unrestrained: one titled lady was so carried away that, from a theatre box, she famously exclaimed: "One God, one Farinelli!", and was immortalised in a detail of Plate II of William Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" (she may also appear in Plate IV of his series "Marriage A-la-Mode" of 1745).
Though Farinelli's success was enormous, neither the Nobility Opera nor Handel's company was able to sustain the public's interest, which waned rapidly. Though his official salary was £1500 for a season, gifts from admirers probably increased this to something more like £5000, an enormous sum at the time. Farinelli was by no means the only singer to receive such large amounts, which were unsustainable in the long term. As one contemporary observer remarked: "within these two years we have seen even Farinelli sing to an audience of five-and-thirty pounds". Nonetheless, he was still under contract in London in the summer of 1737 when he received a summons, via Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, Secretary of the Spanish Embassy there, to visit the Spanish court.
At the court of Spain