Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessible music related to each.
Handel's dueling divas
On today's date* in 1727, the opera season of the Royal Academy in London ended early when rival Italian prima donnas, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, came to blows on stage during a performance of Bononcini's opera, "Astianatte." Londoners were shocked, but not surprised. Trouble had been brewing between the two temperamental divas even before they arrived in England. Once there, tension between them only accelerated, egged on by partisan behavior from their rabid English fans, who (depending on their preference) greeted them with either extravagant applause and bravos, or catcalls, hissing, and, as one contemporary put it, "other great indecencies." It was all terrific box-office, as Handel must have realized. He even worked their rivalry into one of his operas entitled "Alessandro," in which the hero finds it hard to decide between the attractions of the dueling divas. Handel prudently gave exactly the same number of solo arias to each soprano. After all, according to Handel's first biographer, a year earlier he had threatened to toss Cuzzoni out the window when, during a rehearsal, she refused point blank to sing one of his arias. "Madam," Handel is quoted as roaring as he dragged her towards the window, "I know you are a veritable devil, but I would have you know that I am Beelzebub, the KING of all the devils!" Not a very gentlemanly thing to do, perhaps, but apparently Cuzzoni DID sing the aria after all. * The Julian calendar was in use in England that year; the Gregorian calendar date for this same day would be June 17.