Handel's dueling divas

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1727, the opera season in London ended early when rival Italian prima donnas, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni, came to blows on stage during a performance of an opera by Bononcini.

Londoners were shocked, but not surprised. Trouble had been brewing between the two, 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 for the box office, as Handel must have realized and so worked their rivalry into his opera Alessandro, in which the hero finds it hard to decide between the attractions of the dueling divas. He prudently gave exactly the same number of solos to each soprano.

Even so, according to Handel’s first biographer, years 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,” he 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!”

Music Played in Today's Program

George Frederic Handel (1685-1759): “Aria” from Alessandro; Lisa Saffer, soprano; Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; Nicholas McGegan, conductor; Harmonia Mundi 90.7036

On This Day

Births

• 1840 - English composer John Stainer, in London

• 1869 - German composer and conductor Siegfried Wagner, in Triebschen (near Lucerne), Switzerland. He was the third of three children born out-of-wedlock to Richard Wagner and Cosima Liszt-von Bulow. Cosima’s marriage to Hans von Bulow was annulled in 1870, and she married Wagner in 1870.

• 1903 - Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian, in Tiflis (Julian date: May 24)

• 1915 - American composer Vincent Perischetti, in Philadelphia

• 1922 - Scottish composer Iain Hamilton, in Glasgow

• 1939 - Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, in Utrecht

Deaths

• 1881 - Belgian composer and violinist Henri Vieuxtemps, 61, in Mustapha, Algiers

• 1915 - Russian composer Sergei Taneyev, in Dyud’kovo, near Zvenigorod (Gregorian date: June 19)

Premieres

• 1921 - Hindemith: one-act opera Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen (Murder, Hope of Women) and Burmese puppet-play Nusch-Nuschi, in Stuttgart at the Württembergisches Landstheater

• 1921 - Milhaud: ballet L’Homme et son Désir (Man and His Desire), in Paris

• 1924 - Schoenberg: one-act melodrama Erwartung (Expectation), in Prague at the New German Theater

• 1925 - Prokofiev: Symphony No. 2, in Paris, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting

• 1928 - R. Strauss: opera Die Aegyptische Helena (The Egyptian Helen), in Dresden at the Staatsoper, conducted by Fritz Busch, and with vocal soloists Elisabeth Rethberg (Helena) and Curt Taucher (Menelas)

• 1931 - Henry Cowell: Synchrony, in Paris, at the first of two concerts of modern American music with the Orchestre Straram conducted by Nicholas Slonimsky and funded anonymously by Charles Ives. On the same program, Slonimsky also conducted the Orchestre Straram in the European premieres of works by Adolph Weiss (American Life), Ives (Three Places in England), Carl Ruggles (Men and Mountains), and the Cuban composer Amadeo Roldan (La Rehambatamba). See June 11, 1931 for the program of the second concert of chamber works.

• 1943 - Shostakovich: Piano Sonata No. 2, in Moscow, by the composer

• 1947 - Leroy Anderson: Irish Suite by the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall, Arthur Fiedler conducting (commissioned by the Eire Society of Boston for its annual Irish Night at the Pops)

• 1998 - Esa-Pekka Salonen: Gambit at the Holland Festival, by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic conducted by the composer

Others

• 1727 - The opera season of the Royal Academy in London ends early, when rival prima donnas Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni come to blows on stage during a performance of Bononcini’s opera Astianatte (Gregorian date: June 17)

• 1922 - The American Academy in Rome awards American composer Randall Thompson its third two-year composition fellowship. The first fellowship was awarded to Leo Sowerby on October 4, 1921, and the second to Howard Hanson on November 9, 1921. The fellowship awards continue to this day.

• 1962 - The Beatles audition with music producer George Martin at their first recording session at London's famous Abbey Road Studios