<<  -- 7 --  Robert Hugill    HANDEL'S SINGERS

Like Merighi, Handel accepted Montagnana back in 1737 when the Opera of the Nobility collapsed. He would sing for Handel for two more seasons creating two more roles; Gustavo in Faramondo and Ariodate in Serse. But by now his fabulous vocal range had diminished. And in 1740 he joined the Royal Chapel in Madrid where he sang for the next ten years. In Madrid he would be rejoining the castrato Farinelli, an ex-colleague from the Opera of the Nobility. (Farinelli's task in Madrid was to sing the same arias every night to King Philip V in an unsuccessful bid to cure his madness).

Montagnana's known career spans just twenty years from 1730 to 1750. As he only comes to notice a year before he joined Handel's company, the bass who sang so vigorously in those early arias written for him must have been remarkably young. Burney praised Montagnana's 'depth, power, mellowness and peculiar accuracy of intonantion in hitting distant intervals'. When he joined Handel's company Montagnana had a range of over two octaves from E to f' but by 1737 this had diminished to G to e flat'.

A notable omission from this miscellany of singers is of course, the castrato. The presence of a castrato or two in an opera company was regarded as essential. But these fascinating beasts are a story in their own right and in this article I wanted to shed light on some of the other singers who worked with Handel in his later operas. Though I have included only four of them, there were of course many more. But, though quite a few singers passed through his opera company, not all of them had such a strong association with him. But if voice and personality were right, Handel would write striking parts even in operas which are not amongst the first rank. Hopefully this short miscellany gives some idea of the personalities and musical strengths of four of these singers; an indication of the varied characters that Handel worked with in his opera seria.