Opera singers were popular and influential, but they were also scandalous individuals. However, a strange incongruency existed with regard to them as well. Opera stars commanded the attention of the public by being at the center of cultural life. In the major centers of European culture, especially Naples, Paris, and London, the art form reflected cultural attitudes and deeply affected the masses.
Many opera singers of the eighteenth century, both male and female, were extremely difficult people with a penchant for highhandedness and erratic behavior, largely because opera was one of the most popular and influential art forms in Europe during the 1700s. When the eighteenth-century operatic soprano Francesca Cuzzoni (1696-1778) refused to sing an aria George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) had written for her, he grabbed her and said, “I know you are a she-devil, but I am Beelzebub, the king of all the devils, and I swear that if you don’t sing that air this very minute, I’ll throw you out of the window.” Although this anecdote might encourage feelings of sympathy for the singer, a closer examination reveals that Handel was very likely at his wit’s end with Cuzzoni. William Hogarth, The Bad Taste of the Town, 1724 (Victoria and Albert Museum)įelicity Moran (Franciscan University of Steubenville)
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