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Matteo Antonio Babini, also known with the family name of Babbini (Bologna, 19 February 1754 – Bologna, 22 September 1816), was a leading Italian tenor of the late-18th- and a teacher of singing and stage art.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Artistic features 3 Roles created 4 Bibliografia 5 Note

[edit] Biography

After studying in his town with Arcangelo Cortoni, he made his début at Modena, incredibly young, as a second tenor, in 1770/71, probably in a revival of Paisiello’s Demetrio^[1]. After being on the stage in several Italian theatres, but above all in Venice’s San Benedetto, not in rôles of a first tenor yet, Babini was engaged at first at Berlin’s Court and, then, among Paisiello’s suite, at Saint Petersburg’s (1777/1781), where he got very much appreciated in the Apulia composer’s operas, even, exceptionally, in some ones of the comic genre he used not to practise very much indeed in Italy. According to the Grove Dictionary ^[2], he later sang substantially in all parts of Europe, from Lisbon to Madrid, from Vienna to London, where , in 1786, he took part in the première of Cherubini’s Giulio Sabino. Particular importance in the development of his artistic tendencies to a realistic way of acting seems to have been played by his repeated journeys to Paris,in 1787/1789 and then in 1792, namely in key-moments for the French revolution, beforehand during its ripening and explosion, and then during its climax. Anyway, his career in Italy went on very successfully throughout the nineties (he took part, especially, in the première of Cimarosa’ Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, creating the part of the villain hero Marcus Horatius ) , until his farewall in 1803, when, though, he was still requested for first performances by such composers as Zingarelli and Bertoni. Having settled again in his native town, after an Italian career almost wholly based upon Venice, he then proceeded to teach, and not only singing (and not only to so high levelled pupils as a teen-aged Gioachino Rossini^[3]), but also that stage art which he had so much distinguished himself by. He died on September 22, 1816.

[edit] Artistic features

Matteo Babini constitutes a key-element in the recovery, towards the end of the 18th century, of the expressive character of operatic singing which had been going ruined among castrati’s vocal acrobatics and sopranos’ above high notes. Being a baritonal tenor with a very narrow range, which made him feel really at his ease in only one octave tessitura, not particularly versed in coloratura (even though, in the end, Orazi’s only virtuoso aria was assigned to him), he gave his contribute to the renaissance of operatic art, developing his gifts as an actor-singer : he thus made himself conspicuous by his recitatives’ high-flown style, by the truth he was able to infuse to his acting, by the fascination he unfailingly succeeded in having for audiences, apropos undoubtedly aided by his imposing stage presence (he was tall, blond, slender and with a very fine countenance). According to Morelli ^[4] “the stimulus to seek after dramatic truth Babbini did certainly find during his stays in Paris in 1787-9 and in 1792. One can, indeed, easily notice that, after those years, the tenor’s repertory changed invariably course from Metastasio-style dramas toward historical-subject-mattered interpretations with ... Roman republican suggestions, and toward the Rousseau monodrama cantata (which he performed around the major Italian theatres with huge success). As a vanguard interpreter and a cultured singer, Babbini endeavoured to look for «peoples’ customs and heroes’ vicissitudes» ^[5], and just in the Venetian première of Cimarosa’s Oriazi he went on the stage wearing historical costume, «which the audience remained so much satisfied with, that thenceforth theatres turned it into an invariable standard» ^[6]”.

With his pursuit of expressiveness through interpretative truth , to be achieved also by means of a wise extent of renewal, Babini took his firm stand by the side of his partners of so many performances, Crescentini, Grassini, Banti,Pacchiarotti (and also of that tenor Giacomo David whom he so often chanced to alternate in the execution of the same parts with), in the action of restyling operatic singing which laid the bases of the following Rossini revival; moreover, its real symbolic launch probably fell directly to him through the lessons he happened to give to a forward adolescent that wished for an opera-singer career and was instead to become the most famous opera-composer in Europe.

[edit] Roles created

The following list is not complete , but is absolutely significant of Babini’s career, at least in Italy .^[7]

• Amadeus Almanac (Babini), accessed 14 February 2009
• Amadeus Almanac (Babbini), accessed 14 February 2009

role	opera	genre	composer	theatre	première’s date
Anassandro	Merope	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Giacomo Insanguine	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Benedetto	26 December 1772
Osmino	Solimano	dramma per musica	Johann Gottlieb Naumann	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Benedetto	3 January 1773
Clearco	Antigono	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Pasquale Anfossi	Venice, Teatro (Gallo) San Benedetto	23 May 1773
Amenofi (or Amasi)	La Nitteti	dramma per musica	Giovanni Paisiello	Saint Petersburg , Hoftheater of the Imperial Palace of Oranienbaum	28 January 1777
Tempo	Achille in Sciro	dramma per musica	Giovanni Paisiello	Saint Petersburg, Hoftheater of the Imperial Palace of Oranienbaum	6 February 1778
===	Lo sposo burlato	dramma giocoso-pastiche	Giovanni Paisiello	Saint Petersburg , Hoftheater of the Imperial Palace of Peterhof	24 July 1778
===	La finta amante	opera buffa	Giovanni Paisiello	Mogilëv, Theatre (name unknown)	5 June 1780
Fronimo	Alcide al bivio	festa teatrale	Giovanni Paisiello	Saint Petersburg , Hermitage Theatre in the Winter Palace	6 December 1780
Artaserse (not verified)	Artaserse	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Giacomo Rust	Perugia, Teatro Civico (inauguration)	1781
Sarabes	Zemira	dramma per musica	Pasquale Anfossi	Venice, Teatro (Gallo) San Benedetto	26 December 1781
Scitalce-Sardanapalo	Arbace	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Giovanni Battista Borghi	Venice, Teatro (Gallo) San Benedetto	3 January 1782
Ormondo	Il dissertore francese	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Francesco Bianchi	Venice, Teatro (Gallo) San Benedetto	26 December 1784
Alessandro Magno	Alessandro nell'Indie	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Francesco Bianchi	Venice, Teatro (Gallo) San Benedetto	28 January 1785
===	Giulio Sabino	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Luigi Cherubini	London, King's Theatre	30 March 1786
Porsenna	Il trionfo di Clelia	dramma per musica	Angelo Tarchi	Turin, Nuovo Teatro Regio	26 December 1786
Volodimiro	Volodimiro	dramma per musica	Gian Domenico Boggio	Turin, Nuovo Teatro Regio	20 January 1787
Artabano (not verified)	Artaserse	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Francesco Bianchi	Padua, Teatro Nuovo e della Nobiltà	11 June 1787
Bruto	La morte di Giulio Cesare	dramma serio per musica	Francesco Bianchi	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Samuele	27 December 1788
Amenofi (or Amasi)	Nitteti	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Ferdinando Bertoni	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Samuele di Venezia	6 February 1789
Giasone	Gli Argonauti in Colco ossia La conquista del vello d'oro	dramma per musica	Giuseppe Gazzaniga	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Samuele	26 December 1789
Pimmalione	Pimmalione	scena drammatica in musica [8]	Giovanni Battista Cimador	Venice, Teatro (Grimani) San Samuele	26 January 1790
Alessandro	Apelle	dramma serio per musica (1st version)	Nicola Antonio Zingarelli	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	18 November 1793
Virginio	Virginia	tragedia per musica (opera seria)	Felice Alessandri	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	26 December 1793
Alcéo	Saffo o sia I riti d'Apollo Leucadio	dramma per musica	Giovanni Simone Mayr	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	17 February 1794
Ulisse	Penelope	dramma per musica	Domenico Cimarosa	Naples, Teatro del Fondo della Separazione	26 December 1794
Marco Orazio	Gli Orazi e i Curiazi	tragedia per musica (1st version)	Domenico Cimarosa	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	26 December 1796
Mentore	Telemaco nell'isola di Calipso	dramma per musica	Giovanni Simone Mayr	Venice, Teatro Sant'Angelo	16 January 1797
Mitridate	La morte di Mitridate	dramma per musica (opera seria)	Nicola Antonio Zingarelli	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	27 May 1797
protagonista	Inno patriottico per la guardia civica	anthem	Catterino Cavos	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	14 September 1797
Edipo	Edipo a Colono	tragedia per musica (opera seria)	Nicola Antonio Zingarelli	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	26 December 1802
Publio Scipione Africano	La caduta della nuova Cartagine	dramma per musica	Giuseppe Farinelli	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	5 February 1803
Mercurio	Adria consolata	festa teatrale (cantata drammatica)	Ferdinando Bertoni	Venice, Teatro alla Fenice	12 February 1803

[edit] Bibliografia

• Rodolfo Celletti, Storia del belcanto, Discanto Edizioni, Fiesole, 1983
• Sadie,Stanley (ed), The new Grove Dictionary of Opera, Oxford University Press, 1992, vol 4, ad nomen
• Giovanni Morelli, “«E voi pupille tenere», uno sguardo furtivo, errante, agli «Orazi» di Domenico Cimarosa e altri”, essay enclosed in the Teatro dell'Opera’s Programme for the performances of Cimarosa’s Gli Orazi e i Curiazi, Rome, 1989.
• This article is a substantial translation from Matteo Babini in the Italian Wikipedia.

[edit] Note

1. ^ This date is reported , on line, by the Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani; the date 1773 reported instead by the Grove Dictionary (vol I, p 267) must be evidently wrong, as, already at the end of 1772, Babini had taken part in a première, however singing a third line rôle (cf Rôles created, above)
2. ^ ibid
3. ^ who would recount, in his old age, to Ferdinand Hiller the story of his juvenile fancies to become a singer and of his meeting the great tenor, (cf Morelli, G., op cit, p 32)
4. ^ Morelli, G, op cit , p 32
5. ^ P. Brigenti, Elogio di Matteo Babbini, Bologna, 1821, p 11
6. ^ ibid , p 21
7. ^ The material found in the two external links pointed out below (which are referred either to the “Babini” version of the surname or to the “Babbini” one) has been appropriately integrated with the researches contained in Giovanni Morelli’s mentioned essay on Gli Orazi e i Curiazi
8. ^ libretto by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (from Ovid's Metamorphoses), in the Italian translation by Antonio Simeone Sografi