Nicolò Grimaldi Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

Nicolò Grimaldi Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki

Nicolò Francesco Leonardo Grimaldi (5 April 1673 (bap) â€" 1 January

1732) was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato who is best remembered

today for his association with the composer George Frideric Handel, in

two of whose early operas he sang. Grimaldi was usually known by his

stage name of Nicolini.Nicolini was born in Naples, where he made his

operatic début in 1685. He also sang sacred music as a soprano in the

Cathedral and Royal Chapel (to which extant libretti from the 1690s

identify him as virtuoso). Between 1697 and 1731 he sang many operatic

roles at various Italian cities in works by composers such as

Alessandro Scarlatti, Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, and Johann Adolf

Hasse. Other composers who wrote major roles for him included

Francesco Provenzale (who was his teacher), Pollarolo, Ariosti, Lotti,

Giovanni and Antonio Maria Bononcini, Caldara, Albinoni, Leo, and

Riccardo Broschi. Of more than a hundred productions in which he took

part, thirty-six were in Naples, thirty-four in Venice, and fifteen in

London.Nicolini first visited London in 1708, where his fine singing

and critically renowned acting were crucial to the success of Italian

opera, and, more specifically, opera seria in London. In 1711 he

created the title role in Handel's Rinaldo, a work whose immediate

popularity was instrumental in the establishing of Handel's lengthy

career in England. He also sang the title role in Handel's Amadigi in

1715 and continued to sing in London, usually in various pasticcios,

until 1717. The eighteenth-century musicologist Charles Burney

described Nicolini as "this great singer, and still greater actor",

while Joseph Addison labelled him "the greatest performer in dramatic

Music that is now living or that perhaps ever appeared on a stage".

His Handel roles reveal that he possessed exceptional vocal agility

and virtuosity. Between 1727-1730 he performed with Farinelli in

Italy. In 1731 he planned to sing at Naples in Giovanni Battista

Pergolesi's first opera seria, La Salustia, but became ill and died

during rehearsals.
Nicolò Grimaldi Family, Real Name, Spouse, Profession, Eye Color, body stats, Feet Size, Wiki


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