Giovanni Carestini [Cusanino Carestini] Biography

Italian soprano, later alto, castrato. He was taken to Milan at the age of 12 under the protection of the Cusani family, and first performed there in Giuseppe Vignati's Porsena in 1719 . Several northern appearances preceded his Roman début in 1721 ( Alessandro Scarlatti's La Griselda), where he sang alongside Bernacchi , his teacher. He remained for two years, creating Fausta in Giovanni Bononcini's Crispo ( 1721 ); he then graced the Viennese court in 1723 – 4 , appearing in Johann Fux's Costanza e Fortezza in Prague. He was at Venice in 1724 – 6 , 1729 and 1731 , singing in operas by Leonardo Vinci and Nicola Porpora , and in Rome in 1727 – 30 , where he appeared in works by Vinci and Francesco Feo ; he also sang in operas by Johann Hasse and others in Naples, 1728 – 9 . He crossed the Alps in 1731 and entered the service of the Duke of Bavaria in Munich, returning to Italy before following Handel to London in 1733 . There he created the principal male roles in G. F. Handel's Arianna in Creta ( 1734 ), Oreste ( 1734 ), Parnasso in festa, Terpsichore, Ariodante ( 1735 ) and Alcina ( 1735 ), also singing in revivals and pasticcios, and in Handel's oratorios (Deborah, Acis and Galatea, Esther and Athalia). Back in Naples in 1735 , his salary was higher than Caffarelli 's. During a second London engagement, for six months ending in May 1740 , he enjoyed little success. In the 1740s he appeared in Italy, was in Maria Theresa's employ by 1744 and sang under Hasse in Dresden, 1747 – 9 . Brief Italian appearances preceded a Berlin engagement, 1750 – 54 ; he then moved to St Petersburg under Francesco Araja until 1756 . His career declined rapidly; a Naples audience was hostile in 1758 . Carestini was at first ‘a powerful and clear soprano’ ( Charles Burney ), with a compass of b to c’’’; later he had ‘the fullest, finest, and deepest counter-tenor that has perhaps ever been heard’. Handel's roles for him call for a two-octave compass, a to a’’; Hasse's Demofoonte ( 1748 ) requires e to g’. His reputation was enormous. Hasse remarked: ‘He who has not heard Carestini is not acquainted with the most perfect style of singing’; Johann Quantz added: ‘He had extraordinary virtuosity in brilliant passages, which he sang in chest voice, conforming to the principles of the school of Bernacchi and the manner of Farinelli’ . Others, including Burney, commented on his superb acting, and his handsome and majestic profile.

Dale E. Monson