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Antonio Montagnana

18th-century music historian Charles Burney praised his "depth, power, mellowness and peculiar accuracy of intonation in hitting distant intervals".

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In 1740 he moved to Madrid for 10 years, where he sang in many operas and many cantatas at the royal chapel.

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During that same year he came to London to join Handel's opera company, where he created roles in Handel's Ezio - with words by the renowned librettist Metastasio - and Sosarme, and sang in revivals of Admeto, Giulio Cesare, Flavio, and Poro.

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During the following season he created the role of Zoroastro in Handel's Orlando and sang the roles of Polyphemus in Acis and Galatea and Haman in Esther in what was Handel's first season of oratorio: he also took part in revivals of Tolomeo and Alessandro.

Opera of the Nobility

The company went bankrupt and was dissolved in 1737 (shortly after appointing Giovanni Battista Pescetti its musical director), but not before it had poached some of Handel's best singers such as Francesca Cuzzoni and Antonio Montagnana and forced his company into bankruptcy too.

see also