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3 unusual facts about Giovanni Battista Pescetti


Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset

After a second grand tour to continental Europe in 1737 and 1738, he returned to England in January 1739 and staged an opera, Angelico e Medoro, with music by Giovanni Battista Pescetti from a libretto by Metastasio at Covent Garden.

Giovanni Battista Pescetti

Having spent some time writing operas in and around Venice, he left for London in 1736, becoming director of the Opera of the Nobility in 1737.

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.


Élisabeth Duparc

After training in Italy she sang in Florence (1731, 1734–35) then London (1736 onwards) - at the latter she initially joined the Opera of the Nobility, where she appeared in operas by Riccardo Broschi, Egidio Duni, Giovanni Battista Pescetti and Francesco Maria Veracini.


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