Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/B/Banti, Brigada Georgi

Banti, Brigada Georgi, a celebrated female Italian singer, was the daughter of a Venetian gondolier, and in her youth nothing more nor less than a street singer in Georgi, her native town, where a noble amateur, having noticed the brilliancy of her voice, had her instructed in singing at his expense. It is probable she was shortly after advised to try her fortune in a foreign country, for she soon left Venice on her road to Paris ; not, however, as it would seem, in prosperous circumstances, since she sang at coffee houses and inns, at Lyons and other towns, for small sums collected from the guests. Monsieur de Visnes, then manager of the opera at Paris, relates, that, in the year 1778, he stopped one evening at a coffee house on the Boulevards, being struck by the sound of a very beautiful voice; it was Banti whom he heard, as she was singing in the coffee room. He put a louis d'or into her hand, desiring her to call on him the next morning. The result was, that Monsieur de Vines engaged her immediately for the Opera Buffa, where she made her debut, by an air sung between the second and third acts of "lphigenie en Aulide," and created a universal sensation of delight. After the departure of the celebrated Agujari from London, the managers of the Pantheon engaged Madame Banti for three seasons, upon condition that �100 a year should be de-ducted from her salary, for the payment of an able master to cultivate her voice. Sacchini was the first appointed to this office ; but he found her so idle and obstinate, that he soon quitted her as an incurable patient. She was next assigned to Piozzi, whose patience was likewise soon exhausted by her incorrigible inattention. Her last master in England was Abel ; soon after which she left that country, and sang with enthusiastic applause at several of the German courts, and subsequently at almost every principal town in Italy. Her great success certainly exemplifies' most strongly the truth of the old adage, that " there are a hundred requisites necessary to constitute a good singer, of which, whoever is gifted with a fine voice, is already in possession of ninety-nine." After several years' absence, Banti returned to England in the spring of 1790, when her performance and singing in Gluck's opera of "Alceste" was thought to be most perfect; every look, every action, every note, appearing to be strictly appropriate to the character she had assumed, and to no other. Soon after this, on the occasion of Lord Howe's victory, Banti introduced in one of her cantatas the national air of "God save the King," in a style which perfectly electrified the audience. In the year 1799, she enraptured every hearer by her performance in "Ines de Castro," composed by Francesco Bianchi, and then first produced. The celebrated prayer in it, "Gran Dio che regoli, was given in a style of tenderness and appropriate devotion, which perhaps has never been exceeded on the stage. We believe that the year 1802 was the last season of Banti's singing in England. She died at Bologna, in 1806, aged about fifty. It is said, that, on opening her body, the lungs were found to be of an unusually large size.