Teresa Brambilla (23 October 1813 – 15 July 1895) was a celebrated Italian soprano most remembered today for having first interpreted the role of Gilda in

Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

's opera ''

Rigoletto ''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had co ...

''. During a career that spanned 20 years, she sang throughout Italy and in other European cities, including

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

and Odessa.

Life and career

Teresa Brambilla was born in

Cassano d'Adda Cassano d'Adda (Milanese: ; Bergamasque: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Milan, Lombardy, Italy, located on the right side of the Adda River. It is on the border of the Metropolitan City of Milan and the province of Ber ...

to a musical family. Her parents were Gerolamo and Angela (''née'' Columbo) Brambilla. Teresa was one of five sisters who all became opera singers.Somerset-Ward (2004) p. 206 Her elder sister, Marietta (1807–1875) was a

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...

who specialised in '' travesti'' roles and sang in the premieres of several of

Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''bel canto'' opera style duri ...

's operas. Her younger sister,

Giuseppina ''Giuseppina'' is a 1960 short British documentary film produced by James Hill, which was filmed in 1959, in Mandriole, Emilia-Romagna, near Ravenna in the north east of Italy. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject). Pro ...

(1819–1903) was a mezzo-soprano who appeared in major opera houses in Italy, Spain, and England. Her other two sisters, Annetta and Lauretta, were sopranos who had lesser careers, appearing primarily in Italian opera houses. Like her sisters, Teresa Brambilla studied at the

Milan Conservatory The Milan Conservatory (''Conservatorio di Milano'') is a college of music in Milan, Italy. History The conservatory was established by a royal decree of 1807 in Milan, capital of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. It opened the following year ...

, where she first became acquainted with

Giuseppina Strepponi Clelia Maria Josepha (Giuseppina) Strepponi ( Lodi, 8 September 1815 – Villanova sull'Arda, 14 November 1897) was a nineteenth-century Italian operatic soprano of great renown and the second wife of composer Giuseppe Verdi. She is ofte ...

, a fellow student and the future wife of Giuseppe Verdi. After her professional debut in 1831, Brambilla initially sang in several smaller opera houses in northern Italy but in 1833 scored a considerable success at Milan's

Teatro Carcano The Teatro Carcano is a theatre in Milan, Italy, located at 63 Corso di Porta Romana. Although now exclusively devoted to plays and dance, it served as an opera house for much of the 19th century and saw the premieres of several important operas. ...

singing Agnese in Bellini's '' Beatrice di Tenda'' and the leading soprano role in Fioravanti's ''

Le cantatrici villane ''Le cantatrici villane'' (''The Boorish Singers'') is a comic opera (''dramma giocoso'') in two acts composed by Valentino Fioravanti to a libretto by Giuseppe Palomba. It was first performed in Naples in 1799. A revised one act version premier ...

''. She then appeared on Russia at the Odessa Opera House, which at the time specialised in Italian opera. Upon her return to Milan in 1837, she sang with her sister Marietta at La Scala in the world premiere of ''In morte di Maria Malibran de Bériot'', a cantata in memory of

Maria Malibran Maria Felicia Malibran (24 March 1808 – 23 September 1836) was a Spanish singer who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality ...

composed by Gaetano Donizetti, Giovanni Pacini, Saverio Mercadante, Nicola Vaccai and Pietro Antonio Coppola. After singing in Barcelona, she returned to La Scala for the 1839/1840 season in Mercadante's ''Le due illustri rivali'' and the world premieres of Mazzucato's ''I corsari'' and Coccia's ''Giovanna II''.Matera (1971); Parsons (1993) p. 179

References

;Notes ;Sources * * Forbes, Elizabeth (2008). "Brambilla, Giuseppina", "Brambilla, Marietta", "Brambilla, Teresa", and "Brambilla-Ponchielli, Teresa" in Laura Williams Macy (ed.),
The Grove Book of Opera Singers
', p. 58. Oxford University Press. *Matera, Angelo (1971)
"Brambilla, Marietta"
in ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'', Volume 13.

Treccani The ''Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere e Arti'' ( Italian for "Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters, and Arts"), best known as ''Treccani'' for its developer Giovanni Treccani or ''Enciclopedia Italiana'', is an Italian-language ...

*Parsons, Charles H. (1993). ''Opera premieres: An index of casts/performers''. Edwin Mellen Press. *Rosselli, John (1998)
"Opera Production, 1780–1880"
in Giorgio Pestelli and Lorenzo Bianconi (eds.), ''Opera Production and Its Resources'' (Volume 4 of ''The History of Italian Opera''), pp. 81–164. University of Chicago Press. *Somerset-Ward, Richard (2004)
''Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera, 1600-1900''
Yale University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Brambilla, Teresa Italian operatic sopranos People from Cassano d'Adda 1813 births 1895 deaths 19th-century Italian women opera singers