Angelica Catalani was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 singer, the daughter of a tradesman.

At Sinigaglia, she was educated at the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, where her soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 voice soon became famous.

In 1795 she made her debut on the stage at Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. For nearly thirty years she sang at all the great houses, receiving very large fees; her first appearance in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 being at the Kings Theatre in 1806. She remained in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, a prima donna

Prima donna

Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...

 without a serious rival, for seven years. Then she was given the management of the Opera in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, but this resulted in financial failure, due to the incapacity and extravagance of her husband, Captain Valabrégue, whom she married in 1806.

In 1827, she visited Sweden, during which she heard Elisabeth Olin

Elisabeth Olin

Elisabeth Olin was a Swedish opera singer and a music composer. She is referred to as the first Swedish Opera prima donna. She was a court-singer . She was the first female member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music...

 and Brita Catharina Lidbeck

Brita Catharina Lidbeck

Brita Catharina Lidbeck, also Brita Catharina Munck af Rosenschöld was a Swedish Dilettante concert singer. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music....

 sing; during her stay, she was inducted as a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts

Royal Swedish Academy of Arts

The Royal Swedish Academy of Arts or Kungl. Akademien för de fria konsterna, founded in 1773 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies in Sweden...

.

Her continental tours continued to be enormously successful, until she retired in 1828. She settled in Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

 in 1830, where she founded a free singing school for girls; and her charity and kindness were unbounded. She died of cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

 in Paris.

Catalani's greatest gift was her voice, a soprano of nearly three octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s in range. Its unsurpassed power and flexibility made her one of the greatest bravura singers of all times. She also worked as a singing teacher. Her pupils included Laure Cinti-Damoreau

Laure Cinti-Damoreau

Laura Cinti-Damoreau was a French soprano particularly associated with Rossini roles.- Life and career :...

 and Fanny Corri-Paltoni

Fanny Corri-Paltoni

Fanny Corri-Paltoni was a celebrated English operatic soprano active in Europe between 1818 and 1835. It was said that she possessed a voice of remarkable beauty and that she had a fine singing technique. She particularly excelled in the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioachino...

.

Publications

• Edwards
  Henry Sutherland Edwards
  Henry Sutherland Edwards was a British journalist.He was born in London, and educated in London and France. He was correspondent of The Times at the coronation of Alexander II of Russia, in the camp of the insurgents at Warsaw , and at German army headquarters during the Franco-Prussian War...
  
  , The Prima Donna: Her History and Surroundings from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century, volume i (two volumes, London, 1888)
• George T. Ferris, Great Singers (New York, 1893)
• Needham, Queens of Song (London, 1863)
• Henry Charles Lahee, Famous Singers of To-Day and Yesterday (Boston, 1900)