Valentin Adamberger
Encyclopedia
Valentin Adamberger, also known by his Italian
name Adamonti, (22 February 1740 or 6 July 1743 24 August 1804) was a German
operatic tenor
. His voice was universally admired for its pliancy, agility, and precision, and several composers of note, such as Mozart
, wrote music specifically for him.
, Bavaria
in 1740 or in Munich
in 1743. Beginning in 1755, he studied singing with Johannes Walleshauser (also known as Giovanni Valesi) while at the Domus Gregoriana, a Jesuit institution in Munich. In 1760 he joined the Kapelle of Duke Clemens and upon the Duke's death in 1770 was taken into the elector's Hofkapelle. He made his opera
début at Munich in 1772. This was the beginning of a successful career singing leading tenor roles in opera seria
at Modena
, Venice
, Florence
, Pisa
and Rome
. He created roles in operas by J. C. Bach, Giuseppe Sarti
, Pietro Guglielmi, Antonio Sacchini
, Ferdinando Bertoni
and others. The arias they wrote for his voice tended to be moderate in tempo
and often were written in B major
. Interestingly, many of the composers orchestrated
his arias with obbligato
clarinet
s and expressive chromatic inflections.
In Rome Adamberger sang under the italianized stage name
Valentino Adamonti from 1775 to 1777. From 1778-1779 he sang at the King's Theatre
in London
. After returning to Italy briefly for appearances in Florence
and Milan
, he joined the Singspiel
company of the National Court Theatre at Vienna. He made his début there on 21 August 1780. The following yeat he married the Viennese actress Marie Anne Jacquet
(1753–1804). In 1783 the Singspiel company disbanded but Adamberger was kept on for the Italian company that replaced it. When the Singspiel company was revived in 1785, alongside the Italian, he again became its leading tenor, and when it was disbanded for the second time, in 1789, he returned to the Italian company. In 1793 he retired from the stage but continued as a member of the imperial Hofkapelle and as an eminent singing
teacher. He died in Vienna
.
Although Adamberger's voice was admired where ever he went, he did have his critics. Christian Schubart and Mount Edgcumbe
remarked on the nasal quality of his voice in the higher vocal register and Charles Burney
, generally a harsh critic of singers, remarked that "with a better voice [he] would have been a good singer". However, he was universally liked by the public in Italy, Germany, and England, and was a particularly popular singer in Vienna. Michtner, a local Vienese journalist, wrote of Adamberger that he was "the favourite singer of softer hearts". Mozart
, who admired Adamberger, wrote the part of Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail
(1782) for him. In a letter dated 26 September 1781, Mozart wrote, "Let me now turn to Belmonte's aria in A major, ‘O wie ängstlich, o wie feurig’. Would you like to know how I have expressed it – and even indicated his throbbing heart? By the two violin
s playing in octaves. This is the favourite aria
of all who have heard it, and it is mine also. I wrote it expressly to suit Adamberger's voice. You see the trembling, the faltering, you see how his throbbing breast begins to swell; this I have expressed by a crescendo. You hear the whispering and the sighing – which I have indicated by the first violins with mutes and a flute
playing in unison." Mozart also composed the role of Vogelsang in Der Schauspieldirektor
(1786) for Adamberger, as well as several concert arias (K.420 and K.431) and the cantata
Die Maurerfreude (K.471).
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...
name Adamonti, (22 February 1740 or 6 July 1743 24 August 1804) was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
operatic tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
. His voice was universally admired for its pliancy, agility, and precision, and several composers of note, such as Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, wrote music specifically for him.
Biography
Adamberger was born either in RothenburgRothenburg ob der Tauber
Rothenburg ob der Tauber is a town in the district of Ansbach of Mittelfranken , the Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany, well known for its well-preserved medieval old town, a destination for tourists from around the world. In the Middle Ages, it was an Imperial Free City...
, Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
in 1740 or in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
in 1743. Beginning in 1755, he studied singing with Johannes Walleshauser (also known as Giovanni Valesi) while at the Domus Gregoriana, a Jesuit institution in Munich. In 1760 he joined the Kapelle of Duke Clemens and upon the Duke's death in 1770 was taken into the elector's Hofkapelle. He made his 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...
début at Munich in 1772. This was the beginning of a successful career singing leading tenor roles in opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
at Modena
Modena
Modena is a city and comune on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy....
, 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...
, 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....
, Pisa
Pisa
Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. He created roles in operas by J. C. Bach, Giuseppe Sarti
Giuseppe Sarti
Giuseppe Sarti was an Italian opera composer.-Biography:He was born at Faenza. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 1 December 1729. Some earlier sources say he was born on 28 December, but his baptism certificate proves the later date impossible...
, Pietro Guglielmi, Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini was an Italian opera composer.Sacchini was born in Florence, but was raised in Naples, where he received his musical education at the San Onofrio conservatory. He wrote his first operas in Naples, thereafter moving to Venice, then London and eventually Paris, where...
, Ferdinando Bertoni
Ferdinando Bertoni
Ferdinando Bertoni was an Italian composer and organist.He was born in Salò, and began his music studies in Brescia, not far from his birthplace. Around 1740 he went to Bologna, where he studied till 1745 with the famous music theorist Giovanni Battista Martini...
and others. The arias they wrote for his voice tended to be moderate in tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
and often were written in B major
B major
In music theory, B major is a major scale based on B. The pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A are all part of the B major scale. Its key signature has five sharps....
. Interestingly, many of the composers orchestrated
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
his arias with obbligato
Obbligato
In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified...
clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s and expressive chromatic inflections.
In Rome Adamberger sang under the italianized stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
Valentino Adamonti from 1775 to 1777. From 1778-1779 he sang at the King's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
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...
. After returning to Italy briefly for appearances 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....
and Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, he joined the Singspiel
Singspiel
A Singspiel is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera...
company of the National Court Theatre at Vienna. He made his début there on 21 August 1780. The following yeat he married the Viennese actress Marie Anne Jacquet
Maria Anna Adamberger
Maria Anna Adamberger , born Jaquet, was an Austrian actress. She was known for her roles in various comedies, while her sister Katharina Adamberger preferred tragic roles...
(1753–1804). In 1783 the Singspiel company disbanded but Adamberger was kept on for the Italian company that replaced it. When the Singspiel company was revived in 1785, alongside the Italian, he again became its leading tenor, and when it was disbanded for the second time, in 1789, he returned to the Italian company. In 1793 he retired from the stage but continued as a member of the imperial Hofkapelle and as an eminent singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
teacher. He died in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
Although Adamberger's voice was admired where ever he went, he did have his critics. Christian Schubart and Mount Edgcumbe
Mount Edgcumbe
Mount Edgcumbe may refer to:* Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, in Cornwall, United Kingdom* Mount Edgcumbe House, located within Mount Edgcumbe Country Park* Mount Edgecombe, KwaZulu-Natal, a sugar-growing town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa...
remarked on the nasal quality of his voice in the higher vocal register and Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
, generally a harsh critic of singers, remarked that "with a better voice [he] would have been a good singer". However, he was universally liked by the public in Italy, Germany, and England, and was a particularly popular singer in Vienna. Michtner, a local Vienese journalist, wrote of Adamberger that he was "the favourite singer of softer hearts". Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, who admired Adamberger, wrote the part of Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
(1782) for him. In a letter dated 26 September 1781, Mozart wrote, "Let me now turn to Belmonte's aria in A major, ‘O wie ängstlich, o wie feurig’. Would you like to know how I have expressed it – and even indicated his throbbing heart? By the two violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s playing in octaves. This is the favourite aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
of all who have heard it, and it is mine also. I wrote it expressly to suit Adamberger's voice. You see the trembling, the faltering, you see how his throbbing breast begins to swell; this I have expressed by a crescendo. You hear the whispering and the sighing – which I have indicated by the first violins with mutes and a flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
playing in unison." Mozart also composed the role of Vogelsang in Der Schauspieldirektor
Der Schauspieldirektor
Der Schauspieldirektor , K. 486, is a comic Singspiel written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, an Austrian Schauspieldirektor....
(1786) for Adamberger, as well as several concert arias (K.420 and K.431) and the cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
Die Maurerfreude (K.471).