The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-15 00:00:00

SIGNOR MORIANI.

The following sketch of the career of this celebrated
artist, which a e abridge from the Maestro, may not be
uninteresting to our readers :--
" Sigror Moriani is a native of Florence, where lie
was born in the latter part of the year 1809 ; so that he
is now in his thirty-fifth year. His father, who was a
man of the highest respectability, and some wealth, and
destined his sett, to ‘vhorn he was devotedly attached, for
the legal profession, and before he had completed his
twentieth year, Napoleotie was sent to the classic shades
of Pisa to commence his studies for the bar. But the
dry pursuit of jurisprudence was of all things the most
unconge!lial to the taste of the future artist, and an
arde: t attachment he farmed at Florence during his first
vacation, t endered hire still more unwilling to quit the
fair city of his early affections and fondest hope. for the
dull cloisters and prescribed walks of alma mater. It
was about his interesting period of his life, when love
had quickened his feelings to a sensuous appreciation of
the "concord of sweet sounds," that he heard for the
first time the then popular singer Bianchi. That touch-
ing voice, in one of the love songs of his country, went
home to the susceptible heart of the young inamorata,
and from that moment of raptur-, as he has frequently
been heard to declare, he formed the resolution to de-
vote himself exclusively to the lyric stage. Fortune as
well as nature favoured him. He became acquaiuted
with the celebrated maestro Rugs, who, struck with the
genius of the youthful aspirant to vocal fame, not only
gave him gratuitous instruction in singing, but in •
• terested himself to provide his pupil with the best masters
necessary to qualify him for the profession of his choice.
The peculiar and hereditary gift of his countrymen was
Moriani's in an extraordinary degree. Welt might the
generous and enthusiastic Buga be proud of his hand-
some pupil. Moriani devoted himself with ardour to the
study of music, and the astonishing progress he made
called forth the most sanguine expectations from all who
had an opportunity of hearing him in private.
" Moriani made his first public appearance in the
concert-room of the well-known academy for vocal
debatants at Milan, and, consequently, before an
audience well qualified to form an estimate of his in-
trinsic merits. The remarkable properties of his voice,
his noble figure and expressive countenance, and the
singularly fine dramatic conception he evinced, com-
manded the admiration of all who beheld him, and from
the extraordinary sensation he then produced it was not
difficult to forsee that a new star would soon rise re
splendent on the lyric stage. He was shortly afterwards
offered an engagement by the impresario of Pavia, and
in that city he made his debut in Donizetti's opera of
Anna, Bolena. From that time the fame of Moriani
continued to spread. Italy quickly recognised in tin
Florentine artist one of the finest tenors the present age
had produced. From Pavia, Moriani went to Padua,
and thence to Cremona and Turin, and subSequently to
Parma, Venice, and Genoa. The impresarii of Naples,
Rome, and Milan simultaneously proffered him engage-
ments, and his first performances at the two most im-
portant theatres in Italy—San Carla and La Scala—
were successively hailed with a furore of delight.
" It would occupy more space than we can afford to
record but one-third of the triumphs which have at-
tended Moriani in his artistic career. He is as mueh
esteemed at Vienna, Dresden, and Berlin as at Rome,
Florence, and Milan."