page_title: Elisabetta Manfredini-Guarmani
section_title: Early life and first performances
hierarchical_section_title: Elisabetta Manfredini-Guarmani / Early life and first performances
caption_attribution_description: Engraving of the the facade of the now demolished Teatro del Corso in Bologna
context_page_description: Elisabetta Manfredini-Guarmani was an Italian opera singer best known for having created the leading soprano roles in four of Rossini's operas, roles which he wrote specifically for her voice. She was born Antonia Elisabetta Manfredini in Bologna and was the daughter of the composer and music theorist Vincenzo Manfredini. After her stage debut in 1810 when she sang in the premiere of Stefano Pavesi's Il trionfo di Gedeone at Bologna's Teatro del Corso, she went on to perform at La Fenice, La Scala, Teatro Regio di Torino, Rome's Teatro Argentina and several other opera houses, primarily in Northern Italy. In addition to the roles she created in Rossini's operas, she also sang in the world premieres of operas by several composers who are lesser known today, including Pietro Raimondi, Simon Mayr, and Ferdinando Paër. Her last known appearance was in 1828 after which there is no further trace of her. The date and place of her death are unknown.
context_section_description: Manfredini-Guarmani was born in Bologna to a prominent musical family. Her father, Vincenzo Manfredini, was a well-known composer and music theorist who had been active at the Russian court from 1758 until his return to Bologna in 1769. Her mother, Maria Monari, was an Italian opera singer who was performing in Russia at the time of their marriage. The Manfredini family were originally from Pistoia. Vincenzo's father Francesco was a composer, violinist, and church musician and his older brother Giuseppe was a noted castrato singer who had served the Russian court as a singing teacher during Vincenzo's time there. According to Italian musicologist Leonella Grasso Caprioli, Manfredini-Guarmani's baptismal certificate states her date of birth as 2 June 1780. Earlier sources have variously listed her birth year as 1786 and 1790, although they do not provide the exact day or month. Caprioli has suggested that the assumption of a post-1786 birth year may have been due to her relatively late appearance as a professional singer. Little is known about Manfredini-Guarmani's early life and training. In 1802, three years after her father's death, she married a fellow Bolognese, Vincenzo Antonio Guarmani and as a young woman appears to have been active in the musical life of the city. She sang in private concerts at the home of the composer Francesco Sampieri and by 1811 was already a member of Bologna's Accademia Filarmonica and an honorary member of the Accademia dei Concordi.
  She made her professional debut on 11 March 1810 when she sang the role of Egla in the premiere of Stefano Pavesi's sacred opera, Il trionfo di Gedeone (The Triumph of Gideon), at the Teatro del Corso in Bologna. She was 30 years old, and it is unclear why she undertook an opera career at an age when many female singers of the day were already into their second decade on stage. However, Francesco Regli writing in 1860 described her as having come from a "respectable family which had fallen on hard times". Her debut performance received considerable praise, with the critic of Il Redattore del Reno writing:
  Signora Elisabetta Manfredini Guarmani, who has appeared for the first time on stage [...] enchants with the grace of her singing which deeply touches the soul.
  Engagements followed later that year at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, where she sang the title role in the premiere of Pietro Raimondi's Eloisa Verner, and at the  Teatro Grande in Brescia, where she sang Ifigenia in the premiere of Mayr's Il sagrifizio di Ifigenia, a performance which inaugurated the new theatre. In the summer of 1811, she was back in Bologna to sing the title role in a revival of Paisiello's Nina, ossia La pazza per amore at the Teatro Marsigli.
caption: Teatro del Corso in Bologna where Manfredini-Guarmani made her professional debut on 11 March 1810
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