page_title: Margherita Zenoni
section_title: Early life and Italian career
hierarchical_section_title: Margherita Zenoni / Early life and Italian career
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Margherita Zenoni Occhiena, soprano (1815-1878). Italiano: Ritratto di Margherita Zenoni Occhiena, soprano (1815-1878).
context_page_description: Margherita Zenoni was an Italian opera singer who sang leading soprano roles in the opera houses of Italy and abroad from the early 1850s. She left Europe in 1867, first to sing with Annibale Biacchi's Italian opera company in Cuba and then to tour with Augusto Cagli's Italian opera company in Australasia. She remained with Cagli's company in its various incarnations until 1877, singing in India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. She died in Turin, her native city, less than a year after her return from South Africa.
context_section_description: Zenoni was born in Turin. She was initially self-taught and began her career in the late 1840s singing secondary roles in small theatres. Unable to make a breakthrough but possessed of a promising voice and stage presence, she was encouraged by music critics to get formal training. She became a pupil of Marcelliano Marcello who had opened a singing school in Turin and went on to further training with Carlo Boniforti at the Milan Conservatory. She made rapid progress and by the early 1850s was signed to various northern Italian opera houses as the prima donna assoluta. She had a triumphant debut at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1854 in the title role of Donizetti's Gemma di Vergy. Later in her career she also sang the title roles in his La Favorita, Lucrezia Borgia, and Anna Bolena. She went on to sing many leading roles in Verdi's operas, including some of the earliest performances of his La traviata (as Violetta), Rigoletto (as Gilda) and Il trovatore (as Leonora). She also appeared in Verdi's I masnadieri (as Amalia), Nabucco (as Abigaille), Macbeth (as Lady Macbeth), Attila (as Odabella), Ballo in Maschera (as Amelia), and I due Foscari (as Lucrezia).
  Francesco Regli wrote of her in 1860:
  Wherever she sings she has shown herself to be an artist worthy of every praise, for she unites an exquisite sentiment, an ardent spirit and a dramatic talent that has few equals with a beautiful and charming voice. Margherita Zenoni is not only an impeccable singer. She is also an excellent actress.
  According to Italian press articles on her benefit performances in several northern Italian opera houses, they were lavish affairs. An account of her benefit night in 1857 at the Teatro Sociale in Rovereto described the audience screaming wildly and throwing flowers; garlands of roses, laurel, and carnations; gold coins; and poems in her honour onto the stage at the end of the performance. A large cornucopia filled with ribbons and flowers was brought onto the stage as well as a silk banner carried by an angel. She was then escorted to her lodgings by a torch-light parade composed of still-cheering audience members and the city's orchestra and chorus who proceeded to serenade her under her window.
  Although Zenoni's career up to 1867 was primarily concentrated in the opera houses of northern Italy, she also sang in southern Italy at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples and the Teatro Piccinni in Bari and appeared abroad with touring Italian opera companies in Bucharest, Constantinople, Valencia, and Oviedo. In a gala performance at the Teatro del Fontán in Oviedo in 1864, she sang Abigaille in Nabucco opposite Giorgio Ronconi who had created the title role at its world premiere in 1842.
caption: Portrait of Margherita Zenoni by Eugenio Yerna
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