Giovanni Battista Rubini
Giovanni Battista Rubini (born
April 7,
1794 in
Romano di Lombardia,
Bergamo,
Italy; died
March 3,
1854 in Romano di Lombardia) was an Italian
tenor.
Rubini began as a
violinist at 12 years of age at the
Riccardi Theatre in
Bergamo. His first appearance as singer was 1814 in
Pavia in
Le lagrime d'una vedova by
Pietro Generali. After ten years in
Naples, 1815-31, during which he scored spactacular successes in Paris, 1825-26, in
Rossini operas, he moved permanently to
Paris, performing in Rossini's
La Cenerentola,
Otello, and
La donna del lago and dividing his time between Paris (autumn and winter) and London (spring). His special relation with
Vincenzo Bellini began with
Bianca e Gernando (1826) and continued until
I puritani (1835), when he was one of the long-remembered "Puritani quartet" of
Giulia Grisi, Rubini,
Antonio Tamburini and
Luigi Lablache, for whose voices the opera was written. The four appeared together in
Donizetti's
Marino Faliero the same season, then travelled to London with
Michael Balfe. He retired with a great fortune in 1845.
As a singer Rubini was the major early exponent of the Romantic style of
Vincenzo Bellini and
Gaetano Donizetti. Rubini is remembered as an extraordinary
bel canto singer, one of the most famous singers in Europe in the 1830s and 40s.
*Stefan Zucker, "Last of a Breed: Giovanni Battista Rubini Ruled as the Paragon of Virtuoso Tenors, King of the High F's",
Opera News, February 13, 1982
*Henry Pleasants, "Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794â€"1854)",
Opera Quarterly 10.2, pp 101-04
