The Royal Academy of Music was a company founded in February 1719, during George Frideric Handel's residence at Cannons, by a group of aristocrats to secure themselves a constant supply of opera seria. It is not connected to the London conservatoire with the same name, which was founded in 1822.
It commissioned large numbers of new operas from three of the leading composers in Europe: Handel, Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Bononcini. The Academy took the legal form of a joint-stock corporation under letters patent issued by George I of Great Britain for a term of 21 years with a governor, a deputy governor and at least fifteen directors. The (first) Royal Academy lasted for only nine seasons instead of twenty-one, but both the New or Second Academy and the Opera of the Nobility seem to have operated under its Royal Charter until the expiry of the original term.
Handel was appointed as Master of the orchestra responsible not only for engaging soloists but also for adapting operas from abroad and for providing possible libretti for his own use, generally provided from Italy.
Initially the librettist Paolo Antonio Rolli was the "Italian secretary of the Academy"; he was replaced by Nicola Francesco Haym within a few years.
Contents
The subscribers
The capital of £10,000 was divided into 50 shares of £200 each. Sixty-three people initially subscribed for shares. The issue was rapidly oversubscribed: several took more than one share: Lord Burlington subscribed £1000. Otto Erich Deutsch printed a list of 63 names, a later list by Charles Burney carried 73 names. The extra ten were perhaps those admitted at the directors' meetings on 30 November and 2 December 1719. This would give a total capital of £17,600.
The first twelve and main subscribers listed, were the Lord Chamberlain Duke of Kent appointed as governor but never on duty as such, followed by the Duke of Newcastle as governor, the Duke of Grafton, the Duke of Portland, the Duke of Manchester the deputy governor, the Duke of Chandos, the Duke of Montrose, the Earl of Sunderland, the Earl of Rochester, the Earl of Berkeley, the Earl of Burlington, the Earl of Litchfield and the Earl of Lincoln. In 1723 the Academy paid a dividend of seven percent. It was the only dividend they ever paid.
Directors
John Vanbrugh and Colonel John Blathwayt, noted for his musical talents who had studied harpsichord under Alessandro Scarlatti, seem to have been the only two competent directors. Other directors were Lord Bingley, Mr James Bruce, Mr Benjamin Mildmay, 1st Earl FitzWalter, Mr Bryan Fairfax, Mr George Harrison, Mr (Thomas?) Smith, Mr Francis Whitworth (a brother of Charles Whitworth), Doctor John Arbuthnot, Mr John James Heidegger, the Duke of Queensbury, the Earl of Stair, the Earl of Waldegrave, Lord Chetwind, Lord Stanhope, Thomas Coke of Norfolk, Conyers Darcy, Brigadier-General Dormer, Colonel O'Hara, Brigadier-General Hunter, William Poultney and Major-General Wade.
Musicians
On 14 May 1719 Handel was ordered by the Lord Chamberlain and governor of the corporation, the Duke of Newcastle, to look for new singers. Handel travelled to Dresden to attend the newly built opera house. He saw Teofane by Antonio Lotti, composed for the wedding of August III of Poland, and engaged leading members of the cast on behalf of the Royal Academy of Music. In April 1720 the Academy began producing operas. The orchestra consisted of seventeen violins, two violas, four cellos, two double basses, four oboes, three bassoons, a theorbo and a trumpet.
The brothers Prospero and Pietro Castrucci as well as Johan Helmich Roman and John Jones were violinists. Bononcini was a cellist, he and Handel presumably accompanied the recitatives in all the operas. Filippo Amadei, one of the composers of Muzio Scevola, also played cello, Pietro Giuseppe Sandoni, who would soon marry Francesca Cuzzoni, was the second harpsichord player. John Baptist Grano was the trumpeter, John Festing played oboe; Charles Frederick Weideman was the flautist and oboist and is also known from his appearance in The Enraged Musician.
The first opera staged by the Academy was Numitore composed by Giovanni Porta, the second was Radamisto by Handel and the third Narciso by Domenico Scarlatti.
Operas and singers
Extravagant fees were offered to entice the best performers from Italy. For Margherita Durastanti in the role of Radamisto, Handel wrote one of his favourite arias, Ombra cara di mia sposa. The great singers who were to be the brightest stars of the Royal Academy during the next few years, such as the castrato Senesino and the soprano Francesca Cuzzoni, had not yet arrived in London. Senesino had obligations to fulfill and arrived in September 1720, accompanied by a group of outstanding singers: the castrato Matteo Berselli, the soprano Maddalena Salvai and the bass Giuseppe Boschi.
Handel used the libretto of Teofane for his Ottone, with Cuzzoni as prima donna. It became his most successful opera in the years of the Academy. In 1724 and 1725 Handel wrote several masterpieces: Giulio Cesare, (1724) with many da capo arias that became famous, and Anastasia Robinson as Cornelia. Not a castrato but a tenor, Francesco Borosini, sang the leading role of Bajazet in Handel's most powerfully tragic opera Tamerlano (also 1724). Insisting on adding the death of Bajazet he had a direct role in shaping the climax of the work. Charles Burney called the prison scene's "Chi di voi" in Rodelinda (1725) "one of the finest pathetic airs that can be found in all [Handel's] works."
Eventually Bononcini was dismissed, and went into private service, Robinson retired and Joseph Goupy may have been employed as a scene-painter.
In February 1726 Handel revived his Ottone, which had been spectacularly successful at its first performances in 1723 and was again a hit at its revival, with a London newspaper reporting
Handel had the satisfaction of seeing an Old Opera of his not only fill the House, which had not been done for some time, but above three hundred turn'd away for want of room.
As the newspaper notes, full houses were by no means a regular occurrence by that time, and the directors of the Royal Academy of Music decided to increase audiences' interest by bringing another celebrated international opera star, Italian soprano Faustina Bordoni, to join established London favourites Francesca Cuzzoni and the star castrato Senesino in the company's performances. Many opera companies in Italy featured two leading ladies in one opera and Faustina (as she was known) and Cuzzoni had appeared together in opera performances in various European cities with no trouble; there is no indication that there was any bad feeling or ill-will between the two of them prior to their London joint appearances.
The New or Second Academy
In 1729 Handel became joint manager of the King's Theatre with the Swiss aristocrat John James Heidegger. Handel travelled to Italy to engage seven new singers. In Bologna he met with Owen Swiny, a former theatre manager from London. Back home he composed seven more operas. On his way back he visited his mother and probably met with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, sent by his father, as the story goes. Johann Sebastian Bach, working only 20 miles away in Köthen, arrived too late to meet with his famous colleague, who had left earlier that day. Back in London Handel produced Ezio, an expensive disaster. Charles Burney ranked the score of his next opera Sosarme among his most pleasing; Dean states the opera does more honour to Handel as a musician than as a dramatist. Handel composed Partenope, Poro, and Orlando, but with mixed success with the public. In the long run Handel failed to compete with the Opera of the Nobility, who had engaged musicians such as Johann Adolf Hasse, Nicolo Porpora and the famous castrato Farinelli.
Frederick, Prince of Wales and the anti-German faction of the English nobility who backed the Opera of Nobility sought to gain ground against the German court by attacking the foreigner Handel, little concerned about the paradox of the situation: the nationalistic faction fought with the weapon of the foreign Italian opera and summoned the aid of foreigners such as Hasse, himself an Italianized German like Handel.
Handel had composed about 30 operas for the Royal Academy. and moved his productions to Covent Garden. The Opera of the Nobility took over the King's Theatre.
The Academy survived until 1734, after which it encountered many difficulties: arguments between Handel and his singers, the dismissal of Paolo Rolli after quarrels with the directors, disagreement between the directors themselves, about the employment of new singers and squabbles on stage, but for all the Academy's problems, its success was enormous.