Luigia Polzelli
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Luigia Polzelli (also Polcelli; c. 1760 – 5 October 1830) was an Italian
mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A bel ...
, who sang at the
Esterházy The House of Esterházy, also spelled Eszterházy (), is a Hungarian nobility, Hungarian noble family with origins in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century, the Esterházys were the greatest landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, durin ...
court in Hungary during the late 18th century. She was for a number of years the lover of the composer
Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( ; ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
.


Early years

Luigia Polzelli was born Luigia Moreschi in
Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
sometime around 1760. She married the violinist Antonio Polzelli some time before 1779. The couple apparently lived in Bologna.


Relationship with Haydn

Luigia arrived at the Esterházy court with her husband Antonio in 1779; both had two-year contracts. Luigia was nineteen years old at the time. Polzelli soon turned out not to be a particularly able singer. Moreover, her husband had difficulties in fulfilling his duties as a violinist, as he was in the initial stages of a long drawn out demise from
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
. The reigning prince,
Nikolaus Esterházy Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In turn, the nam ...
, was a great connoisseur of opera who was well acquainted with high-quality singing, and recognizing Luigia's mediocrity and Antonio's unreliability he soon moved (1780) to have them dismissed (in fact, he was willing to buy out the rest of their contracts). However, at this time it emerged that Polzelli had become the lover of Haydn, then 48, who had had a very bad relationship with his wife almost since the beginning of their marriage. The Prince, who valued Haydn's services immensely, apparently agreed to keep the Polzellis on the payroll. Rosemary Hughes, assessing the relationship, notes that "both of them looked forward to an eventual marriage", though under the rules of Roman Catholic Church to which they both belonged, this was completely impossible until the deaths of their respective spouses. The relationship between Haydn and Polzelli continued for over ten years, until about 1791.


Musical influence on Haydn

Polzelli had an important influence on Haydn's musical output, for a somewhat negative reason: despite frequent tutoring from Haydn, she often had trouble with difficult parts. An important part of Haydn's job at
Eszterháza Eszterháza is a palace in Fertőd, Hungary, built by Prince Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy, Nikolaus Esterházy. Sometimes called the "Hungarian Palace of Versailles, Versailles", it is Hungary's grandest Rococo edifice. It was the home of Josep ...
was to put on productions of operas by other composers. Where arias assigned to Luigia were too difficult for her to sing, Haydn wrote
insertion aria An insertion aria (' in Italian, also known as suitcase aria, interpolated aria, or trunk aria) is an aria sung in an opera for which it was not composed. It was a practice that began in the seventeenth century and continued actively through the ...
s for her, replacing the originals in performance. According to Jones there were at least five such arias; possibly as many as ten;Jones (2009, 97) he describes them as follows. :She was most comfortable with syllabic settings that avoided decoration, shortish phrases that did not demand sophisticated breathing, a vocal range that did not stray much on either side of the
stave Stave may refer to: Music * Stave (music), used in musical notation * Stanza * The Staves, an English folk rock trio People * Bruce M. Stave (1937–2017), American historian * Joel Stave (born 1992), American football quarterback Place ...
and with an accompaniment that doubled the voice rather than allowed it to compete with the orchestra. This may have been how Haydn managed to keep Polzelli on stage without revealing her limitations but, conveniently, they were also techniques habitually associated with the musical characterization of the roles allotted to Polzelli, the maids and peasants of comic opera. Haydn wrote a considerable number of operas himself (see
List of operas by Joseph Haydn Joseph Haydn is not primarily remembered as a composer of opera, yet the genre occupied a great deal of his time. During the 1770s and 1780s, Haydn ran an opera troupe on behalf of his employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, which put on up to 150 p ...
), but only twice assigned Polzelli a role (Silvia in ''
L'isola disabitata ' ( English: ''The Uninhabited Island''), Hob. 28/9, is an opera (') by Joseph Haydn, his tenth opera, written for the Eszterházy court and premiered on 6 December 1779. The libretto is the only one by Metastasio set by Haydn. The libretto ha ...
'' and Lisetta in ''
La vera costanza ' (''True Constancy''), Hob. 28/8, is an operatic dramma giocoso by Joseph Haydn. The Italian libretto was a shortened version of the one by Francesco Puttini set by Pasquale Anfossi for the opera of the same name given in Rome in 1776. The sto ...
'').Walter 2001


Children

Luigia already had a two-year-old son, Pietro (1777–1796), when she arrived at Esterháza. She bore a second son, Antonio (1783–1855) in her third year there. Both she and Antonio believed that he was the natural son of Haydn, though Haydn himself never admitted this, at least in writing. Haydn, who was hitherto childless, was fond of both Pietro and Antonio. He gave them musical instruction and became their guardian on the death of their legal father. In 1792, Haydn took Pietro into his Vienna home, continued his instruction, and got him a position as a piano teacher in an aristocratic home. Pietro died of tuberculosis in 1796. Antonio became a violinist in the Esterházy court orchestra in 1803.


Breakup

Luigia and her husband lost their jobs in September 1790, when her employer Prince
Nikolaus Esterházy Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In turn, the nam ...
died, and his successor Anton dismissed virtually the entire musical establishment that had served under his father. Like Haydn, they moved to Vienna, where Antonio died the following year. Luigia did not accompany Haydn when he departed for England in December 1790. At that time, Haydn still considered himself committed to a future marriage with Luigia, should this be made possible by the death of his wife. On hearing from Luigia of Antonio's death, he wrote her from London, expressing his longing for "the time ... when two pairs of eyes will close", and begging her to write, saying "your letters are a comfort to me however sad I am.". However, the relationship soon cooled; in 1792 "constant reports reached Haydn from Vienna that Luigia Polzelli had been speaking ill of him, and had even sold the piano he had given her."Hughes, p. 81 Luigia soon left Vienna herself, returning to Italy and finding work in a small theater in
Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...
. Haydn eventually wrote sorrowfully to her asking that if she married again she would let him know "the name of the man who will be so happy as to possess you.". Not long after, Haydn embarked on a new romantic relationship in London with the English widow
Rebecca Schroeter Rebecca (Scott) Schroeter (1751–1826) was an amateur musician who lived in London during the 18th and early 19th centuries. She was the wife of the German composer Johann Samuel Schroeter, and later, during her years of widowhood, a love interes ...
.


Later life

Luigia later worked in a small theater in Bologna. Haydn remained in contact with her, sending her money from time to time, and when in 1800 Haydn's wife Maria Anna died, Polzelli persuaded him to write the following promise:
I, the undersigned, promise to Signora Loisa Polzelli (in case I should consider marrying again) to take no wife other than said Loisa Polzelli, and should I remain a widower, I promise said Polzelli to leave her, after my death, a pension for life of three hundred gulden (in figures 300 fl.) in Viennese currency. Valid before any judge, I herewith set my hand and seal.
There are a few more letters sending money. While Haydn kept to his promise and never remarried, Polzelli ultimately married a singer named Luigi Franchi. The two later traveled to
Cremona Cremona ( , , ; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po (river), Po river in the middle of the Po Valley. It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local city a ...
and then to
Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
, where Luigia died in poverty in 1830. The Haydn scholar Vernon Gotwals observed that, although the elderly Haydn spent many hours being interviewed by his biographers Georg August Griesinger and
Albert Christoph Dies Albert Christoph Dies (175528 December 1822) was a German painter, engraver, and biographer most noted for his biography of Joseph Haydn, although it is now considered sentimental and not entirely accurate. As an artist, he is also not very well- ...
, he appears never to have mentioned Polzelli to them. Haydn did mention to Dies, nostalgically, his later love interest
Rebecca Schroeter Rebecca (Scott) Schroeter (1751–1826) was an amateur musician who lived in London during the 18th and early 19th centuries. She was the wife of the German composer Johann Samuel Schroeter, and later, during her years of widowhood, a love interes ...
, and kept copies of her letters.Dies's account is given in English translation in Gotwals (1963:157).


Correspondence

Polzelli is of importance to Haydn's biographers, as a number of Haydn's letters to her are preserved, containing information about the composer. They are written in Italian.


Notes


References

*Botstiber, H. (1932) "Haydn and Luigia Polzelli," ''The Musical Quarterly'' 18: 208–15. Available on
JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
. * *Hughes, Rosemary (1970) ''Haydn'', J. M. Dent. *Jones, David Wyn (2009) ''The Life of Haydn''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Lorenz, Michael
"Three Unknown Godchildren of Joseph Haydn"
(Vienna 2014). * *Walter, Horst (2001) "Luigia Polzelli," article in the
New Grove ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and th ...
online dictionary. {{DEFAULTSORT:Polzelli, Luigia Joseph Haydn Italian operatic mezzo-sopranos 1760s births 1830 deaths People from the Metropolitan City of Naples 18th-century Italian singers Musicians from the Kingdom of Naples