Leopold Mozart's Madame Wynne: Look to the lady

Musical Times, Spring 2001 by Jenkins, John S

Following her successful first performances, Augusta Angelelli sang the role of Eurilla in Salieri's Cifra (three times), Giannina in 11 consiglio imprudente by Bianchi on 10 and 13 April, Fiordispina Coribani in Il cappricio drammatico by Cimarosa (six times), and Carolina in II matrimonio segreto by the same composer (seven times). Her final role of the season was in Paisiello's Il barbiere di Siviglia on 5 June, and her last London performance in this opera was on 30 June.

She then possibly returned to Venice, but nothing more has been recorded of her. It is only through Leopold Mozart's letter to his friend in Salzburg that we can link the child prodigy harpsichord player and soprano, Cassandra Frederick, to William Wynne and thence, it appears, to their wayward daughter, the opera singer Augusta Angelelli.

Notes

1. Memoirs of Dr Charles Burney 1766-1769,edd. S. Klima, G. Bowers & KS Grant (Lincoln, Nebraska 1984), p.132.

2. Mozart: Briefe and Aufzeichnungen - Gesamtausgabe, edd. WA Bauer, OE Deutsch dr JH Eible (Kassel, 1962-75). vol.l, pp.277-78.

3. In February 1764.

4. It was not Paulo but Tommaso Mazzinghi who married Juliet, sister of Cassandra, on 2 March 1765.

5. The Letters Of Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, ed. Bonamy Dobree (London,1932), vol.4, p. 1524.

6. Handel-Handbuch, edd. W Eisen & M. Eisen (Leipzig, 1978-85), vol.4, P.511.

7. Autobiography and correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, ed. Lady Llanover, six volumes (London 1861-62), vol.3, p.480.

8. Diary ofjohn Baker Barrister Of the Middle Temple, Solicitor General of the Leeward Islands, ed. Philip C. Yorke (London 1931), p.106.

9. OE Deutsch: Handel: a documentary biography (London, 1955), p.801.

10. CF Pohl: Mozart and Haydn in London, two volumes (Vienna, 1867), vol. 1, pp.177-78.

11. The Wynne diaries, ed. Anne

Freemantle, three volumes (London, 1935-40), vol.1, p.307.

12. Twelve two-- movement sonatas, first published

in London in 1754 as Sonate di gravicemballo.

13. Mozart: Briefe and Aufzeichnungen, vol.1, pp.277-78.

14. Giustiniana Wynne became Casanova's lover in Venice aged fifteen. She married Count Orsini von Rosenberg, Austrian ambassador to Venice in 1761 and was widowed in 1765. (See Bruno Brunelli: Casanova loved her, trans. Alexander McKechnie

(London 1929).)

15. Dr Burney musical tours in Europe, ed. Percy A. Scholes (London, 1959), Vol. 1, pp.177-78.

16. Charles Burney: An account of an infant musician (William Crotch] (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1779), no.69, pp.183-206.

17. The Wynne diaries, Vol. 1, p.315.

18. The Wynne diaries, vol.1, p.313.

19. The Wynne diaries, vol.1, p.32.

20. Lettere del patrizio Zaguri a Giacomo Casanova, ed. Pompeo Molmenti (Milano, 1924), vol.2, p.116.

21. Lettere del patrizio Zaguri, vol.2, p.117.

22. The Wynne diaries, vol.2, p.78.

23. The Wynne diaries, vol.2, p.200.

24. The Wynne diaries, vol.2, p.201.

John S. Jenkins is Emeritus Professor of Endocrinology in the University of London and author of Mozart and the English connection.