Description:
Early Years -- First Maturity -- Successor to the 'Rival Queens' -- In the Midst of Operatic Business -- The Composer's Faithful Soprano -- The Prima Donna of Oratorios -- Back to Italy -- Appendix. Strada's London Season Schedules.
"George Frideric Handel's longest continuous collaboration with a leading singer took place between 1729 and 1737 with Anna Maria Strada del Pò (1703-1775), a soprano who may have sung 'entirely di petto', i.e. with a chest-like vocal production in the head range as well, powerfully and sonorously. The investigation of her peculiar vocal features and career, in connection with the music written for her by Handel and other composers, involved musicological research methods as well as findings of the historically informed performance practice. Conclusions rest on three main pillars: the musical sources; the surviving descriptions of her singing, and period treatises; completed with the author's practical experiences as a classical singer"--