Barbieri-Nini, Marianna
Barbieri-Nini, Marianna
Barbieri-Nini, Marianna, Italian soprano; b. Florence, Feb. 18, 1818; d. there, Nov. 27, 1887. She studied with Luigi Barbieri, Pasta, and Vaccai, making her operatic debut in 1840 at La Scala in Milan in Donizetti’s Belisario. Unfortunately, her peculiarly asymmetrical facial features and an ill-constructed bodily frame produced such a vociferous outburst of revulsion on the part of the notoriously unrestrained Italian opera audiences that she was advised to wear a mask and a bodice to conceal her repellent physique. However, she astutely selected the part of Lucrezia Borgia, a historically celebrated poisoner, in Donizetti’s eponymous opera at her next appearance in Florence, and there her ugly countenance fitted the role to a high C. She was also very successful in other bloody roles, among them that of Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s opera and of the sympathetic but murderous Guiñara in Verdi’s II Corsaro.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire