Sinfonia from Anna di Resburgo

Uccelli’s life at a glance

1810 - Born Carolina Pazzini, to a family of minor nobility in or near Florence
c. 1827 - Marries Filippo Uccelli of Pisa, noted physician and professor; their daughter Emma born late 1820s
1827 - Debut in print: Ricordi publishes a collection of ariettas and cavatinas.
1830 - Operatic debut with Saul, Teatro della Pergola, Forence
1830-34 - Works on Eufemio di Messina (overture performed in Milan) and Anna di Resburgo
1833 - Death of Filippo Uccelli
1835 - Anna di Resburgo performed in Naples
1836 - Cantata in morte di Maria Malibran performed in Florence (Philharmonic Society)
c. 1848 - Mes rêves d’Italie (song collection) published in Paris; other individual songs in French and Italian
c. 1846-1852 - Concerts and tours with daughter Emma
1858 - Death in Florence

Biographical information on Carolina Uccelli is sparse, and some that can be found–passed from one long-ago dictionary to another without fresh research–is incorrect. The timeline above summarizes the current state (still tentative) of our knowledge about her. 

What makes such knowledge a matter of interest today is the most singular phase of her short life: For a brief time in her twenties, she aspired to break convention by pursuing a public career as a theater composer. This was strongly frowned upon for aristocrats and simply unheard-of for women. 

Young Carolina had been musically precocious and earned a reputation for her piano improvisations, singing, and chamber compositions while still in her teens. She most likely composed Anna di Resburgo in the years 1833-1835, and it was performed four times in the Autumn 1835 season of the Teatro del Fondo in Naples, with a further performance (possibly early in 1836) at the same city’s jointly managed Teatro San Carlo. The principal singers were in the top rank of stars: soprano Fanny Tacchinardi-Persiani (the original Lucia di Lammermoor), tenor Napoleone Moriani (for whom Donizetti and Verdi added new material in Lucrezia Borgia and Attila), and baritone Giorgio Ronconi (the original Nabucco). 

The libretto Uccelli chose had first been set by young Giacomo Meyerbeer in 1819, and by at least two other composers in the 1820s. Uccelli re-wrote it substantially, changed the heroine’s name (originally Emma), and brought the drama up to date for the high-Romantic age of Bellini and Donizetti. The score she produced justifies the high praise composers like Rossini and Mayr had given to her earlier works. It has a freshness of invention, clarity of characterization, and sureness of theatrical pacing that would unquestionably have found encouragement if it had been produced by a composer on the normal career path. 

Though the work was not a flop in Naples, it was thoroughly overshadowed by the premiere of another “Scottish” opera, Lucia di Lammermoor, by the same company in the same season. The barriers to acceptance of an opera by a female composer had already been high, as we know from the extensive correspondence between Uccelli and the impresario Alessandro Lanari, and after Anna she seems to have retreated from her theatrical ambitions. She returned to the social rounds of her aristocratic upbringing, giving many private concerts alongside a few public ones, and producing smaller-scale compositions. These included a cantata in memory of Maria Malibran and vocal chamber music in Italian and French, published mostly in Paris. 

From the mid 1840s her programs often featured her daughter Emma, a soprano. They made well-received appearances in London, Amsterdam, Milan, and Munich. In 1852 they were featured at one of the celebrated Parisian salon recitals hosted by Rossini, who decades earlier had supported Uccelli’s bid for a place at the men’s table in opera. We can only guess what she might have produced if that wish had been granted. Anna di Resburgo suggests that we missed out on a born opera composer of high promise. 

Notes courtesy of Teatro Nuovo: https://www.teatronuovo.org/anna-di-resburgo-2024