Note 198 — HIS LIFE

The victory of Handel began for the most part with the engagement of his new interpreter, Francesca Cuzzoni, of Parma, a great and vigorous artist, violent and passionate, whose excellent soprano voice excelled particularly in pathetic cantabile music. She was twenty-two years old, and came to London, where she made her début in Ottone. Her quarrels with Handel, and how he treated her by threatening to throw her out of the window, are well known.

Handel gave again in May another opera, Flavio, of little importance. On his side Bononcini produced Erminia and Attilio, Aristosi, Coreolanus, in which the prison scene reduced the ladies to tears, and inspired numerous analogous scenes in the following operas of Handel.