Tako Oda wrote:
> I *think* an English cathedral countertenor ("O Death") > shared the stage with Senesino ("Who May Abide") for the first > performance of Messiah (anyone know for sure?), but that is an > oratorio...
I find no record of Senesino ever having been involved in Messiah under Handel. The first performance featured one female soprano, one contralto, Susanna Cibber, a great favourite with Handel, and Joseph Ward and William Lambe, both described as counter-tenors. Lambe, incidentally, is credited with singing "Thou shalt break them" which is usually a tenor solo. In the revivals in 1743 and 1745 and 1749 no counter-tenors are named at all, but a plurality of sopranos - also an unnamed boy treble in 1749.
12 April 1750: London, Covent Garden Theatre (1 performance) -- with new settings of "But who may abide the day of his coming?" and "Thou art gone up" composed for the alto-castrato Gaetano Guadagni.
This was the only castrato to sing in Messiah under Handel's direction, and in most performances he preferred a contralto. -- Linda Fox, Cambridge, UK
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