Anna Renzi

[1] Born in Rome, Anna Renzi was highly popular in Vienna in the 1640s and made her debut in 1640 at the Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi of the French ambassador, in the presence of Cardinal Richelieu, as Lucinda in Il favorito del principe (music lost) by it:Ottaviano Castelli and the young composer Filiberto Laurenzi[2] who continued to function as her teacher and/or accompanist in later years.

In 1642 she created Archimene (probably doubling as Venere)[4] in Il Bellerofonte (music lost) by Vincenzo Nolfi and Sacrati at the Novissimo, and in the same year Orazio Tarditi dedicated a collection of two- and three-part canzonette to her, which bears witness to her fame.

[7] In 1650 she sang in La Deidamia in Florence, and in 1652 she may have created the role of Cleopatra (probably doubling as Venere in the prologue) in Il Cesare amante (music lost) by Dario Varotari the Younger and Antonio Cesti at the Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Later that year she created the role of Dorisbe in L'Argia by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni and Cesti in Innsbruck: an opera commissioned by Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria, in celebration of the conversion to Catholicism of Christina, Queen of Sweden, who was greatly pleased with Renzi's performance.

[14] Composers tended to make use of the full extent of Renzi's voice, which spanned from middle C to high B-flat,[15] and the four surviving non-Monteverdian settings of roles written for her (by Sacrati, Laurenzi, Cesti and Ziani) are characterized by strong dramatic, emotional and stylistic contrasts, probably designed to show off her uncanny command of vocal and expressive means.