Francesco Benucci

He spent the years 1774 to 1777 in Madrid,[3] and starting in autumn 1777, there is documentation of performances in the major opera houses of Italy, including Venice, Milan, and Rome.

[7] The new company opened 2 April 1783 with a performance of Antonio Salieri's La scuola de' gelosi; Benucci took the buffo role of Blasio.

"[8] Mozart evidently attended, and on 7 May wrote home to his father Leopold, "The Italian opera buffa has started up here again and is proving very popular.

In 1783 he visited Rome to fulfil a commitment already made when he had been hired at Vienna; his "enormous popularity" there (Link) was witnessed by the Emperor, traveling there at the time.

[1] In August 1788, the Emperor, having launched an expensive and futile war with Turkey, proposed to abolish his Italian opera company.

[1] On hearing this, Benucci asked for leave and obtained an engagement at the King's Theatre in London, where he performed with Storace, who had returned there in February 1787.

Mozart wrote three new numbers for the Vienna version, including the duet "Per quelle tue manine", K. 540b, which Benucci performed with the soprano Luisa Laschi-Mombelli.

[15] Mozart's original version included a long and elaborate first-act aria for Benucci, "Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo", K. 584,[16] which ultimately had to be discarded as dramatically inappropriate.

[15] Woodfield suggests that it may have been in compensation[17] that Mozart altered Benucci's second act aria, the flamboyant "Donne mie", adding new musical material and parts for trumpets and timpani.

[19] In 1793 a critic for the Berliner Musikalische Zeitung wrote: The modern scholar Christopher Raeburn describes Benucci thus: Notes Sources