Francesca Lebrun

Francesca Lebrun, née Danzi (24 March 1756 – 14 May 1791), was a noted 18th-century German singer and composer.

She was born Franziska Dorothea Danzi in Mannheim, Germany. Her father was the Italian-born cellist Innocenz Danzi and her younger brother was the composer and cellist Franz Danzi (1763–1826). She was renowned for her vocal dexterity and highly sought after by notable contemporaries, such as Anton Schweitzer, Ignaz Holzbauer, and Antonio Salieri, for the lead roles in their most challenging opuses.

Her talent extended beyond the stage to the manuscript tablet and the keyboard; twelve sonatas for fortepiano and violin of hers survive, six of which have been recorded.

Francesca was the eldest child in the family of gifted musicians. Her mother (Barbara Toeschi), a dancer, and her father (Innocenz Danzi), an Italian cellist, were the core of the elite elector Mannheim court performers in the late 1750s. Her brothers, Franz (Ignaz) Johann Baptist were cellist and violinist respectively and were successful composers.

She made her first public appearance as a singer at the age of 16 and the following year was engaged by the Mannheim Opera. There seems to be some debate whether she first performed in Gassmann’s L’amore artigiano in May 1772, or Sacchini’s La Contadina in Corte, the role for which she earned the title virtuosa da camera. She stayed with the Mannheim court opera for four years and was cast in the premier roles: Parthenia in Anton Schweitzer's Alceste (1775, Schlosstheater Schwetzingen), and Anna in Holzbauer’s Günther von Schwarzburg (1777), a role composed specifically for her voice. At twenty-one she traveled to London to sing four opera series by J.C. Bach & Sacchini.

In 1778, she married oboe virtuoso and composer Ludwig August Lebrun (1752–1790) from Mannheim. That summer, now known as Signora Lebrun, she toured Italy with Ludwig. At the opening of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on August 3, 1778, Francesca Lebrun was the female lead in Antonio Salieri's opera Europa Riconosciuta. She created a sensation in 1779 in Paris at the Concert Spirituel through her ability to fit Italian words to instrumental parts of symphonies concertantes and sing them. The Lebruns lived in London from 1779 through 1781 while Francesca appeared at the King's Theater. In 1780 the celebrated English artist Thomas Gainsborough painted her portrait.

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