Margherita de l'Epine

Margherita de L'Epine (also Francesa Margherita de l'Épine; c. 1680 – 8 August 1746, London) was an Italian soprano of the Baroque era. She was among the most popular and successful of London's female singers in the years just before and after Italian opera became introduced to the city. Today, she is best remembered for her performances in the operas of George Frideric Handel, and her longstanding association with the composer Johann Pepusch, whom it seems she married around 1718.

After performing at Venice between 1698–1700, de L'Epine arrived at London in 1702, as the mistress of Jakob Greber, although rumours of an affair (1703) with Daniel Finch, the Earl of Nottingham, indicate that she did not remain exclusive in her affections for very long. In these early London years she danced as well as sang, performing at Drury Lane from 1704–1708, and then at the Queen's Theatre from 1708-1714. Her repertoire initially consisted of songs and cantatas by such diverse composers as Henry Purcell and Alessandro Scarlatti, but from 1706 she starred in such Italian operas as began to appear on London stages at this time, the most popular being Giovanni Bononcini's Camilla, in which she replaced Catherine Tofts at the fourth performance, singing the role of the heroine.

In May 1703, she received twenty guineas "for one day's singing in ye play called ye Fickle Sheperdesse;" while her appearance at Lincoln's-Inn-Fields Theatre (where she was to sing "four of her most celebrated Italian songs") on 1 June 1703, though announced to be her last, was followed by another on 8 June, when a song called "The Nightingale" was added to her répertoire.

Her great success induced her to remain in London, and thus she became associated with the establishment of Italian opera in England. She first appeared at Drury Lane Theatre, 29 January 1704, singing some of Greber's music between the acts of the play. Thenceforth she frequently performed not only at that theatre but at the Haymarket and Lincoln's Inn-Fields. She sang before and after the opera Arsinoe, in 1705; she similarly took part in Greber's Temple of Love, 1706, where, according to Burney, she was the principal singer; in Thamyris, 1707, an opera partly arranged from Scarlatti and Buononcini, by Dr. Pepusch; Camilla, where she played Prenesto, 1707; Pyrrhus and Demetrius, as Marius, 1709; Almahide, the first opera performed here wholly in Italian, 1710; Hydaspes, 1710; Calypso and Telemachus, 1712 (as Calypso); Handel's Pastor Fido (as Antiocchus, the music demanding much executive power), and Rinaldo, 1712; Teseo, 1713; and the pasticcios Ernelinda and Dorinda, 1713. Her services were often engaged for the English operas at Lincoln's Inn-Fields, until 1718, when she married Dr. Pepusch and retired from the stage.

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