Balbina Steffenone

Balbina Steffenone (also spelled Bina or Steffanone or Steffenoni, 1825–1896) was a 19th-century soprano.

Photograph of Steffenone, c. 1860

Born in Turin, Italy,[1] she studied in Bologna under Teresa Bertinotti, debuting as Lucia in Macerata in 1842.[2] After singing across Italy, she spent the years 1845 to 1847 singing at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, then went to North America, where she stayed for seven years.[2] Her appearances ranged from Boston to Mexico City and Havana,[2] where she remained a principal in the company under Giovanni Bottesini around 1850[3] with whom she was involved in the second performance of the National Anthem of Mexico in September 1854.

She sang in the American premiere of Il trovatore at the Academy of Music in New York, sharing the roles of Leonora and Ines in the production.[2][4] On her return from Cuba in 1855, when she played Lucrezia Borgia in the opera, The New York Times called her "one of the few worth welcoming back again"; but critic Richard Grant White wrote that her voice had deteriorated into "a bewildered shriek".[5]

She continued her career in Europe, appearing in Vienna in 1859 and Naples in 1860–61, where she created Errico Petrella's Morosina.[2] She is reported to have retired in 1862,[2] but also to have taken part in the première of Vincenzo Battista's Giovanna di Castiglia at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 1863.[6]

She died in Naples in 1896.[1]

References
  1. Giacomo Meyerbeer (2004). "October 1857". Briefwechsel und Tagebücher (in German). Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-018030-8. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
  2. Giacomo Meyerbeer (2004). Robert Ignatius Letellier (ed.). The Diaries of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780838638453.
  3. Katherine K. Preston (2001). Opera on the Road: Traveling Opera Troupes in the United States, 1825–60. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252070020.
  4. Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."Balbina Steffenoni, 2 May 1855". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).
  5. Vera Brodsky (1999). Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong, 1836–1875. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226470108. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
  6. Casaglia, Gherardo (2005)."Giovanna di Castiglia, 26 April 1863". L'Almanacco di Gherardo Casaglia (in Italian).


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