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Summary

Magic Flute, The. See Zauberflöte, Die

Mandini, Stefano (1750–c.1810). A leading Italian baritone in Vienna in the 1780s, praised for the beautiful, unforced quality of his voice, Mandini probably made his debut in the city in Domenico Cimarosa'sL'italiana in Londra (5 May 1783). He played a number of prominent operatic roles in Vienna in the 1780s, to considerable critical acclaim, including Mingone in Giuseppe Sarti's Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (28 May 1783), Count Almaviva in Giovanni Paisiello's Il barbiere di Siviglia (13 Aug. 1783) and Giorgio in La contadina di spirito (6 Apr. 1785), where he performed alongside Francesco Benucci. On 1 May 1786, he sang Count Almaviva in the premiere of Le nozze di Figaro at the Burgtheater (again with Benucci, who sang Figaro). A few months earlier (on 28 Nov. 1785), he was a soloist at the same venue in two Mozart ensembles performed at the premiere of La villanella rapita by Francesco Bianchi – the quartet for soprano, tenor, two basses and orchestra ‘Dite almeno, in che mancai’, K479, and the trio for soprano, tenor, bass and orchestra ‘Mandina amabile’, K480. Mandini left Vienna for Naples in 1788, after a grand farewell concert on 15 February 1788. He subsequently moved on to Paris in 1789 – where he reprised the role of Almaviva in Paisiello's Il barbiere di Siviglia – then to Venice in 1794–5.

simon p. keefe

D. Link, The National Court Theatre in Mozart's Vienna: Sources and Documents 1783–1792 (Oxford, 1998)