Nancy Storace

[CountessAlmaviva]

Europe's favourite "buffa" soprano of the time.
She was the first Susanna in "Le nozze di Figaro".
Nancy Storace (born Anna Selina Storace) was born in London on October 27, 1776.
She studied at Venice under Antonio Maria Gaspare Sacchini. She became a member of the Court opera in Vienna where she took the role of Susanna in the first performance of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro.
Soon afterward she returned to England and first appeared at the King's Theatre in London in 1787. She contributed greatly to the success of her brother Stephen Storace's operas.
She retired from the stage in 1808, and died on August 24, 1817.


Her relationship with Mozart has been speculated to be more than professional. When she left Vienna Mozart wrote the concert aria "Ch'io mi scordi di te" for her. The work, which is headed "per la partenza di Sigra. Storace", is a duet for soprano and piano with orchestra, and Mozart himself played the piano part at her farewell concert. Some have seen the text of the aria's final section - "Do not weep, wherever you may go my heart is always yours" - as having an extra-musical significance, but there is no hard evidence for this.

[CountessAlmaviva]