Creative profile of Giovanni Ansani

The subject of the research is the operatic art of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The object is the operatic performance creativity of the singer Giovanni Ansani. Giovanni Ansani (1744–1826) was an outstanding tenor of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He began performing primo uomo roles in opera seria during the years when castrato singers still dazzled on theater stages. Ansani proved himself to be an excellent singer and a talented teacher. Despite the scale of his personality, many facts of his creative biography remain unstudied, and the role of the singer in the development of tenor art has not been revealed, which defines the relevance and novelty of this work. The goal of the research is to present Giovanni Ansani as a universal tenor, a representative of the old Italian bel canto, whose activity significantly influenced the formation of the tenor's role at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The predominant method of research is historical-biographical. The tasks of the research are to characterize the operatic-vocal and pedagogical activities of Giovanni Ansani, as well as to examine the melodies of the operatic roles performed by the singer. The main conclusions of the research are that the brilliant performances of Giovanni Ansani undoubtedly had a significant impact on the elevation of the tenor and his establishment in the status of a performer of leading male roles (primo uomo) at a time when the influence of castrato singers was still strong. Thanks to the emergence of operatic performers like Giovanni Ansani, his successor tenors (including Manuel del Populo Vicente Garcia or Manuel Garcia the Elder), who previously performed secondary roles in opera seria, managed at the beginning of the 19th century to rise to the same level in the vocal hierarchy as the castrati, and eventually completely displaced them from the opera stages, winning the hearts of numerous audiences.