Event Comment: A Serious Opera [1st time; SER 3, author unknown; a pasticcio]. The Music by several celebrated Composers,
and conducted [i.e. arranged] by
Bianchi.
Public Advertiser, 4 Dec.:
Roncaglia was welcomed with merited
and very flattering Applause, yet he seemed hurt at sharing with
Ansani those marks of public Favour. We exhort them both to remember that Persons of their superior Talents ought to lay aside every petty Prejudice
and personal Animosity. "[Ansani] had a finely toned, full,
and comm
anding voice, was a spirited actor,
and in the first opera, called
Ricimero, sustained the most prominent
and important part. But he was unfortunately of a most peevish, quarrelsome temper; Roncaglia was saucy
and conceited,
and neither could brook the superiority claimed by the other. Their mutual jealousy,
and the importance assumed by the tenor soon produced an irreconcilable breach, Ansani threw up his engagement,
and the season went on heavily to its close for want of him"(
Mount-Edgcumbe, p. 29)