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Brün, (Franziska Le), die Tochter des Violonzellisten Danzi zu Mannheim und Schwester des Königl. Würtembergischen Kapellmeisters Franz Danzi, wurde 1759 zu Mannheim geboren. Sie widmete sich der Singkunst, und sang als ein Mädchen von 14 Jahren zum ersten Male im Hofkonzerte in ihrer Vaterstadt. Schon damals war sie die Bewunderung des Churfürstens, und ihres Vaterlandes, und bald darauf auch von ganz Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien und Engeland. Ihre schöne, volle Bruststimme überstieg das drei gestrichene, oder höchste F auf den Klavier-Instrumenten um einen Terz, und alle diese Töne waren gleich stark und angenehm. Es läßt sich keine Vollkommenheit einer Sängerinn fast mehr denken, die ihr nicht eigen war, und ebendaher wetteiferten die schönen Geister Italiens, Engelands und Frankreichs ihre Vorzüge als Sängerinn und Schauspielerinn zu bewundern und in ganz Europa zu verbreiten. Ueberall ließ man ihrer Kunst die verdiente Gerechtigkeit wiederfahren, überall ward sie bewundert, geschätzt, geliebt, und sehr hoch geachtet, einer Todi und Mara wurde sie wenigst gleichgestellt, wo nicht vorgezogen. Im J. 1778 trat sie zu Mailand, nachdem sie ehevor schon in mehrern großen italienischen Opern zu Mannheim mit allem Beifalle gespielt und gesungen hatte, mit den Reitzen und Blüthe der Jugend in der Oper: Europa recognoscitua, mit Musik vom Salieri auf, erwarb sich große Ehre, und ungetheiltes Lob mit sichtbarem Neide und Aerger der dortigen Prima Donna Balducci; mit gleich großem Ruhme sang sie 1781 und 1783 als Prima Donna zu London, dann in der Folge zu Venedig, Neapel u. s. w. und überall ragte sie als eine Deutsche unter den italienischen Sängerinen weit hervor, übertraf sie alle. Die letzten Opern, in der sie zu München sang, waren: Armida, mit Musik von Prati und Castore e Polluce, mit Musik von Vogler. Als sie ihren Gatten den 16. Dezember 1790 in Berlin verlor, war sie untröstlich. Sie erkrankte, und starb, vom stillem Gram verzehrt, daselbst den 14. Mai 1791, zu frühe für die Kunst; ihre Familie, und alle die, so sie kannten, bedauert von jedermann, beweint von ihren Freunden.
Ihre 1783 zu Offenbach im Stiche heraus gegebenen drei Klavier-Sonaten, mit Begleitung einer Violine, entsprechen ganz der Erwartung von ihrem Geschmacke, und zeigen zugleich, welch’ vortreffliche Meisterinn sie auch im Klavierspielen gewesen seye. Ihr Leben war ein Gesang; ihr Tod, die Auflösung einer Harmonie.

Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe, Volume II. An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands

Charles Burney (1726-1814) took on the three roles of music historian, composer, and musician. His first music books, The Present State of Music in France and Italy… (London, 1771) and The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Provinces… (London, 1773), were the results of his extensive travels around Europe. His 1770 trip took him from London to Paris, Geneva, Turin, Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Naples. His second tour, through Germany and the Low Countries, resulted in his second book. All of this was in support of his General History of Music, which came out in 4 volumes (I: 1776, II: 1782, III and IV: 1789).
His daughter, the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney, wrote a biography of her father after his death in 1814. The Memoirs of Doctor Burney, three in volumes, appeared in 1832 and is where much of the information about Burney’s social circles comes to life.

Danzi, Frantsisca (1756-1791). A high soprano of great fame later in the Italian and German centres and in London. Further, she composed sonatas for piano and violin. She married the celebrated Mannheim oboist, L. A. Lebrun.



Signora Francesca Danzi, 1 a German girl, whose voice and execution are brilliant: she has likewise a pretty figure, a good shake, and an expression as truly Italian as if she had lived her whole life in Italy; in short, she is now a very engaging and agreeable performer, and promises still greater things in future, being young, and having never appeared on any stage till this summer.

The Elector, Electress, and Princess Royal of Saxony, were present at this performance. The theatre, though small, is convenient; the decorations and dresses were ingenious and elegant, and there was a greater number of attendants and figurers than ever I saw in the great opera, either of Paris or London: in the dance, representing a German fair, there were upwards of a hundred persons on the stage at one time; but this opera is very inconsiderable, compared with that at Manheim, in the winter, which is performed in one of the largest and most splendid theatres of Europe, capable of containing five thousand persons; this opera begins the fourth of November, and continues generally, twice a week, till Shrove-Tuesday. I was informed that the mere illuminations of the Manheim theatre, with wax lights, cost the elector upwards of forty pounds, at each representation; and that the whole expence of bringing a new opera on this stage, amounts to near four thousand. The great theatre, the ensuing winter, was to be opened with an opera composed by Mr. J. Bach who was daily expected here from London, when I was at Manheim.

Charles Burney visited Mannheim that same summer 1772 on his tour through Germany. At nearby Schwetzingen he first heard a young soprano, Franziska Danzi (1756–91). Her father was the cellist Innocenz Danzi and her mother Barbara was a sister of the Mannheim composer Carl Joseph Toeschi; her younger brother Franz Danzi (1763–1826) became a renowned composer. Franziska had recently made her stage debut in Florian Leopold Gassmann’s L’amore artigiano in May 1772. Burney heard her perform in Antonio Sacchini’s La contadina in corte on 9 August 1772, and wrote that her “voice and execution are brilliant: she has likewise a pretty figure, a good shake, and an expression as truly Italian as if she had lived her whole life in Italy; in short, she is now a very engaging and agreeable performer, and promises still greater things in the future, being young, and having never appeared on any stage till this summer.”
Burney also mentions that Bach “was daily expected here from London” to complete his opera seria for the gala days in November. Bach’s Temistocle had its premiere at the court theater on 5 November; the cast included Dorothea Wendling (prima donna, Aspasia) and Francesco Roncaglia (primo uomo, Lisimaco), Elisabeth Wendling (seconda donna, Rossana), Giovanni Battista Zonca (bass, Serse), and Anton Raaf (tenor, the title role); Bach was invited to write a second opera for Mannheim, Lucio Silla (1775), with nearly the same cast. Franziska Danzi did not perform in either of these operas, but she probably met Bach at this time. She did perform in two comic operas during Bach’s visit in November 1772: as Olivetta in Niccolò Piccinni’s Le inte gemelle and as the coloratura part of Calloandra in Antonio Salieri’s La fiera di Venezia. Bach would likely have remembered this attractive soprano and her distinctive voice.
Danzi had her first major success in Anton Schweitzer’s Alceste, first performed at Schwetzingen in 1775. She took the role of Parthenia, a coloratura role originally written for Josepha Hellmuth in the Weimar premiere (1773). The success of this work at Carl Theodor’s court led to the commission of a new Singspiel by poet Anton Klein and composer Ignaz Holzbauer, Günther von Schwarzburg, in which Danzi sang the prima donna role of Anna. he celebrated opening of the Mannheim National Theater in January 1777 drew attention and praise from all over Europe, and brought Danzi international fame. The original cast included Anton Raaf as Günther, Ludwig Fischer as Rudolf, Barbara Strasser as Asberta, Queen of Bohemia, who takes revenge on Günther, and Franz Hartig as Karl. Danzi plus the latter three had also performed in Schweitzer’s Alceste; so this was a German opera for a German cast, even if Raaf had been trained and spent most of his career in Italy. Mozart heard the opera in November 1777, and specifically praised Holzbauer’s music; he also mentioned that Danzi was in England, and her replacement, Elisabeth Wendling, did not have a high enough tessitura for this demanding role.

Silhouettes of Ludwig August Lebrun and Franziska Danzi-Lebrun


August Ludwig Le Brün & Franziska Le Brün

At the King’s heatre, London
By February 1777 it was known that the castrato Francesco Roncaglia and Franziska Danzi had been hired to sing at the King’s heatre in London for the 1777–78 season. We can assume that either J.C. Bach or Burney (or both) had recommended them. They made their debuts in Sacchini’s Creso and later the same season sang in Sacchini’s Erifile and Bach’s La clemenza di Scipione. Antoine Le Texier, a French critic who would later become Richard Sheridan’s opera manager at the King’s Theatre, wrote about the young soprano in some detail:
Mlle Danzi, hired for the prima donna seria roles, has the type of voice that is one of the most extraordinary to hear: an incomprehensibly wide range and above all great accuracy. She sings an aria di bravura in the second act of Creso, a most sublime composition, and which reunites difficulties that another author would not dare to write, imagining it would be impossible to execute. She also has an agreeable countenance, which is suited very well for the theater; she seems to be timid, a defect that could be corrected by the reassurance of the approbation that she will deserve.In the next issue, Le Texier compares her favorably to the soprano Lucrezia Aguiari, who had sung in London the preceding two seasons, 1775–77, and he also mentions that Danzi had been hired to sing in Milan the following season:
Nothing is more astonishing than the extensive range of Mlle Danzi’s voice, if one had enthusiasm for the sharp little cries of Signora Aguiari, when she passed the normal compass of her voice, then one will certainly admire the surprising extent of a natural and agreeable voice, through five octaves, a very extensive span, with an accurate pitch and the most incomprehensible clarity. We have heard that Mlle Danzi is engaged to be the prima donna at the Opera [La Scala] in Milan next year; despite our regrets in losing her, we will be happy to see her move to the country where she can’t help but obtain perfection in singing that one can acquire only in charming Italy, the motherland of all that is musical; this will be the perfect school for Mlle Danzi to improve her singing and acting; she is nineteen [recte twenty-one], her appearance is very agreeable, and truly theatrical, and her acting in which we have discovered great potential, must make one believe also that, with work, she can become an excellent actress.
Burney describes her voice after hearing her sing in London:
As Signora Danzi, now Madame Le Brun, had a voice well in tune, a good shake, great execution, a prodigious compass, and great knowledge of Music, with youth, and a face and figure far from disagreeable; it seems difficult to account for the little pleasure her performance afforded to persons accustomed to good Italian singing. However, the problem certainly admits of a solution, if it be considered, that the natural tone of her voice is not interesting; that she had never been in Italy, and had been constantly imitating the tone and difficulties of instruments; that her chief labour and ambition had been to surprise, concluding perhaps that wonder however excited includes pleasure; and forgetting that though an ounce of salt may make a soup or ragoût sufficiently savoury, yet that two ounces will spoil it; in short, forgetting that she is not a bird in a bush or a cage, and that from a human figure, representing a princess or great personage, it is natural for an audience to expect human passions to be expressed in such tones, and with such art and energy, as will not degrade an individual of our own species, into a being of an inferior order.
This sounds much like his daughter’s description of Danzi-Lebrun’s performance in the pasticcio Alessandro nell’Indie:
Madame Le Brun’s songs, except two, I cannot I confess recollect anything of, but I believe their Style was unmarked — for she cannot sing a Cantabile, which prevents there being much variety in her Airs — but one of the 2 I remember was a chicherichi song in the 2d Act — A Bravura composed purposely for her wch goes up to the high, & a very unpleasing one I think. — Her Husband, who looks a conceited fop, gave the time &c when she sung, & the composition for ought I know might be his — I should suspect her Rondeau in the last Act at least to be his as it is very French.
Sacchini’s Eriile, regina di Zacinto, to a libretto by Giovanni de Gamerra (the poet who wrote Lucio Silla, set by Mozart in Milan, 1772, and later set by J.C. Bach in a modified version by Mattia Verazi in Mannheim, 1775), had its premiere on 7 February 1778 with Danzi in the title role. he most remarkable aria in the opera is Danzi’s aria in act 2, “Lieta quest’alma amante,” with oboe obbligato. She also appeared in Sacchini’s L’amore soldato (5 May 1778) and Tommaso Giordani’s Il re pastore (30 May 1778).
Bach had not written a new opera for the London stage since Carattaco (1767); according to Burney, he had been unwilling to write any operas for London until Anna De Amicis came on the scene in 1762–63. Thus he wrote operas only when the prima donna met his standards, and Danzi must have done so. In the 1770s the taste of the opera-going public had shifted towards lighter forms, and Clemenza di Scipione, in what turned out to be Bach’s final opera for London, reflected some of these trends. Described as a “new Serious Opera . . . with Grand Chorusses,” Clemenza di Scipione had its premiere on 4 April 1778 at the King’s Theatre. According to the Public Advertiser, “the Poetry is said to be the Production of a Foreign Minister residing at our Court; a Person of Taste and Learning, who softens the Cares of Negociation, by sacrificing in secret to the Muses.” The cast included the tenor Valentin Adamberger (later Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail) as Scipione; Francesco Roncaglia (primo uomo in Bach’s two operas for Mannheim) as Luceio; and Franziska Danzi (prima donna) as Arsinda. These three singers appeared in other operas together, and Mlle Baccelli was one of the principal dancers. From the tone of the enthusiastic accounts of the opera in the Public Advertiser, we can assume that it was a great success. Several arias are mentioned by name and proclaimed to be especially fitting for the singers:
That beautiful Air in the second Act, “Frena le belle lacrime,” sung by Signor Roncaglia, is charmingly pathetic, and well suited to his Voice; as is likewise the one in Act III, “Nel partire, idolo mio;” and that of Signora Danzi in Act I, “Dal dolor cotanto oppresso.” he most capital Air, however, is that of Signora Danzi in the Second Act [“Infelice in van m’afano”], accompanied by the Violin, Violoncello, German Flute, and Hautboy. his is truly a Chef d’œuvre in every Respect, and Signor Bach is extremely fortunate in the amazing Execution of Signora Danzi, and the masterly Accompanyment of Messrs. Cramer [violin], Cervetto [cello], Florio [lute], and Le Brun [oboe]
“Infelice! In van m’afano” is of special importance not only because it is the longest and most elaborate of the arias, but it also bears a resemblance to a sinfonia concertante by virtue of Bach’s employment of four obbligato instruments. In the aria, Bach even gives the voice passages of sequential imitative music in combination with the obbligato instruments, thus creating a unique interplay of voice and instruments. The similarities between this concertante aria and Constanza’s “Martern aller Arten” in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) are striking; Adamberger could have brought the aria to Mozart’s attention in Vienna. Danzi’s voice was clearly in the same league as that of Caterina Cavalieri’s, who was the star soprano at the Viennese National heater. And Bach’s aria, like Mozart’s, is a showcase for soprano (Danzi) as well as the four obbligato instruments.
It is not clear whether Lebrun intended to marry Danzi before leaving Mannheim, or whether the two courted in London (silhouettes of the Lebruns c. 1780).