Giulia. Principessa di Napoli

A seductress and strategist like few others, Giulia De Caro—known as Ciulla—began her public struggle in pursuit of an independence and respectability denied to her by her humble origins, relying solely on her own strength and on her astonishing gifts as an actress-singer and lover.
Born in the crowded insula of the Pignasecca on 13 July 1646, she soon realized that she could rely only on herself, enhancing—and monetizing—everything she possessed. Through the virtues of her eloquent body she embarked on a double career that would see her described in the chronicles of 1671 as a “comediante cantarinola armonica, puttana,” even as she was gradually and tenaciously carrying out her project of social emancipation, aiming for a life marked by respect and discretion.

The fascination exerted by this woman at the height of her trajectory is also reflected in the refined cantatas of Prince Giovanni Cicinelli: notated pages that testify to a technical and seductive skill in conveying the affections, works that “play” with motifs dear to the poetic imagination of the time while also ironizing the criticisms voiced by a misogynistic and hostile world.

Paologiovanni Maione has reconstructed a historical and musical itinerary around the figure of “Ciulla della Pignasecca,” that is, Giulia De Caro, who in the mid-seventeenth century was a celebrated singer, opera impresario, and high-class courtesan, capable of captivating the viceroy and thus transforming herself into the true “princess” of Naples. This multifaceted activity lasted no more than seven years, from 1669—when she appears as a singer in the last company of the Febi Armonici, which staged the final opera by Cavalli in Naples—until 1676, when she sang her last opera, Giulio Cesare by Boretti on a libretto by Aureli.

The peak of Giulia’s career, however, had occurred in the preceding years, when she interpreted the theatrical masterpieces of the greatest Neapolitan master of the century, Francesco Provenzale: Lo schiavo di sua moglie (1672) and Stellidaura (1674; revival 1675). These works secured her success as a singer and fostered her rise to impresario of the Teatro di San Bartolomeo—the second time a woman had held such a position.

In addition to operas, the beautiful Giulia was also the dedicatee of numerous cantatas, such as those composed by the Prince of Cursi, Giovanni Cicinelli—another of her illustrious lovers—preserved in manuscript at the Library of the Naples Conservatory and presented here for soprano and basso continuo.