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Giovanna Sestini (ca1748 – 14 July 1814) was an opera singer who performed in her native Italy, in Portugal, and from 1774 in London, where she lived for the rest of her life. For many years she was the popular prima buffa (or first woman) in comic opera at the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket (later Her Majesty's Theatre).

Biography

Youth

Giovanna Sestini was born in Florence; her parents are not known but she had a sister Anna, also a singer, and a brother Vincenzo Sestini who became a renowned theatrical wardrobe master in London. Giovanna and Anna sang in opera buffa in various Italian cities between 1763 and about 1767.

Move to Lisbon

When recovering from the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Portuguese theatres actively recruited performers from Italy. These included Giovanna and Anna Sestini who sang in Italian opera at the new Teatro da Rua dos Condes in Lisbon from 1768 until 1774.^[1] Giovanna was better paid as she took more demanding roles than her sister of whom nothing more is then known.

Marriage

José Christiano Stocqueler (1749-1812) was descended from a merchant and consul originally from Hamburg, Christian Stockler (ca 1688-1772), who had married well in Portugal. The family moved in Court circles and José Christiano had been made a Knight of the Order of Christ (see Order of Christ (Portugal)) at the age of nineteen. His family disapproved when he formed a liaison with a beautiful Italian opera singer^[2], but he and Giovanna Sestini married and two sons were born before they moved to London.

Move to London

In 1774 there were difficulties in the Lisbon theatres and Giovanna Sestini entered a contract to be prima buffa at the King’s Theatre in London for the coming season.^[3] With her husband and sons she took lodgings in Oxendon Street close to the Haymarket. Her London debut was as La Cecchina in Niccolò Piccinni’s La buona figliuola and she was immediately acclaimed even though in an advanced state of pregnancy. Her third son was born on New Year’s Day 1775 and baptised Joseph Christian Stocqueler in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Portuguese Embassy Chapel in Mayfair.

Further Career

Sestini sang comic roles in Italian at the King’s Theatre during many seasons until the theatre was destroyed by fire in 1789. She was at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin, in Italian opera in 1777–78, and singing in English in 1784–85. When she first sang on the English stage at Covent Garden in 1782 the part of Lorenza in John O’Keeffe’s The Castle of Andalucia was especially adapted to suit her broken English. As usual she received glowing reviews in the press, but again had to withdraw after five performances for the birth of her eighth and last child. Sestini had further engagements at Covent Garden and also sang in the summer programmes at the Little Theatre or Theatre Royal Haymarket. In all she sang over sixty operatic roles: her most frequent performance was as Violante in Giovanni Paisiello’s La frascatana. Sestini augmented her income by singing at private concerts – including in 1775 for the Royal family. She also performed at the Oxford Music Rooms, Freemasons’ Hall, London and the Pantheon, London and in 1792 at St Cecilia’s Hall in Edinburgh. This was her last professional engagement.

Family

Sestini’s husband José Christiano Stocqueler became the London agent of the Royal Wine Company of Oporto. One of their sons, known as ‘Master Sestini’, performed at Charles Dibdin’s Royal Circus in Blackfriars Road and also ‘Young Sestini’ sang in support of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1787. The line ‘I am a Merry Andrew, Andrew is my name’ has led to the erroneous suggestion that the Stocquelers had a son called Andrew.^[4] None of the Stocqueler children had a stage career as an adult. A grandson Joachim Hayward Stocqueler was a journalist, writer, lecturer and rogue who also used the name Siddons.

Death

Joanna Stocqueler died on 14 July 1814, two years after her husband, at their last home in Broad Street Buildings, Bishopsgate, in the City of London. They were both buried at the graveyard of St Pancras Old Church. Neither newspaper reports of her death nor their epitaph^[5] made any mention of Giovanna Sestini’s distinguished career as a singer.

References

^ de Brito, Manuel Carlos, Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1969)
^ Stocqueler, Joachim Hayward, The Memoirs of a Journalist. Enlarged, Revised (London, 1873)
^ Nalbach, Daniel, The King’s Theatre 1704 –1867: London’s First Italian Opera House (London, 1972).
^ Highfill., Philip H., et al., eds. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and other Stage Personel in London 1600–1800 Vol 13 (Carbondale IL, 1991)
^ Cansick, Frederick Teague, A Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs, Copied from the Monuments of Distinguished and Noted Characters in the Ancient Church and Burial Grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex (London, 1869) p. 93.

[1] Brito, Manuel Carlos, Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1969)

[2] Stocqueler, Joachim Hayward, The Memoirs of a Journalist. Enlarged, Revised (London, 1873)

[3] Nalbach, Daniel, The King’s Theatre 1704 –1867: London’s First Italian Opera House (London, 1972).

[4] Highfill., Philip H., et al., eds. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and other Stage Personel in London 1600–1800 Vol 13 (Carbondale IL, 1991)

[5] Cansick, Frederick Teague, A Collection of Curious and Interesting Epitaphs, Copied from the Monuments of Distinguished and Noted Characters in the Ancient Church and Burial Grounds of Saint Pancras, Middlesex (London, 1869) p. 93.

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