1733-1741 - Haymarket (Westminster)
Castrato singer Giovanni Carestini was born around 1704 in Filottrana, near Ancona. Taught by Bologna-born castrato Antonio Bernacchi, his singing career began in Milan in 1719 and performed in 1720 for Domenico Scarlatti in Rome. His fame spread. In 1723 he worked at the Viennese court. On his return he sang in Naples, Venice, and Rome, performing in operas by Johann Adolph Hasse and Christoph Willibald Gluck.
He was in Munich in 1733, before coming to London to replace Siena-born castrato Senesino at the King’s Theatre, Haymarket, and sing in a number of Handel’s operas and oratorios. By the late 1730s his career began to wane quickly. A London audience of 1740 was indifferent, and he returned to Italy in the early 1740s. Audiences in Naples were actively displeased by his performances in 1758. He died in 1760.
