Carolina Bassi
Italian contralto (1781-1862)
Carolina Bassi (10 January 1781 – 12 December 1862) was an Italian contralto who knew Rossini, Meyerbeer, Donizetti and Bellini.
Life
Bassi was born in Naples to a musician family. Her brother Nicola, was a famous buffo bass; and another brother, Adolfo, who was a composer, operatic tenor and also an impresario of the Teatro Nuovo in Trieste.
She retired in 1828, devoting herself to teaching opera singing. She died in Cremona in 1862.
Family
Bassi was married to Cremona's nobleman, Pietro Manna. They had a son, Ruggero Manna (1808–1864), a composer and Chapel Master of the Cathedral of Cremona from 1835 to 1864.
Musical career
Bassi was known as "La Napoletana", one of the noted singers of her era. She was the first interpreter of many works of her repertoire. The roles that gave her a particular success were Semiramide riconosciuta, Margherita d'Anjou, L'esule di Granata, all by Meyerbeer, Bianca e Falliero by Rossini, and some works by Giovanni Pacini and Saverio Mercadante.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Carolina Bassi” as italian contralto (1781-1862). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as italian contralto (1781-1862). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q3660543. VIAF identifies the subject as 263411498. The Library of Congress control number is no2012127909. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1781, 1862, 1828 and 1808.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carolina Bassi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.