In notable contrast to the career of Faustina was that of her old-time
rival, Cuzzoni. After the Venetian singer retired from London, Cuzzoni
again returned to fill an engagement with the opposition company formed
by Handel's opponents. With her sang Farinelli and Senesino, the former
of whom was the great tenor singer of the age--perhaps the greatest
who ever lived, if we take the judgment of the majority of the musical
historians. Cuzzoni was again overshadowed by the splendid singing of
Farinelli, who produced an enthusiasm in London almost without parallel.
Her haughty and arrogant temper could not brook such inferiority, and
she took the first opportunity to desert what she considered to be an
ungrateful public. We hear of her again as singing in different parts of
Europe, but always with declining prestige. In the London "Daily Post"
of September 7, 1741, appeared a paragraph which startled her old
admirers: "We hear from Italy that the famous singer, Mrs. C-z-ni, is
under sentence of death, to be beheaded for poisoning her husband." If
this was so, the sentence was never carried into execution, for she
sang seven years afterward in London at a benefit concert. She issued
a preliminary advertisement, avouching her "pressing debts" and her
"desire to pay them" as the reason for her asking the benefit, which,
she declared, should be the last she would ever trouble the public with.
Old, poor, and almost deprived of her voice by her infirmities,
her attempt to revive the interest of the public in her favor was a
miserable failure; her star was set for ever, and she was obliged
to return to Holland more wretched than she came. She had scarcely
reappeared there when she was again thrown into prison for debt; but,
by entering into an agreement to sing at the theatre every night, under
surveillance, she was enabled to obtain her release. Her recklessness
and improvidence had brought her to a pitiable condition; and in her
latter days, after a career of splendor, caprice, and extravagance,
she was obliged to subsist, it is said, by button-making. She died in
frightful indigence, the recipient of charity, at a hospital in Bologna,
in 1770.