7. Nancy (Anna) Storace (1765–1817)

English singer and actress, sister to composer Stephen Storace, she was a child prodigy, and began her operatic career in Italy. She achieved success at the Italian opera in Vienna where Mozart created the role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) for her. She returned to London in 1787 with Thomas Attwood, Michael Kelly and her brother, and launched a career in English opera. Among the roles she sang was that of Lilla in The Siege of Belgrade (1791). She performed in concerts organised by Salamon in London for Haydn in 1791 and 1795. Charles Burney noted that she was a ‘lively and intelligent actress’ but her voice had a ‘roughness. and deficiency of natural sweetness’.

Engraving: I. Godefroy, The Celebrated Signora Storace (London: P. Molinari, 1797)
RCM Centre for Performance History, 88B4