(c.1753? - 1836), singer, called 'L'Inglesina'; dau. of a flautist; performed in Ireland, England and Europe c.1762 - 91.
1772 - 73 [dep. England autumn 1767, France, Vienna] Milan, Naples (1772), Florence (by 19 Sep. 1772 - 20 Mar. 1773) [London by 20 Nov. 1773]
1779 - 85 Venice (19 May - Jun. 1779), Florence (Nov. 1779; by 20 Mar. 1782 - c.1785)
Charles Burney characterized Cecilia Davies's voice as clear, steady and perfectly in tune, wanting colour and passion, but with an excellent bravura.1 On her first tour of Europe, which lasted six years, she travelled with her parents and her sister, Marianne, who frequently accompanied her on the 'armonica', a peculiarly demanding instrument invented by Benjamin Franklin, consisting of a series of glasses fixed on an axle, moved by a treadle. In Italy Cecilia had great success in Hasse's Ruggiero at Naples in 1772, and at Florence with Sacchini's Armida on 19 September 1772 and Gluck's Aristeo on 20 March 1773.2 She was, wrote Mount Edgcumbe, 'the first Englishwoman who had yet sustained the part of prima donna, and in that situation was second only to Gabrielli, whom she even rivalled in neatness of execution'.3 She was in London for her debut in Italian opera on 20 November 1773.
After a successful London season in 1776 - 7, she returned to Italy in 1779. She was in Venice on 19 May: 'Miss Davies sounds very ill. I have not found one person that thinks her a good singer', wrote Henry Bankes,4 while Lord Herbert heard her in Florence in November, but thought she compared poorly with Marquesi, the eunuch.5 Cecilia and her sister were living in Florence in August 1782, when announcements of her performances began to appear regularly in the Gazzetta Toscana; they had a house in the Fondaccio di S.Spirito and sang frequently at Court, for the Corsini family and for Lord Tylney.6 On 24 May 1783, Marianne announced in the Gazzetta Toscana that her departure from Florence was approaching and she would perform privately at a day's notice. The following year the sisters were without work; a benefit concert was held for them and they returned afterwards to England.3 Northcote later remembered visiting Cecilia in Florence with the painter Prince Hoare: 'she had then in a great measure fallen off but she was still very much admired. What a strange thing a reputation of this kind is, that the person herself survives, and sees the meteors of fashion rise and fall one after another, while she remains totally disregarded ... I have hardly heard her name mentioned in the last thirty years, though in her time she was quite as famous as any one since'.7
1. Grove. Wal.Corr., 23:547 and n10, 570. 2. Gazz.Tosc. 3. Mount Edgcumbe, 17 - 18. 4. Bankes MSS. 5. Pembroke Papers, 1:313 (7 Nov. 1779). 6. Borroni 1983, 94. 7. Northcote Memorials, 167 - 9.