UCCELLI, Carolina

Carolina Pazzini was born into a minor noble family in Florence and married Filippo Uccelli, a prominent surgeon from Pisa who supported her music career.

She made her debut as a composer with the performance of the sacred opera Saul at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence on 21 June 1830. Uccelli wrote both libretto and music for the opera. A two-act melodrama Anna di Resburgo with a libretto by Gaetano Rossi was performed in Naples in 1832. It employed a libretto previously set by Meyerbeer in his opera Emma di Resburgo (1819). It enjoyed only two performances. Its failure is generally ascribed to the similarity of its plot to Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, which had proved a great success just a month earlier in Naples.[2] The overture of her opera Eufemio da Messina was performed in Milan in 1833.

At some point she won a testimonial from Rossini, who noted her "expressiveness and elegance in declamation and melody".