Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/B/Bernacchi, Antonio
Bernacchi, Antonio. An Italian singer, engaged by Handel, in the year 1716, for the opera in London. This performer's voice seems by nature to have been feeble and defective ; but he supplied the defects of nature by so much art, that his performance was always much more ad-mired by professors than by the public in general. He staid there at first but one year, after which he went back to Italy, but returned in 1729. After quitting the stage, Bernacchi established a school for singing at Bologna, where he had himself been educated, and where he formed several admirable scholars, who rendered his name and school famous.