A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Siface, Giovanni
SIFACE, Giovanni Francesco Grossi, detto. Too few details are known about the life of this artist, though all the accounts of him—for the most part as contradictory as they are meagre—agree in representing him as one of the very greatest singers of his time. He was born at Pescia in Tuscany, about the middle of the 17th century, and is said to have been a pupil of Redi. If so, this must have been Tommaso Redi, who became chapel-master at Loretto towards the end of the 17th century, although, as he was Siface's contemporary, it seems improbable that he should have been his instructor. Siface was admitted into the Pope's chapel in April 1675. This disproves the date (1666) given by Fétis and others for his birth, as no boys sang then in the Sistine choir. He would seem at that time to have been already known by the sobriquet which has always distinguished him, and which he owed to his famous impersonation of Siface or Syphax in some opera, commonly said to be the 'Mitridate' of Scarlatti; an unlikely supposition, for besides that Scarlatti's two operas of that name were not written till some 40 years later, it is not easy to see what Syphax can have to do in a work on the subject of Mithridates.
Siface's voice, an 'artificial soprano,' was full and beautiful; his style of singing, broad, noble, and very expressive. Mancini extols his choir-singing as being remarkable for its excellence. In 1679 he was at Venice for the Carnival, acting with great success in the performances of Pallavicini's opera 'Nerone,' of which a description may be found in the 'Mercure galant' of the same year. After this he came to England, and Hawkins mentions him as pre-eminent among all the foreign singers of that period. He was for a time attached to James II.'s chapel,[1] but soon returned to Italy. In the second part of Playford's collection, 'Musick's Handmaid' (1689), there is an air by Purcell, entitled 'Sefauchi's farewell,' which refers to Siface's departure from this country.
This great singer was robbed and murdered by his postilion, while travelling, some say from Genoa to Turin, others, from Bologna to Ferrara. According to Hawkins this happened about the year 1699.
- ↑ Evelyn heard him there. Jan. 30, 1687, and on April 19 following at Pepys's house. He speaks of him in highly commendatory terms.