ABSTRACT
After his death, Rauzzini’s success as a singing master was frequently evidenced by the number of famous opera singers listed as his students. By the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Billington (1765–1818) and Gertrud Elisabeth Mara (1749–1833) were listed among his students, and yet there were few contemporary, eighteenth-century sources adverts making such a claim. Were nineteenth-century periodicals simply adding Billington and Mara to the list of celebrity students to bolster his reputation and legacy? Such a question is not easily answered and is further complicated when examining how Billington and Mara’s vocal education was publicly represented. Though Mara was reported to have trained with different music masters, she denied any claims she had worked with these masters formally for a long period of time. How Mara represented her vocal development in her autobiography aligned with wider eighteenth-century debates regarding originality and genius. Comparatively, Billington trained with different masters throughout her career and often received positive reviews as a result. Such reporting goes some way to explaining how a celebrated female singer’s vocal education and professional development was publicly viewed and, in the case of Mara, how it contradicted the way she wished to depict her talents.
