The Real and Exciting Life of Mozart’s Irish tenor Michael Kelly, 1762-1826

 

In my book “The Murder of Figaro” I do a bit of a hatchet job on this hardworking singer, who created the double roles of Don Basilio and Don Curzio in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.”  I needed a buffoon in my story, and Kelly got cast in the part of a preening, bitchy, gossipy know-it-all Irish tippler. Heaven knows the man had an inflated ego, but one cannot function as a tenor without one.

 

In truth, Kelly (or Ochelli) sang everything everywhere, knew everybody, and from all accounts was befriended and beloved everywhere he went, in Britain and all over Europe. During his long and distinguished career, he managed to sing soprano, alto, tenor and bass with great success. He was friends with Salieri and Paisiello. He was close with Stephen and Nancy Storace and dined often with the Mozarts. Mozart continued to love him in spite of the famous musical argument between himself and Amadé,  which is featured in my book with some extra nasty twists thrown in. Kelly won that argument, by the way, which is surprising because Mozart had an ego of his own, and after all it was his opera. When Kelly left for London, he and Mozart wept at parting.

 

In Britain, Kelly became the principal English tenor in the old Drury Lane Theater and toured around performing lots of Handel, including “Messiah” “Jephtha,” and other works.  He played Macheath in “The Beggar’s Opera” opposite his ladyfriend Anna Crouch as Polly. La Crouch and Kelly lived together in a cozy arrangement with Mr. Crouch, all happy as clams, evidently. For a while Anna was also favoring the Prince of Wales, who did not move in with them; he merely added his royal lustre to the two other men, who were OK with it. Autre temps, autre moeurs, I guess.

 

Ladies seemed to adore Michael Kelly, which could make life precarious. In his youth, when an infuriated rival arrived with blood in his eye at the opera house he was singing in, Kelly ran offstage and out the stage door in the middle of the performance. Everybody was sympathetic afterwards, including the management.

 

Kelly himself became the manager of the Kings Theater in 1793, and published his entertaining and frankly self-regarding “Reminiscences” in 1826, and died shortly thereafter.