Michael Kelly (tenor)

Portrait by Adèle Romany, between 1802 and 1814

Michael Kelly (25 December[1] 1762 – 9 October 1826) was an Irish tenor, composer and theatrical manager who made an international career of importance in musical history.[2] One of the leading figures in British musical theatre around the turn of the nineteenth century, he was a close associate of playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He also became friends with musicians such as Mozart and Paisiello, and created roles for the operas of both composers. With his friend and fellow singer Nancy Storace, he was one of the first tenors of that era from Britain and Ireland to become famous in Italy and Austria. In Italy he was also known as O'Kelly[3] or even Signor Ochelli.[4] Although the primary source for his life is his Reminiscences, doubt has been cast on the reliability of his own account, and it has been said that '[a]ny statement of Kelly's is immediately suspect.'[5]

  1. ^ H. van Thal (ed.): Solo Recital. The Reminiscences of Michael Kelly (London: Folio Society, 1972), p. 19, note.
  2. ^ This article includes text drawn from Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911.
  3. ^ This name was given by Father Dolphin, Prior of the Convent of St Dominic at Naples, cf Thal (ed.) 1972, p. 85.
  4. ^ H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack: Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (London: Oxford University Press, 1974).
  5. ^ Richard Graves: "The Comic Operas of Stephen Storace", in The Musical Times vol. 95 no. 1340 (October 1954), pp. 530–532.