mortification it was not a son. Sons and heirs ought to be out of fashion
when such scrubs shall pretend to be dissatisfied at having a daughter;
'tis pity, indeed, that the noble name and family of the Sandonis should be
extinct! The minute she was brought to bed she sang' La speranza,' a song
in _Otho_."

Revivals of _Rodelinda_ and _Ottone_ took place in the following season,
and, in March 1726, Handel produced _Scipio_, in which the famous march was
heard for the first time on the rise of the curtain.


But Cuzzoni's throne was soon to be sharply contested. Ever since 1723 the
directors of the opera had been trying to secure Faustina Bordoni, and at
last, with a promise of L2,500 for the season (Cuzzoni received L2,000),
they succeeded. Faustina was born of a patrician family at Venice in 1700;
she had been brought up under the protection of Alessandro Marcello,
brother of the well-known composer, and had made her debut at Venice at the
age of sixteen. She sang mostly at Venice for several years, and in 1718
she appeared there in Pollaroli's _Ariodante_, along with Cuzzoni herself.
She sang at Munich in 1723, and in the summer of 1725 she went to Vienna,
where she stayed six months, enjoying an extraordinary success. Nearly
forty years afterwards the Empress Maria Theresa recalled with pride how
she herself, at the age of seven, had sung in an opera with Faustina. At
the end of March 1726 she left Vienna for London, where she made her first
appearance, on May 5, in Handel's new opera _Alessandro_, which had been
designed especially to show off both Faustina and Cuzzoni in parts of
exactly equal importance and difficulty. The immediate result was to divide
London society into two parties: young Lady Burlington and her friends
supported Faustina; Cuzzoni's admirers were led by Lady Pembroke. Lady
Walpole succeeded in getting both to sing at her house; neither would sing