Antonio Bagniera

Antonio Bagniera was a singer of Swiss origin who was active at the French court of Louis XIV during the second half of the seventeenth century and the first decades of the eighteenth. His name appears in various spellings: Bagnera, Baniera, Bannieri and, in French, Antoine. His dates of birth and death are uncertain: he is placed as born in Rome around 1638 and as dying at Versailles in 1740, which would make him a centenarian.

The son of one of the King's Swiss Guards, he entered the court as a Page de la Chapelle, that is, as a boy singer in the choir of the royal chapel. His voice was prized for its extraordinary volume and great beauty. His short stature and certain physical deformities may have weighed on the decision to have him castrated, an operation which he reportedly underwent at the hands of his cousin, a surgeon, with the aim of preserving what he valued most: his voice. When the monarch learnt of what had happened, he threatened to banish him, but he pardoned him after the Swiss Guards interceded, arguing that the act had served the interests of the King's music.

Bagniera went on singing both in the chapel and in the operatic performances at court, such as Lully's Alceste of 1677. He obtained French naturalisation in 1680. At that time Louis XIV employed several Italian castrati at the same time as him, and Bagniera sang until the age of seventy-seven, retiring with the death of the King in 1715.