(* around 1745/1750 in Turin; † 20 Febr. 1807 in Lausanne)
Harpsichordist, pianist, singer and composer. Genovieffa Vignola was the daughter of Gioanni Vignola, professionally "Pittore in miniature“" (miniature painter; Saur, P. 261) and Gioanna Battista Colombatta.
Genovieffa Vignola's musical training was probably made possible and coined by the courtly surroundings, in which her father occupied himself. She learned piano playing and singing. Her six harpsichord sonatas Op. 1 probably date from this time.
On 14 August 1764 the wedding with the Turin goldsmith Cristofaro Domenico Biaggio Ravissa (1744?) took place. In 1768, 1770, 1774 and 1776 in Turin their children Maria Francesca Margarita, Francesco Bernardino Maria, Carlo Vittorio Maria and Maria Margarita Clotilda were born. In 1788 the daughter Frédérique Elise (daughter of Frédéric Scheel) came illegitimately to the world in Neuenburg.
After the wedding the financial situation of the family worsened rapidly. In 1777 Cristofaro Ravissa faced financial bankruptcy: from 12 April 1777 the "Vendita mobili di Cristoffaro Ravizza of" dates named documents (Archivio di Stato di Torino, Insinuazione Torino 1777), which report the process and the auction of all personal owners and the businesses. The family left consequently their hometown. Genovieffa Ravissa traveled, probably with man and children, to Paris.
Here she went into music repeatedly and actively as a harpsichordist, singer, composer and a teacher. She published her six harpsichord sonatas (later three sonatas for hammerclavier and violin, delivered in the manuscript BNF Paris, MS, D. 11743) and sang on 25 March 1778 in a spiritual concert two Italian arias. Also from her time after the end of her stay in Paris are well-known concerts from the year 1780 in Lausanne and Turin. Jean Henri Polier reports on the Lausanne concert on 23 Febr. a bit in his diary: "Concert de La Ravissa à la Redoute 2[livres] “(Pollier de Vernand, without pagination). At the end of the concert contract for the Turin concert on 9 June of the same year she performed as a legally independent person.
During this time the musician left her husband and children and began a new life in French Switzerland. In 1780 she received Tolérance d'Habitation in Neuenburg. She worked here for more than ten years as a piano and voice teacher and was a harpsichordist for the orchestra of the Société de la Salle de Musique in 1781/1782. It comes to mind in this period in Neuenburg, if not several more times of Genovieffa Ravissa in Paris, for which she was likewise active in music and probably instructed.
In 1792 Genovieffa Ravissa left Neuenburg with her youngest daughter Frédérique-Elise and moved to Lausanne. She gave concerts in salons of aristocrats and the rich and lessons in their homes. She died on 20 Febr. 1807 in Lausanne.
