Michael Kelly

Michael O'Kelly

1762 (Dublin) – 1826 (Margate, England)

Arne taught Kelly piano. Attwood travelled with him to visit Leopold Mozart, with a scheme to take Mozart’s son Wolfgang to England, but it didn’t come off. He was a good friend of the younger Mozart, frequently dining with him, and singing in the première of ‘The Marriage of Figaro.’ Kelly described Mozart as “remarkably fond of punch”, and claims always to have beaten him at billiards. The librettist da Ponte, he said, had a lisp and the character of a coxcomb. Kelly also worked in Venice with Paisiello and Martin y Soler. Hook was the ghost writer for his ‘Reminiscences’. Sheridan, a London friend, joked with him about his twin occupations dealing in wine and music.