following year she moved to Vienna, where she debuted in the title role in Gluck's Semiramide riconosciuta, set to a libretto by Metastasio, on the occasione of the inauguration of the new Burgtheater. Metastasio, who had been absent from Italy since 1730 and therefore had no recent direct experience of her performances, was amazed, and in a letter to his colleague Giovanni Claudio Pasquini, he wrote: "Tesi plays in a way that surprised me, as well as the whole humanity in Vienna, of either of the two sexes". After further successful appearances at the Burgtheater in the latter half of 1748 and in 1749 (among others, in Niccolò Jommelli's Achille in Sciro and Didone abbandonata, both set to Metastasian libretti), and after having undergone a real tour de force of four new operas and two pasticcios in 1750, Tesi began to retire from her professional singing career. In 1751 she was reported by Metastasio to be serving as the costume director at the Viennese theatre and in 1754 she appeared on stage - probably for the last time - as Lisinga in the premiere of Gluck's one-act opera Le cinesi, at Engelhartstetten, in the Schloss Hof, on the occasion of a visit of the imperial couple. The Hof was the country residence of Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a leading figure in the Habsburg court, in whose Vienna palace (Palais Rosenkavalier, today's Palais Auersperg) she permanently dwelled, after auctioning in 1753 all the movable property of her Florence home. "There she regularly took part in private concerts under the direction of the Prince's capellmeister Joseph Bonno. The Prince had offered Tesi a salary for staying in his household, but she refused to be paid and declined every present the Prince wished to give her." She taught singing there, having among her pupils Caterina Gabrielli and Elisabeth Teyber (1744–1816), and she would heartily receive personalities, such as Casanova or the Mozarts (father and 6-year-old son), who passed through Vienna and wished to pay homage to the old primadonna living at the Prince Saxe-Hildburghausen's. Tesi died of pneumonia on 9 May 1775. She was exceedingly rich and in accordance with her last will, she was buried in the crypt of the Capuchin Church at the Neuer Markt, having provided a Mass endowment fund of 1,000 florins for the annexed Capuchin Convent. Artistic features In 1777 and wrote that, albeit "with an ingrateful voice",