Nicola Porpora

Nicola Porpora (born Aug. 17, 1686, Naples—died March 3, 1768, Naples) was a leading Italian teacher of singing of the 18th century and noted composer between 1708 and 1747 of more than 60 operas in the elegant, lyrical Neapolitan style. He taught singing in Venice and Naples; among his pupils were the poet and librettist Pietro Metastasio, the composer Johann Adolph Hasse, and the celebrated castrati Antonio Uberti (known as “Porporino”), Farinelli, and Caffarelli.

His most important teaching post was in Venice at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, the famous music school for girls, from 1726 to 1733. In 1733 he went to London as chief composer to the Opera of the Nobility, a company formed in competition to Handel’s opera company. In London he wrote five operas, among them Polifemo, Davide e Betsabea, and Ifigenia in Aulide, with parts for his remarkable pupil Farinelli. When the Opera of the Nobility and Handel’s company closed, Porpora left England, in 1736. He subsequently taught in Venice and Naples, where he produced several comic operas. In 1747 he was in Dresden and from 1748 to 1751 was chapelmaster there. He went to Vienna in 1752, where he gave composition lessons to the young Haydn, and in 1758 returned to Naples. A revision of his opera Il Trionfo di Camilla (first produced 1740) was given there in 1760 but failed, and Porpora’s last years were spent in poverty. In addition to about 50 operas, he composed a number of oratorios, masses, motets, and instrumental works.