Niccolò Piccinni

Niccolò Piccinni

Source: Foggia Zon

Born in Bari in southern Italy on 16 Jan 1728, Niccolò Piccinni was grandfather to composer, Louis Alexandre Piccinni (1779-1850). Niccolò composed 115 operas during his career [Wikipedia]. Though he also authored instrumentals and sacred music, they are his dramatic stage works for which he is nigh exclusively known. Piccinni made quite a splash during his time, but his fame was brief, he largely forgotten since then albeit the Teatro Piccinni was opened in Bari on 30 May of 1854, so named to his posthumous honor a couple generations after his death. Piccinni was educated at the Naples Conservatory of Music, Sant'Onofrio, his father a musician of whom it is said he didn't want his son to make the same mistake. Highly successful at opera nevertheless, Piccinni produced his first, 'Le donne dispettose', with libretto by Antonio Palomba in 1755. Sixteen of the librettos to which he set music were by Metastasio. The first, 'Zenobia', premiered on 18 Dec 1756 in Naples at the Teatro San Carlo. 'Zenobia' had initially been performed prior to Piccinni in Wien (Vienna) back in 1737 with music by Giovanni Battista Bononcini. It involves Zenobia caught in an intrigue wrought by the murder of her father, Armenian king Mitridate, and the false accusation of her husband, Radamisto.

'Lasciami o ciel pietoso'   Aria by Niccolò Piccinni

'Leave me o merciful heaven'

From the opera 'Zenobia' premiering 18 Dec 1756 at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples

Libretto by Metastasio

Soprano Vittoria Didonna w the Ensemble Il Mondo della Luna   March-July 2020

Personnel recorded seperately during corona virus

It was 1760 when Piccinni's 'La buona figliuola' ('La Cecchina') ignited not only Naples, but all of Europe. Translating to 'The good-natured girl' or 'The girl from Cecchina', the libretto for that was by Carlo Goldoni after Samuel Richardson's novel, 'Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded'. Having already set Goldoni's opera buffa, 'Gli uccellatori' ('The fowlers'), in 1758, Piccinni would write music for seventeen librettos by Goldoni. Goldoni's fashion of opera buffa was to become a genre known as dramma giocoso or, drama with jokes. As for 'La Cecchinna', that involves the troubles of a maid so-named including the love of a marquis quite beyond her social station, another who is poor, and a couple other maids who envy her.

'La buona figliuola' ('La Cecchina')   Opera by Niccolò Piccinni

'The good-natured girl' ('The girl from Cecchina')

Premiering 6 Feb 1760 at the Teatro delle Dame in Rome

Libretto by Carlo Goldoni

Orchestra della Rai di Napoli / Franco Caracciolo   1969

Continuing to thrive through the sixties, Piccinni's setting to Metastasio's 'Didon Abbandonata' had premiered on 8 January 1770 at the Teatro Argentina. That had been Metastasio's first libretto, put to music by Domenico Sarro back in 1724. In latter 1770 Piccinni's music to Metastasio's 'Catone in Utica' was taken to Mannheim, Germany, by tenor, Anton Raff, where the score was somewhat altered for performance. "Catone" refers to the Roman senator, Cato the Younger (95-46 BC), great grandson of Cato the Elder (234-149 BC). By 1773 Piccinni had written 50 operas, performing thirty of them in Rome.

'Didone abbandonata'   Opera by Niccolò Piccinni

'Dido abandoned'

Premiering 8 Jan 1770 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome

Libretto by Metastasio

La Cappella della Pietà dei Tuchini / Antonio Florio   1969

Didone: Roberta Invernizzi

Overture to 'Catone in Utica'   Niccolò Piccinni

'Cato in Utica'

Opera premiered 5 Nov 1770 at the Hoftheater in Mannheim

Libretto by Metastasio

Filharmonia Krakowska / Nicola Simoni

In 1776 Piccinni found patronage in Marie Antoinette who brought him to Paris to compose operas at the Academie Royale de Musique. One could say Piccinni took the "Neapolitan school" to France, but what he really took was a Piccinni way of composing opera versus that of his major rival at the time, Christoph Willibald Gluck. His 'Roland' premiered at the Academie Royale on 27 January 1778 with libretto by Jean-François Marmontel [Wikipedia] after Philippe Quinault and Ludovico Ariosto. Piccinni worked with Marmontel on five operas including the notable 'Didon' performed at the private theatre at Fontainebleau on 16 October 1783, that taken after Metastasio's 'Didone abbandonata' of 1724.

'Roland'   Opera by Niccolò Piccinni

Premiering 27 Jan 1778 at the Academie Royale in Paris

Libretto by Jean-François Marmontel

Chamber Chorus Bratislava / Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia / David Golub

Overture to 'Didon'   Niccolò Piccinni

Opera premiered 27 Jan 1778 at Fontainebleau

Libretto by Jean-François Marmontel

Cappella della Pietà de'Turchini / Antonio Florio

Piccinni became a professor at the Royal School of Music in 1784. He last worked with Marmontel per 'Penelope' premiering on 2 November 1785 at Fontainebleau. Penelope is the queen of Ithaca in Homer's 'Odyssey' of circa 7th-8th century BC. A second version was played in Paris on 16 October 1787, that Piccinni's last performance in France before the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, making it preferable for him to return to Naples.

Piccinni became employed by Ferdinand IV in Naples, which was fine until Piccinni's daughter married a French democrat. He was then placed under house arrest for four years, suspected of being a revolutionary. He otherwise completed his life traveling between Naples, Rome and Venice. Wikipedia traces his last opera, 'Il servo padrone, ossia, L'amor perfetto' ('The Servant Master, or, the Perfect Love'), to Venice, premiering at the Teatro San Samuele on 17 January 1794 with libretto by Caterino Mazzolà [Wikipedia].

Returning to Paris in 1798, Piccinni died two years later in Passy on 7 May 1800. We bid goodnight to this presentation of Piccinni with a setting to an anonymous song titled 'O Notte, O Dea Mistero' ('O Night, O Goddess of Mystery'). Nor is it known when Piccinni wrote the music for this:

'O Notte, O Dea Mistero'   Song by Niccolò Piccinni

'O Night, O Goddess of Mystery'

Lyricist unknown   Score   Lyrics

Davide Stevanella