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★ Follow music ► Composer: Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686-1768) Work: Messa (in Re maggiore) à 4 voci Performers: Annа Lаura Lοngo (soprano); Giаnluca Belfiοri Doro (contralto); Leonаrdo de Lisi (tenor); Frаncesco Fаcini (bass); Cаpella della Cattedrale di Luccа; Giаnfrаnco Cοsmi Messa (in Re maggiore) à 4 voci 1. Kyrie 0:00 2. Gloria 6:45 Painting: Tommaso Ruiz (fl. ) - View of the night-time celebrations for the baptism of the Infanta in Naples, 1740 Image in high resolution: Painting: English school - Portrait of Nicola Antonio Porpora Image in high resolution: Further info: Listen free: --- Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (Naples, 17 Augusut 1686 - Naples, 3 March 1768) Italian teacher and composer. Son of a bookseller, Carlo Porpora, and his wife Caterina, he attended the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo from 29 September 1696. At age 22, he composed his first opera, L’Agrippina (1708), but after that, the presence in Naples of the great Alessandro Scarlatti prevented advancement in the theater. But in 1711, he was employed as maestro di cappella for Prince Philipp Hesse-Darmstadt, then residing as military commander in Naples, and then for the Portuguese ambassador in Rome from June 1713. From 1715 to 1722, he was a teacher at the Conservatorio di San Onofrio. 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.
