Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (August 19, 1686 - March 3, 1768) was an Italian composer of Baroque operas (see opera seria) and teacher of singing, whose most famous pupil was the castrato Farinelli. August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events The League of Augsburg is founded. ... March 3 is the 62nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (63rd in leap years). ... 1768 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint In the arts, Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the artistic style that dominated it. ... Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and serious style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1720s to ca 1770. ... A castrato is a male soprano, mezzo-soprano, or alto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity. ... Farinelli (January 24, 1705-July 15, 1782), whose real name was Carlo Broschi, was one of the most famous Italian soprano castrato singers of the 18th century. ...

A conservatory graduate at Naples, where the civic opera scene was dominated by Alessandro Scarlatti, Porpora's first opera, Agrippina, was successfully performed at the Neapolitan court in 1708, his second, Berenice, at Rome. In a long career, he followed these up by many further operas, supported as maestro di cappella in the households of aristocratic patrons, such as the commander of military forces at Naples, the prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, or of the Portuguese ambassador at Rome, for composing operas alone did not yet make a viable career. However, his enduring fame rests chiefly upon his unequalled power of teaching singing. At the Neapolitan Conservatorio di' Sant' Onofrio and with the Poveri di Gesù Cristo he trained Farinelli, Caffarelli, Salimbeni, and other celebrated vocalists, during the period 1715 - 1721. In 1720 and 1721 he wrote two serenades to librettos by a gifted young poet, Metastasio, the beginning of a long, though interrupted, collaboration. In 1722 his operatic successes encouraged him to lay down his conservatory commitments. Naples panorama Naples (Italian Nàpoli, Neapolitan Napule, from Greek Νέα Πόλις - Néa Pólis - meaning New City; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is the largest city in southern Italy and capital of Campania Region and the Province of Naples. ... Alessandro Scarlatti Alessandro Scarlatti (May 2, 1660 – October 24, 1725) was a Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. ... // Events March 23 - James Francis Edward Stuart lands at the Firth of Forth July 1 - Tewoflos becomes Emperor of Ethiopia September 28 - Peter the Great defeats the Swedes at the Battle of Lesnaya Kandahar conquered by Mir Wais In Masuria one third of the population die during the plague J... City motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus – SPQR (The Senate and the People of Rome) Founded 21 April 753 BC mythical, 1st millennium BC Region Latium Mayor Walter Veltroni (Left-Wing Democrats) Area  - City Proper  1285 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 2. ... The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt came into existence in 1568, as the portion of George, youngest of the four sons of Landgrave Philipp of Hesse. ... Caffarelli (March 8, 1710–July 4, 1783), an Italian castrato and opera singer. ... // Events January 6 - The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings February 11 - Sweden and Prussia sign the (2nd Treaty of Stockholm) declaring peace. ... // Events Pope Innocent XIII becomes pope Johann Sebastian Bach composes the Brandenburg Concertos April 4 - Robert Walpole becomes the first prime minister of Britain September 10 - Treaty of Nystad is signed, bringing an end to the Great Northern War November 2 - Peter I is proclaimed Emperor of All the Russias... Pietro Trapassi (January 13, 1698 - April 12, 1782), Italian poet, is better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio. ... Events Abraham De Moivre states De Moivres theorem connecting trigonometric functions and complex numbers Publication of the first book of Bachs Well-Tempered Clavier Fall of Persias Safavid dynasty during a bloody revolt of the Afghani people. ...

After a rebuff from the court of Charles VI at Vienna in 1725, Porpora settled mostly in Venice, composing and teaching regularly in the schools of La Pietà and the Incurabili. In 1729 the anti-Handel clique invited him to London to set up an opera company as a rival to Handel's, without success, and in the 1733-1734 season, even the presence of his pupil, the great Farinelli, failed to save the dramatic company in Lincoln's Inn Fields (the "Opera of the Nobility") from bankruptcy. Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI Charles VI of Austria (October 1, 1685 – October 20, 1740) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1711 to 1740 and the second son of Leopold I with his third wife, Eleonore-Magdalena of Pfalz-Neuburg, came first to the throne with the name Charles III of... Vienna (German: Wien [viːn]; Slovenian: Dunaj, Hungarian: Bécs, Czech: Vídeň, Slovak: Viedeň, Romany Vidnya; Croatian and Serbian: Beč) is the capital of Austria, and also one of the nine States of Austria. ... Events February 8 - Catherine I became empress of Russia February 20 - The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony. ... Location within Italy Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venexia), the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto and of the province of Venice, 45°26′N 12°19′E, population 271,663 (census estimate January 1, 2004). ... Events July 30 - Baltimore, Maryland is founded. ... George Frideric Handel (German Georg Friedrich Händel), (February 23, 1685 – April 14, 1759) was a German-born British Baroque music composer. ... London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Lincolns Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. ...

An interval as Kapellmeister at the Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony from 1748 ended in strained relations with his rival in Venice and Rome, the hugely successful opera composer Johann Adolph Hasse and his wife, the prima donna Faustina, and resulted in Porpora's departure in 1752. From Dresden he went to Vienna, where he gave music lessons to the young Joseph Haydn, who lived with Porpora as accompanist and in the character of a valet, but allowed later that he had learned from the maestro "the true fundamentals of composition." Then Porpora returned in 1759 to Naples. Dresden is the capital city of the German Federal State of Saxony and situated in a valley on the River Elbe. ... List of Dukes, Electors, and Kings of Saxony, 880-1918 The original Duchy of Saxony was in Northern Germany, roughly corresponding to the modern German state of Lower Saxony and Westphalia. ... Events April 24 - A congress assembles at Aix-la-Chapelle with the intent to conclude the struggle known as the War of Austrian Succession - at October 18 - The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is signed to end the war Adam Smith begins to deliver public lectures in Edinburgh Building of... Johann Adolph Hasse. ... 1752 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... (Franz) Joseph Haydn, (March 31 or April 1, 1732 – May 31, 1809) was a leading austrian composer of the Classical period, called the Father of the Symphony and Father of the String Quartet. Although he is still often called Franz Joseph Haydn, the name Franz was not used in the... 1759 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...

From this time Porpora's career was a series of misfortunes: his florid style was becoming old-fashioned, his last opera, Camilla, failed, his pension from Dresden stopped, and he became so poor that the expenses of his funeral were paid by a subscription concert. Yet at the moment of his death Farinelli and Caffarelli were living in splendid retirement on fortunes largely based on the excellence of the old maestro's teaching.

A good linguist, who was admired for the idiomatic fluency of his recitatives, and a man of considerable literary culture, Porpora was also celebrated for his conversational wit. Besides some four dozen operas, there are oratorios, solo cantatas with keyboard accompaniment, motets and vocal serenades. Only a handful of arias from his operas and a few scattered chamber works are available in recordings.

External links

• Porpora biography and discography
• The Porpora Project: a fuller biography
• Works by Nicola Porpora in the Werner Icking Music Archive