Porpora, Nicola Antonio (1686–1768)

Italian composer and singing teacher. His works are chiefly vocal pieces, and include about 50 operas, as well as cantatas and oratorios. He travelled extensively in Europe as a teacher and conductor.

Porpora was born at Naples, and studied there under Gaetano Greco and his assistants, M Giordano and O Campanile at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesú Cristo, where his first opera, Agrippina, was produced in 1708. At first maestro di cappella to the Imperial Commandant in Naples, Prince Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, Porpora was appointed singing teacher at the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio there in 1715, and ten years later became maestro at the Conservatorio degli Incurabili in Venice.

Among his pupils were the castrati singers Farinelli and Caffarelli, and, briefly, the composer Johann Hasse. Travelling as an opera conductor, he rivalled Handel in London 1733–36 and Hasse in Dresden 1748–52. In Vienna, Haydn was his pupil-valet. Porpora finally returned to Naples in 1760; he taught for a year at the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio, but after that fell on hard times and died in extreme poverty.

Works Opera about 50 operas, including Basilio (1713), Berenice (1718), Flavio Anicio Olibrio, Faramondo (1719), Eumene, Amare per regnare (1723), Semiramide (1724), Semiramide riconosciuta, L'Imeneo (1726), Adelaide, Siface, Mitridate (1730), Annibale (1731), Il trionfo di Camilla, Arianna (1733), Temistocle (1743), Filandro;

Choral ten oratorios, including Il martirio di Santa Eugenia (1721); cantatas; Masses, motets, duets on the Passion and other church music.

Other violin sonatas, keyboard music.