Giovanni Battista Draghi, often referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th century and one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan school.
Leonardo Leo, more correctly Leonardo Ortensio Salvatore de Leo, was a Baroque composer.
The Real Teatro di San Carlo, as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is an opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice.
Giuseppe Gazzaniga was a member of the Neapolitan school of opera composers. He composed fifty-one operas and is considered to be one of the last Italian opera buffa composers.
'Naples has played an important and vibrant role over the centuries not just in the music of Italy, but in the general history of western European musical traditions. This influence extends from the early music conservatories in the 16th century through the music of Alessandro Scarlatti during the Baroque period and the comic operas of Pergolesi, Piccinni and, eventually, Rossini and Mozart. The vitality of Neapolitan popular music from the late 19th century has made such songs as O Sole mio and Funiculì Funiculà a permanent part of our musical consciousness.
Davide Perez was an Italian opera composer born in Naples of Italian parents, and later resident court composer at Lisbon from 1752. He staged three operas on librettos of Metastasio at Lisbon with huge success in 1753, 1754, and 1755. Following the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, Perez turned from opera mostly to church music.
Domenico Natale Sarro, also Sarri was an Italian composer.
Lo frate 'nnamorato is a three-act commedia per musica by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, to a Neapolitan libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, first performed in 1732.
Didone abbandonata is an opera in three acts composed by Domenico Sarro to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio of the same name which was based on the story of Dido and Aeneas from the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid. The opera premiered on 1 February 1724 at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples.
Antonio Palomba (20 December 1705 – 1769) was an Italian opera librettist, poet, harpsichordist, and music educator. He also worked as a notary. Born in Naples, he became a teacher of the harpsichord at the Teatro della Pace in 1749. Most of his more than 50 opera libretti were comedic works written for composers of the Neapolitan school. He also wrote some works for performance in Florence, Bologna and abroad. He died in Naples in 1769; one of the victims of a fever epidemic in the city. Many of his libretti were set more than once to music, and composers continued to use his libretti up into the 1830s.
Luigi Mosca was Italian composer of operas and sacred music and a noted singing teacher. He composed eighteen operas, most of which were originally for theatres in Naples, but played throughout Italy in their day.
San Giorgio dei Genovesi is a church on Via Medina in the Center of Naples, Italy. It is adjacent and just north of the Church of the Santa Maria Incoronata, two doors south from the Palazzo d’Aquino di Caramanico, and across the street from the Church of the Pietà dei Turchini.
The church of Santi Severino e Sossio and the annexed monastery are located on via Bartolommeo Capasso in Naples, Italy.
Sebastiano Biancardi, known by the pseudonym Domenico Lalli, was an Italian poet and librettist. Amongst the many libretti he produced, largely for the opera houses of Venice, were those for Vivaldi's Ottone in villa and Alessandro Scarlatti's Tigrane. A member of the Accademia degli Arcadi, he also wrote under his arcadian name "Ortanio". Lalli was born and raised in Naples as the adopted son of Fulvio Caracciolo but fled the city after being implicated in a bank fraud. After two years wandering about Italy in the company of Emanuele d'Astorga, he settled in Venice in 1710 and worked as the "house poet" of the Grimani family's theatres for the rest of his career. In addition to his stage works, Lalli published several volumes of poetry and a collection of biographies of the kings of Naples. He died in Venice at the age of 62.
The Teatro Nuovo is a theatre located on Via Montecalvario in the Quartieri Spagnoli district of Naples. The original theatre was an opera house designed by Domenico Antonio Vaccaro. Completed in 1724, it was also known as the Teatro Nuovo sopra Toledo and the Teatro Nuovo de Montecalvario. The theatre specialised in the opera buffa genre and saw the world premieres of hundreds of operas in its heyday. These included fifteen of Cimarosa's operas and seven of Donizetti's. The present theatre is the third to have been erected on the site following its destruction by fire in 1861 and again in 1935.
Nicola d'Arienzo was an Italian composer, music pedagogue, and writer on music. He spent his entire career in his native Naples where all but one of his nine of his operas were premiered. His other compositions included instrumental and sacred music and art songs. From 1909 until 1911, d'Arienzo served as the director of the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella having taught there since 1875. He also wrote several books on the history and theory of music.
Antonio Orefice was an Italian opera composer active in Naples. His Patrò Calienno de la Costa was the first opera buffa in Neapolitan dialect to be performed on a public stage.
Nicola De Giosa was an Italian composer and conductor active in Naples. He composed numerous operas, the most successful of which, Don Checco and Napoli di carnevale, were in the Neapolitan opera buffa genre. His other works included sacred music and art songs. His songs were particularly popular, bringing him fame as a salon composer both in Italy and abroad. De Giosa died in Bari, the city of his birth, at the age of 66.
Almerindo Spadetta was a prolific opera librettist active in Naples. He worked as a stage manager at the Teatro San Carlo, Teatro Nuovo, and Teatro del Fondo in Naples for over 40 years and wrote numerous libretti for composers associated with those theatres. His most enduring work was the libretto for Nicola De Giosa's Don Checco, one of the last great successes in the history of Neapolitan opera buffa.
Luigi Capotorti was an Italian composer of both sacred and secular music. He was the maestro di cappella of several Neapolitan churches; the composer of ten operas, five of which premiered at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples; and a teacher of composition and singing whose students included Stefano Pavesi and Saverio Mercadante. Born in Molfetta, he studied violin and composition at the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio in Naples and spent his entire career in that city. In his later years, Capotorti retired to San Severo, where he died at the age of 75.
