PORPORA, Niccola (or Niccolo) Antonio (1686- 1767), operatic composer and teacher of singing, was born in Naples on 19th August 1686, and educated at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto by Gaetano Greco and Francesco Mancini. His first opera, Basilio, was produced at Naples, his second, Berenice, at Rome. Both were very successful, and he followed them up by innumerable compositions of like character; but his fame rests chiefly upon his power of teaching singing—an art in which he has never been surpassed, if even equalled. At the Conservatorio di San Onofrio and the Poveri di Gesu Cristo he trained the finest voices of the age. Farinelli—the greatest singer who ever lived—Caffarelli, Mingotti, Salimbeni, and other celebrated vocalists owed all they ever knew to his teaching. Still his numerous engagements did not tempt him to forsake composition. In 1725 he visited Vienna, but the emperor Charles VI. disliked his florid style, especially his constant use of the trillo, and refused to patronize him. After this rebuff he settled in Venice, teaching regularly in the schools of La Pietà and the Incurabili. In 1728 he removed to Dresden, where he was received with great cordiality by the electoral princess Maria. In 1729 he was invited to London as a rival to Handel; but his visit was an unfortunate one. Little less disastrous was his second visit to England in 1734, when even the presence of his pupil, the great Farinelli, failed to save the dramatic company known as the “Opera of the Nobility” from ruin. In order to fulfil his English engagement he procured a release from that previously contracted in Dresden; but he finally quitted London in 1736, and again settled in Venice. There he remained until 1745, when he returned to Vienna in the suite of the ...Venetian ambassador, giving lessons in 1754 to the young Joseph Haydn, and returning in 1759 to his birthplace, Naples. From this time Porpora’s career was a series of misfortunes. His last opera, Camilla, failed; and he became so miserably poor that the expenses of his funeral were paid by subscription. Yet at the moment of his death (1767) Farinelli and Caffarelli were living in princely splendour on fortunes for which they were indebted to the excellence of the old maestro’s teaching.
Porpora was a learned scholar, an accomplished linguist, and a genial wit. Some excellent stories are told in illustration of this last-named characteristic. His compositions are masterly and brilliant, but less remarkable for depth of feeling than for technical display. The style of his oratorios and cantatas is far more elevated than that of his numerous operas.
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