Biography
Giovanni Paisiello was born on 9 May 1740 in Taranto and died on 5 June 1816 in Naples. From 1754 he trained at the Sant'Onofrio conservatory in Naples under Francesco Durante and established himself there as a sought-after opera composer during the 1760s. From 1776 to 1784 he served as Kapellmeister to Catherine II in St Petersburg, where among other works he wrote 'Il barbiere di Siviglia' (1782), followed by a brief stay at the Viennese court of Joseph II. He then returned to Naples as Ferdinand IV's leading court composer, where many of his most successful operas, including 'Nina' (1789), premiered during the 1780s and 1790s. In 1802–03 he briefly directed Napoleon's court chapel in Paris before returning, impoverished, to Naples, where Gioachino Rossini's 1816 setting of 'Il barbiere di Siviglia' finally eclipsed his own earlier success with the same story.
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