Biography
Niccolò Piccinni was born in Bari on 16 January 1728 and trained at the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio in Naples, first under Leonardo Leo and, from 1744, under Francesco Durante. Following his operatic debut in 1754, he quickly became one of Italy's busiest composers; his 1760 Rome premiere of 'La buona figliuola', to a libretto by Goldoni, became the greatest success of his Italian career. In 1776 the Neapolitan ambassador Caracciolo brought him to Paris, where he became the composer favoured by Christoph Willibald Gluck's opponents; the resulting feud, known as the 'Querelle des Gluckistes et des Piccinnistes', shaped Parisian opera in the 1770s and 1780s. Piccinni also taught singing and harpsichord to Marie Antoinette and, from 1782, directed the Opéra's singing school. After the French Revolution he was placed under house arrest on suspicion of Jacobin sympathies, was celebrated as a martyr of the Revolution on his return in 1799, and died in Passy near Paris on 7 May 1800.
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