Tommaso Traetta

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Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta (also Trajetta ; born March 30, 1727 in Bitonto near Bari , † April 6, 1779 in Venice ) was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan school . His main field was the opera .

Life

From 1738 to 1748 he studied at the Conservatorio S. Maria di Loreto in Naples with Francesco Durante, among others . In 1751 he was commissioned to write Il Farnace, his first opera seria , which was already quite successful. In 1758 he became court conductor and music teacher at the court in Parma , a center for the reform efforts of the opera. Here he met the famous soprano Caterina Gabrielli , with whom he had a lifelong and fruitful collaboration, after she sang in his opera Ippolito ed Aricia (premiered May 9, 1759, Parma); he wrote for her almost all of the leading female roles in his subsequent operas Enea nel Lazio (1760, Turin ), I Tindaridi (1760, Parma), Armida (1761, Vienna ), Zenobia (1761, Lucca ) and Alessandro nell'Indie (1762, Reggio Emilia ).

Traetta's name became known throughout Europe and he received commissions from Turin, Vienna and Mannheim . The death of his sponsor, Duke Philip of Parma , the Infante of Spain, and diminishing financial support for the opera prompted him to accept the position of director at the Conservatorio dell'Ospedaletto in Venice in 1765 . Sacred music and other operas were written here. He also had lifelong pensions from the coffers of the Spanish monarch Charles III.

From 1768 he worked as court conductor in Saint Petersburg for Tsarina Catherine II. Here he wrote the opera Antigona in 1772 , which is considered to be his most mature work. He created the title role again for Caterina Gabrielli, who also appeared in Amore e Psiche (1773) and Lucio Vero (1774). Since the cold climate was detrimental to his health, he had to leave Russia and went to London , where he published three unsuccessful operas. In 1774 Traetta returned to Venice and died sick and disappointed in 1779.

His son Filippo Traetta (born January 8, 1777 in Venice, † January 9, 1854 in Philadelphia ) was also a composer, had to flee in 1799 and emigrated to the USA. In 1801 he was instrumental in founding the American Conservatorio in Boston , the first music college in the USA.

Works (selection)

Tommaso Traetta - Monument in his native town Bitonto

Tommaso Traetta has created over 40 operas, most of which are opera series . The few buffa operas include Buovo d'Antona and Le serve rivali , which were particularly popular.

His work also includes oratorios , a mass , a stabat mater (1750), a St. John's Passion, as well as symphonies and divertimenti.

Occasionally, Traetta is referred to - like his contemporary Niccolò Jommelli - as the "Italian happiness ". He tried to incorporate the arias into the dramatic sequence of the opera and to break up the rigid form of the da capo aria , but did not follow Gluck's simple ideal of singing in his seria operas.

literature

  • Jörg Riedlbauer: The operas by Tommaso Trajetta , Olms-Verlag, Hildesheim 1994, ISBN 978-3-487-09798-5 .
  • Marco Russo: Tommaso Traetta: i Libretti della Riforma - Parma 1759–1761 , Facoltà di Lettere di Trento, Trento 2005.
  • Marco Russo: Tommaso Traetta: Maestro di cappella napoletano , Edizioni S. Marco dei Giustiniani, Genova 2006.
  • Fabrizio Cassoni, Gianfranco Spada: Le Feste d'Imeneo, Tommaso Traetta a Parma , Traettiana, London 2010.

Web links

Commons : Tommaso Traetta  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Clive Unger-Hamilton, Neil Fairbairn, Derek Walters; German arrangement: Christian Barth, Holger Fliessbach, Horst Leuchtmann, et al .: The music - 1000 years of illustrated music history . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-8122-0132-1 , p. 88 .
  2. ↑ Data from the UA on Corago (accessed September 4, 2019)
  3. ↑ Data from the UA on Corago (accessed September 4, 2019)
  4. ↑ Data from the UA on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  5. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  6. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  7. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  8. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  9. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  10. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  11. ↑ see the performance lists on Corago at the appropriate place.
  12. ↑ Data on Corago (accessed September 6, 2019)
  13. ↑ Data from the UA on Corago (accessed September 4, 2019)
  14. ↑ List of artists on Corago (accessed September 3, 2019)
  15. ↑ Data on Corago (accessed September 6, 2019)
personal data
SURNAME Traetta, Tommaso
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Traetta, Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio; Trajetta, Tommaso
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Bitonto at Bari
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1779
Place of death Venice