During Nicolini's time, impresarios, singers, and librettists often dictated the terms of musical theater, with audiences more interested in vocal abilities than dramatic or musical qualities.
Composer Biography
Giuseppe Nicolini, the composer, had his musical studies at the S. Onofrio Conservatory of Naples financed for seven years by Duke Gian Girolamo Sforza Fogliani, a Piacenza nobleman.
Critical Reception
Nicolini enjoyed wide popularity during his life, being cited in works by various biographers and encyclopaedists who wrote about the history of music in the 1800s.
Critical Reception
Le due gemelle was not well-received at its 1808 premiere in Rome, with critics calling the poetry "pessima" and the music "not much better," and the Roman public booed.
Composition History
Nicolini's opera, Le due gemelle, was originally a two-act 'burletta per musica' but was later revised into a single-act farce.
Composer Biography
Giovanni Battista Velluti, the last great castrato singer in history, was a favorite interpreter of Nicolini, who wrote several famous arias specifically for him.
Composition History
Many of Nicolini's opera scores, including versions of Le due gemelle, were lost when the Ricordi Archive was destroyed by bombing in 1943.
