PICCINNI, NICCOLA Italian composer, was born at Bari, Naples, on Jan. 16, 1728. He was educated under Leo and Durante, at the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio in Naples. His first opera, Le Donne dispettose, was produced in 1755, and in 176o he composed, at Rome, La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola, an opera buffa which attained a European success. It was followed by many others, one of which, also an opera buffa, Il Viaggiatori (Naples 1774), had nearly as great a success as La Cecchina. In 1776 Marie Antoinette invited him to Paris. He had married in 1756 his pupil Vincenza Sibilla, a singer, whom he never allowed after her marriage to appear on the stage. All his next works were successful; but, unhappily, the directors of the Grand Opera conceived the mad idea of deliberately opposing him, apparently against his will, to Gluck, by persuading the two composers to treat the same subject—Iphigenie en Tauride simultaneously. The Parisian public now divided itself into two rival parties, which, under the names of Gluckists and Piccinnists, carried on an unworthy and disgraceful war. Gluck's 1phigenie
was first produced on May 18, 1779. Piccinni's 1phigenie followed on Jan. 23, 1781, and, though performed seventeen times, was soon forgotten. Of the works of Piccinni's Paris period the best is Didon (1783), which kept the stage for half a century. In 1789, after the outbreak of the French Revolution, Piccinni re turned to Naples, where he was at first well received by King Ferdinand IV. ; but the marriage of his daughter to a French democrat brought him into irretrievable disgrace. For nine years after this he maintained a precarious existence in Venice, Naples and Rome; but he returned in 1798 to Paris, where a small place was found for him at the Conservatoire. He died at Passy, Paris, on May 7, 1800.
See P. L. Ginguene, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Niccola Piccinni (Paris, 18o1) ; E. Demoiresterres, La Musique francaise au 18e siecle, Gluck et Piccinni, 1774-1800 (Paris, 1872) ; E. Blom, Stepchildren of Music (1926). For a list of his operas, which number over 8o, see Rivista musicale italiana, viii. 75.