Tommaso Traetta

Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta (30 March 1727 – 6 April 1779), was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he was responsible for certain operatic reforms including reducing the ornateness of style and the primacy of star singers. Biography Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari in the Apulia region of Italy. He was a student of a composer, singer, and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and found early success with his opera Il Farnace in 1751. Around this time, he came into contact with Niccolò Jommelli. Traetta found regular commissions throughout Italy, before accepting a post as court composer at Parma in 1759. The ruler of Parma, Philip, Duke of Parma had married the eldest daughter of Louis XV. In Parma, there was a craving for all things French and the splendor of Versailles. It was in Parma that Traetta’s operas first moved in new directions. As a result, Antigona, his 1772 opera for Saint Petersburg, was amongst his most forward-looking, the closest he approached the famous reform ideals usually associated with Gluck. It was at the court of the Duke of Bourbon-Parma, that Traetta