Niccolò Piccinni (aug 1, 1728 – jan 1, 1800)
Description:
Novels Sung on Stage—Niccolò Piccinni1. Opera criticism often reflects social history; this is evident throughout the eighteenth century.
2. Niccolò Piccinni based his most famous opera, La buona figliuola, on a novel, which
itself was a new genre in the eighteenth century.
a. Based on the English novel Pamela, it features social nobility.
b. When translated into Italian (both literally and socially, by Goldoni), the plot
had to be altered to allow the characters to marry, to meet Italian laws forbidding a commoner to marry into upper classes.
3. Piccinni used sentimentality and rustic simplicity to make his music sound “natural.”
4. He sought to remove artifice and replace it with the newfound sentimental stylets seen
in the new genre of novel.
Added to timeline:
Date:
aug 1, 1728
jan 1, 1800
~ 71 years