Nicola D'Arienzo
| Nicola D'Arienzo | |
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| Born |
24 December 1842 Naples, Italy |
| Died | 25 April 1915 (aged 72) Naples, Italy |
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Nicola D'Arienzo (24 December 1842 – 25 April 1915) was an Italian composer, music pedagogue, and writer on music. He spent his entire career in his native Naples where all but one of his nine of his operas were premiered. His other compositions included instrumental and sacred music and art songs. From 1909 until 1911 D'Arienzo served as the director of the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella having taught there since 1875. He also wrote several books on the history and theory of music.
Nicola D'Arienzo was born in Naples, the son of Maddalena (née Santelia) and Gaetano D'Arienzo. His father, a notary, was strongly opposed to him pursuing a career in music, and he initially studied piano secretly with Pietro Labriola and Michelangelo Russo. His uncle Marco D'Arienzo, a lawyer by profession and a prolific librettist by avocation, paid for the lessons and helped the young Nicola to overcome his father's opposition. He went on to study harmony and counterpoint with Vincenzo Fioravanti and orchestration with Giovanni Moretti, both of whom were opera composers.
D'Arienzo made his debut as a composer at the age of 17 with the premiere of Monzù Gnazio o La fidanzata del parrucchiere at the Tearo Nuovo. A comic opera with a libretto in Neapolitan dialect, Monzù Gnazio made a strong impression on Mercadante who took D'Arienzo under his wing, offering both advice and encouragement. Eight more operas followed between 1866 and 1887, all but one in the opera buffa or semiseria genres, and most of them with libretti written in Neapolitan dialect. Of these, his greatest critical success was Il cuoco e il segretario (The Cook and the Secretary) which premiered at the Teatro Rossini in Naples in January 1873. The critic from Gazzetta musicale di Milano praised the opera for its "good taste, dramatic force, original melodies, and brilliant orchestration". After 1880 D'Arienzo devoted his compositional activity primarily to instrumental and sacred music but composed one final opera, La fiera which premiered at the Teatro Nuovo 1887 to great success. The libretto was by Salvatore Di Giacomo who was at the very beginning of his theatrical career.
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