# Opera Rara - Nicola Porpora



## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Perhaps I have been listening to opera too long, but I am starting to lose interest in the standard rep and becoming more interested in works off the beaten track. I'm not a huge fan of baroque and early opera, but I like a lot of Handel. After some research into opera teachers I came across the singing teacher and composer Nicola Porpora, who was pretty much a contemporary of Handel. I was interested in listening to his music and found that I liked much of his output that has been recorded by Cecilia Bartoli and Philippe Jaroussky.

Are there any Porpora fans here? I don't know any of his operas as complete works, just a selection of his arias. The baroque revival is now getting round to exploring some of his operas, but there are lots of them (although only a handful have been recorded complete).

What experiences have other TCers had of his music and works?

N.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

According to my database I have a couple of CDs of him and an old (and rare) LP. I haven't listened to them to say something for his music.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Dimace said:


> According to my database I have a couple of CDs of him and an old (and rare) LP. I haven't listened to them to say something for his music.
> 
> View attachment 154964


I'm not familiar with Karina Gauvin, but that CD did come up when I was searching for his music. Bartoli hasn't done a Porpora disc, but she sings some of his best arias in her Farinelli disc (Farinelli was Porpora's star pupil).

My favourite disc of an all Porpora programme is this one, which I thoroughly recommend for all fans of baroque opera:









As one might expect, his music is very similar to Handel's, even though it's not quite as varied or as sophisticated as that written by the master from Halle.

N.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

Finding new stuff it's only logical, restrict oneself to the same composers, same operas, it's rather boring.

Writing music at the times of Bach and Handel, means you have some big boots to fill.

But I think Porpora just did. He was very successful, and he wrote a huge number of operas, as well as other vocal and instrumental pieces. On top of the opera arias, this is a nice commercial recording of a fine Baroque opera:


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

schigolch said:


> Finding new stuff it's only logical, restrict oneself to the same composers, same operas, it's rather boring.
> 
> Writing music at the times of Bach and Handel, means you have some big boots to fill.
> 
> But I think Porpora just did. He was very successful, and he wrote a huge number of operas, as well as other vocal and instrumental pieces. On top of the opera arias, this is a nice commercial recording of a fine Baroque opera:


I MUST listen to Germanico, there is also a recording of his Arianna a Nasso on Bongiovanni. I wonder how they choose which works to record or perform out of the many that composers like him wrote.

N.


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## khalan (Jun 4, 2021)

I really feel I can very much be aligned to this topic. I listened to most of my life since I was a child to what can be defined in a sense to standard opera, listening to so many interpretations of the same operas that I was really starting in the last decade to lose my interest in opera. Then I started to look out like this music teacher mentioned in past, that I would have loved Handel and other more Ancient opera Styles. At that time I was a mid teen (and that was already something odd at that period), that it was impossible I could like Handel and the likes of Porpora as well as different Italian fairly unknown composer's music even more than the formidable Italian quartet, Wagner and Bizet... But it has occurred lol


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