Giuseppe Millico
Encyclopedia
Giuseppe Millico was an Italian soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...

, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and music teacher of the 18th century who is best remembered for his performances in the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s of Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...

.

Millico was born at Terlizzi
Terlizzi
Terlizzi is a town and comune in Apulia, Italy, in the province of Bari, to the west of the city of Bari, situated in the midst of a fertile plain. As of 2008, its population was some 27,400.-History:...

, near Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...

. In 1754, he came to Naples. In 1757 in Rome, he had his first performance as a singer. From 1758 to 1765, he worked in Russia
Russian opera
Russian opera is the art of opera in Russia. Operas by composers of Russian origin, written or staged outside of Russia, also belong to this category, as well as the operas of foreign composers written or intended for the Russian scene. These are not only Russian-language operas...

, and then returned to Italy. In 1769, Gluck adapted role of Orpheus in his Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice
Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...

for Millico to perform at Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

 — the original role, composed for the alto
Alto
Alto is a musical term, derived from the Latin word altus, meaning "high" in Italian, that has several possible interpretations.When designating instruments, "alto" frequently refers to a member of an instrumental family that has the second highest range, below that of the treble or soprano. Hence,...

 castrato Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato singer, most famous for singing the role of Orpheus at the premiere of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.- Career :...

, was transposed up for Millico's soprano voice. In 1770, Millico sang, in the Vienna revival of Alceste
Alceste (Gluck)
Alceste is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place in Vienna.-Preface and reforms:...

, the originally tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 role of Admetus, which Gluck had specially rewritten for him, and created the role of Paris
Paris (mythology)
Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...

 in the same composer's Paride ed Elena
Paride ed Elena
Paride ed Elena is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the third and final of his Italian reformist works, following Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste. Like its predecessors, its libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. The opera tells the story of the events between the Judgment of Paris and...

, the last in the trilogy of his Italian reform operas. "Gluck and Millico became firm friends, and Gluck entrusted the musical education of his beloved niece [Marianna] to Millico's care—no small tribute to the singer's musicianship".

After interpreting the role of Rinaldo in Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Sacchini
Antonio Maria Gasparo Sacchini was an Italian opera composer.Sacchini was born in Florence, but was raised in Naples, where he received his musical education at the San Onofrio conservatory. He wrote his first operas in Naples, thereafter moving to Venice, then London and eventually Paris, where...

's Armida
Armida (Sacchini)
Armida is an opera seria by Antonio Sacchini set to a libretto by Jacopo Durandi , originally based on the epic poem Gersulamme liberata by Torquato Tasso...

, which was given at Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

's Teatro Regio Ducale during the 1772 Carnival season, Millico decided to partner the composer in his moving to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, in order to serve as the "primo musico" (principal castrato) at the King's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...

. Here he performed the leading male roles in the first London operas by Sacchini (Il Cid and Tamerlano, both in 1773). On his way back homeward in 1774, he called on Gluck in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and, as the French version of Orfeo ed Euridice was in laborious rehearsal, the composer would give two private test performances "at the house of the Abbé Morellet
André Morellet
André Morellet was a French economist and writer. He was one of the last of the philosophes, and in this character he figures in many memoirs, such as those of Madame de Rémusat....

 in which the tenor role of the French score was sung by Millico (with Gluck's niece Marianne taking both Eurydice and Cupid, and with Gluck at the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

)".

After performing at Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Milan, Millico returned to Naples in 1780, where he became highly popular as a composer and teacher. He taught singing to the Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...

 princesses Maria Teresa and Luisa Maria, and to Emma Hamilton, not yet the lover of Lord Nelson. During this time at Naples, he composed eight operas that are confirmed as being his work, nearly all of which premiered in Naples — two to libretti
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

 by Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...

 and one to words by Ranieri de' Calzabigi
Ranieri de' Calzabigi
Ranieri de' Calzabigi was an Italian poet and librettist, most famous for his collaboration with the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck on his "reform" operas....

, Gluck's librettist for all three of his Italian reform operas. The published score of Millico's opera La pietà d’amore includes a message of support for Gluck's attempted reforms of opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

. Millico also composed eight cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

s, a Salve regina, 23 aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...

s and 22 duets unattached to a dramatic work, and 82 canzonets. These works are usually composed for harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

 accompaniment and were extremely popular at the time; many of them were published, both individually and as a part of collections. A collection of his keyboard compositions, Musical Trifles: a Collection of Sonatine, was published in 1791 in London. He remained at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, where he died.
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