Giuseppe Colla: Piacentine composer between theater and court

Life

Trained in the heart of the eighteenth century, in an era where Rococo elegance and the critical spirit of the Enlightenment coexisted, his artistic maturity was fully expressed in the new taste of Neoclassicism.

Giuseppe Colla was born in Parma in 1731 into a family of musicians. His brother Francesco was a violinist and Giacomo a double bass player. He studied in Bologna with Padre Martini, entering the Accademia Filarmonica in 1758. In 1760 he was in Germany, where he contributed several arias to Niccolò Jommelli's opera Caio Fabrizio. Returning to Italy, he was called to Milan to compose Metastasio's Adriano in Siria (1762).

In Parma he became court music master and teacher to the crown prince. For the Ducal he wrote operas such as Tigrane, Urano ed Eritrea, and Favola Pastorale. For the theater in Colorno he composed Licida e Mopso in 1769, on the occasion of the marriage of Duke Ferdinand of Bourbon to Maria Amalia of Habsburg-Lorraine.

His partnership with the virtuosa Lucrezia Agujari, known as “La Bastardella,” marked his career: she was the interpreter and later the wife of the composer, with whom he had two children. After 1776 he ceased writing operas, dedicating himself to teaching, sacred music, and from 1790 to directing the Teatro Ducale as Master Concertatore. He died in Parma in 1806.

Works

Cajo Fabrizio (Mannheim, 1760, arias) Adriano in Siria (Milan, 1763) Tigrane (Parma, 1767) Enea in Cartagine (Turin, 1769, conducted by Gaetano Pugnani with Pietro Benedetti) Licida e Mopso (Colorno, 1769) Vologeso (Venice, 1770, with Lucrezia Agujari) L’eroe cinese (Genoa, 1771) Andromeda (Turin, 1771, then Florence 1778, with Agujari and Giuseppe Aprile) Didone abbandonata (Turin, 1773, with Agujari) Uranio ed Erasitea (Parma, 1773) Il Tolomeo (Milan, 1774) Sicotencal (Pavia, 1776) In addition to a prologue and a concertone performed at the College of Nobles of Parma.