1790–1848 · Romantic
Nicola Vaccai (1790–1848) was an Italian composer and a singing teacher of the bel canto era. He wrote operas, ballets and chamber music, but today he is remembered above all as the author of a practical singing method published in 1832. It is still used in teaching. The site has one of his vocal exercises with piano.
Nicola Vaccai was born on 15 March 1790 in Tolentino, in the Papal States. His father was a physician. He spent his childhood in Pesaro, where he began studying music and also studied poetics and law. His parents sent him to Rome so that he would train as a lawyer.
Vaccai had no intention of practising law. In 1807 he abruptly left the law faculty of the university in Rome and joined the school of Giuseppe Jannaconi, where he learned harmony, counterpoint and composition. In 1811 he received a diploma from the Academy of St Cecilia and moved to Naples to study with Giovanni Paisiello. In Naples the young musician composed church music and also wrote arias anonymously for Valentino Fioravanti and other composers.
Vaccai's first opera, I solitari di Scozia, was staged in Naples in 1815 and was well received. In 1816 his opera Malvina failed in Venice. Il lupo di Ostenda, written in 1818, drew reproaches for imitating Gioachino Rossini.
From 1817 to 1820 Vaccai composed four ballets for the La Fenice theatre in Venice. He also translated the libretto of Étienne Méhul's opera Joseph and edited Handel's Messiah. In Venice he earned his living by writing ballets and teaching singing.
Vaccai then devoted himself to teaching singing and soon became known as the best singing teacher in Venice. In 1821–1822 he taught in Trieste and Frosdorf. He turned down the post of Kapellmeister in Stuttgart and returned to writing operas.
In 1824 his comic opera Pietro il Grande ovvero un geloso alla tortura was staged at the Teatro Ducale in Parma. On the day of the premiere the composer had to take the place of one of the singers, and the production was a success. In 1825 the opera Zadig ed Astartea was staged in Naples, and Giulietta e Romeo, to a libretto by Felice Romani, in Milan. Audiences welcomed both.
In 1828 the opera Saladino e Clotilda failed in Milan. Because of this, the commission for an opera for the opening of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa was taken away from Vaccai. It was given to Vincenzo Bellini, who wrote Bianca e Fernando.
Returning to teaching, Vaccai moved first to Paris and then to London. There, in 1832, he published a teaching manual on singing. In April of the same year Giulietta e Romeo was staged at the King's Theatre in London. The composer's charm and his reputation on the Continent won society over to him, and he was soon in great demand as a teacher.
After his father's death Vaccai returned to Italy and married.
The opera Giovanna Grey, staged in 1836, was not saved from failure even by Maria Malibran in the leading role. In 1837 Vaccai wrote the Cantata in morte di Maria Malibran jointly with Pietro Antonio Coppola, Gaetano Donizetti, Giovanni Pacini and Saverio Mercadante. In 1838 his opera Marco Visconti had some success in Turin.
In the same year, 1838, Vaccai became director of the Milan Conservatory and a professor of composition there. Giovanni Bottesini and Luigi Arditi were among those who studied with him. He later left the post because of poor health.
Vaccai's last opera, Virginia, was staged in Rome in 1845. The composer settled in Pesaro, where he wrote several chamber works and continued to teach singing. He died in Pesaro in August 1848.
The opera house in the composer's native Tolentino, the Teatro Nicola Vaccaj, is named after him.
Vaccai's legacy includes operas, 5 cantatas, 4 ballets and more than a hundred vocal, chamber and sacred works. He belonged to the bel canto era. His operas were staged in Naples, Venice, Milan, Parma, Turin and Rome.
Today Vaccai is known chiefly as a voice teacher. One of his books is the Metodo pratico di canto (Practical Vocal Method) of 1832. It teaches the Italian legato style, and it has been transposed for different voice types, for example alto and low voices such as bass. The book is still in print and used in teaching. In the introduction Vaccai writes that only the voice of a master who demonstrates the exercises accurately can teach a student correct legato technique. The manual is also a significant record of how opera was performed in the early nineteenth century.
In 1990 Ricordi published a new teacher's edition of the method, prepared by the voice teacher Elio Battaglia, with a CD of examples. On 15 September 2020 Teatro Nuovo in New York released a complete recording of the method, led by Will Crutchfield and featuring 22 singers. The site has a vocal edition with piano, Lesson I, The Diatonic Scale, at intermediate level.