The Vocal Method of the Great Nicola Antonia Porpora

Abstract

The name of N. A. Porpora has entered the history of music, first of all, as a brilliant Neapolitan composer. At the same time, he was one of the greatest vocal teachers of his time, who brought up a galaxy of famous singers. School Porpora was significantly different from the others. According to contemporaries, his students sang in a different way, and the pedagogical method was unheard of at that time. The proposed article is devoted to topical issues of the vocal school of the outstanding singing teacher of the XVIII century N. A. Porpora. The article is based on general scientific and special musicological approaches aimed at studying the phenomenon under consideration. The methodological basis is the principle of historicism. Cultural-historical and comparative methods of analysis were used. With the help of the cultural-historical method, the dynamics in the formation of singing schools in the Baroque era is traced. The comparative method makes it possible to detect and describe the features of the vocal method of the great teacher Porpora, as well as to identify its difference from other pedagogical attitudes that existed in that historical period. For the first time, an attempt was made to reconstruct the pedagogical method of the great Porpora. The analysis of his unique system of famous exercises, according to which the maestro taught his talented pupil Caffarelli for six years, who later became a singer of world importance.