Giovanni Paisiello was born on 9 May 1740 in Taranto in Apulia and educated by the Jesuits there; noticed for his singing voice, he was sent in 1754 to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio in Naples, studied with Francesco Durante and rose to assistant master. He left in 1763 after intermezzi written for the conservatory’s theatre brought him commissions from Bologna and Rome, then settled in Naples, where he wrote a run of successful operas in bitter rivalry with Piccinni, Cimarosa and Guglielmi. He met the young Mozart and his father in Naples in 1771, married Cecilia Pallini in 1772 and began writing church music the same year. Catherine the Great brought him to Saint Petersburg in 1776 for eight years; he returned by way of Vienna, entered the service of Ferdinand IV of Naples, was called to Paris by Napoleon in 1802 and back to Italy in 1803. He died on 5 June 1816.

He was the most performed opera composer of the late eighteenth century, and his style was absorbed by both Mozart and Rossini. Il barbiere di Siviglia, written in Russia, made his European name; Nina and La Molinara came from the later Neapolitan years. When Rossini set the same libretto in 1816 as Almaviva o sia l’inutile precauzione, Paisiello’s supporters stormed the stage — an irony, since Paisiello had earlier reset the libretto of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona with much the same intent. In Paris he directed the court music at the Tuileries on a stipend of 10,000 francs, but the public received Proserpine so coldly that he asked to go home.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Paisiello
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q202303