Giuseppe Colla

Giuseppe Colla (August 4, 1731 – March 16, 1806) was an Italian composer and opera director. Best known as an opera composer, he was director of the Teatro Regio Ducale in Parma from 1780 through 1806.^[1]

Giuseppe Colla was born in Parma, Italy on August 4, 1731. After training a musician in his native city, he went to Mannheim, Germany where he began his career contributing six arias to the opera Caio Fabrizio (1760) whose primary musical author was Niccolò Jommelli. Following the success of this work, he was given a commission to write an opera on his own for the Teatro Regio Ducale in Milan. This resulted in the opera Adriano in Siria which premiered in 1762. He also taught harpsichord to Ferdinand I, Duke of Parma in the early 1760s.^[1]

Colla was appointed maestro di cappella to the court of Parma in January 1766. His opera Tigrane was staged at the Teatro Regio Ducale in Parma for Carnival in 1767. He was later appointed director at that theater in 1780; a post he held until his death in Parma on March 16, 1806. He had a longstanding romantic relationship with the soprano Lucrezia Aguiari who starred in many of his operas from 1769 through 1780. Excluding the opera he wrote with Jomelli, he wrote a total of 9 operas; all of which survive because they were collected in the library of King Joseph I of Portugal. He also wrote sacred music, such as cantatas and the oratorio Ester, several sinfonias, and a number of secular arias and duets.^[1]