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Updated: June 27, 2025
His only opera composed in Paris, "Proserpine," was not successful. Failure of health obliged Paisiello to return to Naples, when he again entered the service of the king. Attached to the fortunes of the Bonaparte family, his prosperity fell with theirs.
"Beaumarchais's comedy, entitled 'The Barber of Seville, or the Useless Precaution," he wrote, "is presented at Rome in the form of a comic drama under the title of 'Almaviva, ossia l'inutile Precauzione, in order that the public may be fully convinced of the sentiments of respect and veneration by which the author of the music of this drama is animated with regard to the celebrated Paisiello, who has already treated the subject under its primitive title.
"At this time," we are told by Laf age, "Cherubini had two distinct styles, one of which was allied to Paisiello and Cimarosa by the grace, elegance, and purity of the melodic forms; the other, which attached itself to the school of Gluck and Mozart, more harmonic than melodious, rich in instrumental details."
Paisiello gave his consent to the use of the subject, believing that the opera of his young rival would assuredly fail. At the same time he wrote to a friend in Rome, asking him to do all in his power to compass a fiasco for the opera. The young composer's enemies were not sluggish.
"Well, General," continued the composer, "I have come to place myself at your majesty's orders." "I must really beg you," rejoined Napoleon, "not to address me in this manner." "Forgive me, General," said Paisiello. "But I cannot give up the habit I have contracted in addressing sovereigns, who, compared with you, are but pigmies.
In spite of his having produced such great masterpieces, his income was very small, apart from his pay as Inspector of the Conservatory. The ill will of the ruler of France was a steady check to his preferment. When Napoleon established his consular chapel in 1802, he invited Paisiello from Naples to become director at a salary of 12,000 francs a year.
Some years after his return to Italy, he was engaged by Napoleon as chapel-master; for that despot ruled the art and literature of his times as autocratically as their politics. Though Paisiello did not wish to obey the mandate, to refuse was ruin.
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