Domenico Gizzi

Domenico Gizzi (Arpino, 12 March 1687 – Naples, 14 October 1758) was an Italian sopranist and singing teacher, a leading figure of the Neapolitan school in the first half of the eighteenth century. His significance lies in combining a career as a singer in the great opera houses of the peninsula with the training of distinguished pupils, among them the castrato Gioacchino Conti, known as Gizziello.

According to tradition, he received his first lessons in his native town from M. T. Angelio, and then completed his training in Naples, at the Conservatorio di Sant'Onofrio. Between 1700 and 1707, and again between 1717 and 1736, he sang at the Treasury of San Gennaro in Naples. In 1706 he was appointed a singer in the Neapolitan royal chapel, a post he held throughout his career. From 1717 onwards he was frequently absent from the choir for artistic reasons: he performed in Rome, Messina, Venice, Florence and Genoa, and took part in productions at the Teatro Alibert (later the Teatro delle Dame) in Rome and at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice. In 1725 he took part in the premiere of Porpora's Didone abbandonata in Reggio nell'Emilia. His reputation reached its peak in the 1720s.

Alongside performing, he taught, and his most celebrated pupil was Gioacchino Conti, who made his debut in Rome in 1730 and adopted the name Gizziello in homage to his teacher. Gizzi's last years seem to have passed in relative obscurity. Even so, in 1752 and 1758 he sat on the examining committee for new members of the royal chapel, and account books preserved in Naples record a salary increase in 1744 and the date of his death.