Antonio Orefice

Records of his activity begin in Naples in 1708 with the production of his Il Maurizio, an opera seria which premiered in December of that year at the Teatro San Bartolomeo.

Prior to the premiere of his Patrò Calienno de la Costa in 1709 at the Teatro dei Fiorentini, works of this type had only been performed in the private theatres of aristocrats.

Its success, documented in the Gazzetta di Napoli, led to the Teatro dei Fiorentini commissioning and premiering many more such works by Orefice and others.

The premiere of Orefice's Lo Simmele set to a libretto in Neapolitan dialect by Bernardo Saddumene inaugurated the newly built Teatro Nuovo on 15 October 1724.

Partially translated into the Tuscan dialect with some alteration to the music by Giovanni Fischetti and given new titles,[b] they were performed at the Teatro Capranica in Rome and further increased the popularity of the genre.