[2] Notably Provenzale was the teacher of famed castrato 'il cavaliere Nicolo Grimaldi (detto Nicolini)'.
Before the year 1658, there is virtually no record of Provenzale's existence, although it is thought that he studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini in Naples.
That same year, an opera called Il Ciro, no doubt by Provenzale, was performed in Venice at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
Provenzale's surviving works, only a fraction of what he composed, are the operas Il schiavo di sua moglie and La Stellidaura vendicante, the sacred melodrama La colomba ferita (considered his best piece, about the life of Saint Rosalia), and numerous sacred works.
Qualities of Italian vocal styles that strongly express sadness and pain are nowhere better exemplified than in the long melodic lines and expressive chromatic harmonies of the aria "Lasciatemi morir" ("Let me die"), from his opera Il schiavo di sua moglie (His Wife's Slave).