He sang duets with national and international stars, such as Emilia Persico (it), Amina Vargas, Eugénie Fougère, La Tortejada (it), Lucy Nanon, and above all with the Neapolitan Amelia Faraone (it), but also led his own theatre companies.

[1] Born to an elementary schoolteacher with origins in Cosenza, Nicola Maldacea embarked upon his theatrical career in his hometown, making his debut at a very young age on the stages of variety shows and café-chantants.

Hence the origin of the word 'macchietta,' which belongs to the figurative arts: a hasty sketch that, with a few strokes, conveys a place or a person in such a way as to provide an effective impression with the utmost caricatural spontaneity.In this context, critical reception leaned toward favorability praise.

The Gazzetta Musicale di Milano (Musical Gazette of Milan), published by Ricordi in December 1903, rendered the following portrayal:[6] Macchietta is no easy feat: it requires keen powers of observation and intuition, a sense of proportion, and perfect elocution.

[...] The only true type for reproducing the macchietta, [...] the voice, the stage, the meticulously precise study in imitating, in the smallest details, the character he embodies; prodigious speed in changing makeup, clothing, accessories: in short, he is a masterful transformist, like Fregoli, a consummate monologist.In the era preceding the outbreak of the First World War, Maldacea garnered acclaim within the theaters Southern and Northern Italy, solidifying his status as one of the preeminent comedy actors in the country.