When Giovanni BONONCINI composed his oratorio San Nicola di Bari he was barely 21 years old. Having entered the service of Filippo Colonna, an important Roman nobleman, BONONCINI met the 27-year old librettist Silvio Stampiglia, with whom he rapidly began a fruitful collaboration: in six years (1691-1697) they produced six serenades and five operas in addition to this one oratorio. With no fewer than five performances before 1721, San Nicola di Bari was undoubtedly the most successful of BONONCINI’s seven extant oratorios.
The choice of the subject for the libretto has obvious connections with the nobiliary titles and functions of the commissioner. Filippo Colonna was commander in chief of the kingdom of Naples, and his wife was the sister of the Spanish ambassador in Rome and later Viceroy of Naples. Within the kingdom, which itself depended on the Spanish crown, Bari was the most important port on the Adriatic coast. Somewhat against all expectations, the libretto of this oratorio does not deal with any of the famous miracles of the saint, but it focuses on the young Saint Nicholas, his parents Epifanio and Giovanna and his fellow-student Clitio. In this typically Counter-reformation libretto, the central idea is the saving of the childrens’ souls through their pious and exemplary youth and through absolute obedience to their parents.
Stylistically, San Nicola di Bari — composed in 1693, and the only oratorio dedicated to the patron saint of little children — presents very few differences from the previous and conceptually somewhat larger oratorio La Maddalena a’ piedi di Cristo (1690). It offers a similar kind of dignity and vocality, and the same rich and deeply colored harmony. However, the themes of the arias in San Nicola di Bari are yet more fascinating, the alternation between orchestra and continuo slightly more balanced, the contrasts between the emotions more pronounced, and the dialogues in the recitatives even more flexible — the last characteristic probably due to Stampiglia’s more lighthearted libretto.