This Italian composer wrote approximately forty operas in the serious and comic veins though his adaptations of the lyric tragedies were most significant. Traetta was influenced by Rameau, Rousseau, Metastasio, Jommelli and Gluck as well as several librettists concurrent at the time. He served as the director of the Ospedaletto in Venice and later became the master of music at the Russian court in St. Petersburg. Before returning to Venice he also spent some time in London. Among his operas were "Ippolito ed Aricia," "Ifigenia in Tauride," "Antigone," "Sonfonisba," and "Armida." Critically Traetta's operas were often scored for too many principle characters. Most of the operas, if not all, were based on classical literature and scored for larger orchestras than had heretofore been conventional. The operas which Traetta composed were both serious and comic. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi