|
Anacréon (Rameau, 1754)
''Anacréon'' is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau which was first performed at Fontainebleau on 23 October 1754. Its libretto is by Louis de Cahusac. It takes the form of an '' acte de ballet'' in one act. Rameau also composed another ''Anacréon'' in 1757. The latter was an act added to a revival of the ''opéra-ballet'' ''Les surprises de l'Amour'' and has sometimes been performed and recorded as a stand-alone opera. It too features the Ancient Greek poet Anacreon as its hero, but the libretto (by Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard) and its plot are totally different. Background and performance history There is some evidence that the 1754 ''Anacréon'' was not originally intended as an independent work but was to be part of a multi-act ''opéra-ballet'' entitled ''Les beaux jours de l'Amour''. The other sections were '' La naissance d'Osiris'' and the unfinished '' Nélée et Myrthis''. Rameau had problems completing the project and instead salvaged ''Anacréon'' and ''La naissance d'O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portrait Of Jean-Philippe Rameau - Joseph Aved
A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer. History Prehistorical portraiture Plastered human skulls were reconstructed human skulls that were made in the ancient Levant between 9000 and 6000 BC in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. They represent some of the oldest forms of art in the Middle East and demonstrate that the prehistoric population took great care in burying their ancestors below their homes. The skulls denote some of the earliest sculptural examples of portraiture in the history of art. Historical portraitu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born to a family of modest means and little cultural involvement, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be admitted at the age of ten to France's leading music college, the Conservatoire de Paris. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors. He took many years to develop his mature style, and was nearly 40 when he achieved international fame in 1902 with the only opera he completed, '' Pelléas et Mélisande''. Debussy's orchestral works include ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' (1894), ''Nocturnes'' (1897–1899) and ''Images'' (1905–1912). His music was to a considerable extent a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
One-act Operas
A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writing competitions. One act plays make up the overwhelming majority of Fringe Festival shows including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The origin of the one-act play may be traced to the very beginning of recorded Western drama: in ancient Greece, ''Cyclops'', a satyr play by Euripides, is an early example. The satyr play was a farcical short work that came after a trilogy of multi-act serious drama plays. A few notable examples of one act plays emerged before the 19th century including various versions of the Everyman play and works by Moliere and Calderon.Francis M. Dunn. ''Tragedy's End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama''. Oxford University Press (1996). One act plays became more common in the 19th century and are now a standa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French-language Operas
French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and Messiaen. Many foreign-born composers have played a part in the French tradition as well, including Lully, Gluck, Salieri, Cherubini, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Donizetti, Verdi and Offenbach. French opera began at the court of Louis XIV of France with Jean-Baptiste Lully's ''Cadmus et Hermione'' (1673), although there had been various experiments with the form before that, most notably '' Pomone'' by Robert Cambert. Lully and his librettist Quinault created ''tragédie en musique'', a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lully's most important successor was Rameau. After Rameau's death, the German Gluck was persuaded to produce six operas for the Paris, Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show the influence of Rameau, but simplified and with greater foc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operas By Jean-Philippe Rameau
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuthbert Girdlestone
Cuthbert Morton Girdlestone (17 September 1895 – 10 December 1975) was a British musicology, musicologist and literary scholar. Born in Bovey Tracey, Devon, he was educated at University of Cambridge, Cambridge and the University of Paris, Sorbonne, and thereafter took up the chair in French in Armstrong College, Newcastle, Armstrong College, later to be King's College in Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle in 1926, a position he held until 1960. His most famous publications are his much-reprinted study of the Mozart Piano Concertos (1939, published originally in French) and his biography of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1957). Books *Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart et ses concertos pour piano.'' Paris, Fischbacher. 1939. **Girdlestone, Cuthbert. ''Mozart and His Piano Concertos''. New York: Dover Publications, 1964. "An unabridged and corrected republication of the second (1958) edition of the work first published in 1948 by Cassell & Company, Ltd., London, under the title Mozart’s Piano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maenad
In Greek mythology, maenads (; grc, μαινάδες ) were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Maenads were known as Bassarids, Bacchae , or Bacchantes in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox skin. Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus into a state of ecstatic frenzy through a combination of dancing and intoxication. During these rites, the maenads would dress in fawn skins and carry a thyrsus, a long stick wrapped in ivy or vine leaves and tipped with a pine cone. They would weave ivy-wreaths around their heads or wear a bull helmet in honor of their god, and often handle or wear snakes. These women were mythologized as the "mad women" who were nurses of Dionysus in Nysa. Lycurgus "chased the Nurses of the frenzied Dionysus through the holy hills of Nysa, and the sacred implements ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aegipan
Aegipan ( grc, Αἰγίπαν, Αἰγίπανος, "Goat-Pan") was a mythological being, either distinct from or identical to Pan. His story appears to be of late origin. Mythology According to Hyginus, Aegipan was the son of Zeus (some sources say his son Apollo) and Aega (also named Boetis or Aix), and was transferred to the stars. Others again make Aegipan the father of Pan, and state that he as well as his son were represented as half goat and half fish, similar to a satyr. In Greek art, Aegipan is thus often depicted as a sea goat, the mythical creature represented by the constellation Capricornus. When Zeus in his contest with the Titans was deprived of the sinews of his hands and feet, Hermes and Aegipan secretly restored them to him and fitted them in their proper places. According to a Roman tradition mentioned by Plutarch, Aegipan sprang from the incestuous intercourse of Valeria of Tusculum and her father Valerius, and was considered only a different name for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Jélyotte
Pierre Jélyotte (13 April 1713 – 11 September 1797) was a French operatic tenor, particularly associated with works by Rameau, Lully, Campra, Mondonville and Destouches. Life and career Born Pierre Grichon in Lasseube, he studied in Toulouse (voice, harpsichord, guitar, violin, composition) and made his stage debut in Paris as a singer at the Concert Spirituel in 1733. That same year, he made his debut at the Opéra de Paris, in ''Les fêtes grecques et romaines'', by François Colin de Blamont. He thereafter created several roles in opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, such as; ''Hippolyte et Aricie'', ''Les Indes galantes'', '' Dardanus'', and ''Zoroastre'', as well as in opera by Jean-Baptiste Lully, André Campra, and André Cardinal Destouches. In all he sang some 150 roles, sometimes dressed as a woma He often appeared at Court in Fontainebleau, where he sang Daphnis in ''Daphnis et Alcimadure'' by Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, and Colin in ''Le devin du village'' by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Haute-contre
The haute-contre (plural hautes-contre) was the primary French operatic tenor voice, predominant in French Baroque and Classical opera, from the middle of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century. History This voice was predominantly used in male solo roles, typically heroic and amatory ones, but also in comic parts, even ''en travesti'' (see apropos the portrait reproduced below and representing Pierre Jélyotte made up for the female title role of Rameau's ''Platée''). Lully wrote 8 out of 14 leading male roles for the voice; Charpentier, who was an haute-contre himself, composed extensively for the voice-part, as did Rameau and, later, Gluck. The leading ''hautes-contre'' of the ''Académie Royale de Musique'' that created the main roles of Lully's operas, at the end of the seventeenth century, were Bernard Clédière (who started off as a ''taille'', a lower Tenor voice type) and Louis Gaulard Dumesny. Notable ''hautes-contre'' of the eighteent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Fel
Marie Fel (24 October 1713 – 2 February 1794) was a French opera singer and a daughter of the organist Henri Fel. Marie Fel was born at Bordeaux. She made her debut at the Paris Opera in 1733 and sang regularly at the Concert Spirituel. In a career that lasted 35 years, she sang in all the operas of Rameau along with Pierre Jélyotte, created roles in those of Mondonville, and participated in revivals of those of Lully and Campra. She retired from the stage in 1758, but continued to perform in concert until 1769. She died in Paris. She had a long-term relationship with the painter Quentin de La Tour, who painted her portrait. "The greatest personalities of her age sought her good graces and gave her lively proofs of their affections," including men of letters such as the Baron von Grimm and the Encyclopédiste Louis de Cahusac.Emile Campardon, L’Académie Royale de Musique au XVIII Siècle: Documents inédites découverts aux Archives Nationales (Paris: Berger-Levraul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) = 1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word '' sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" '' |
