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Chicago Opera Company
The Chicago Opera Company was a grand opera company in Chicago, organized from the remaining assets of the bankrupt Chicago City Opera Company, that produced six seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1940 to 1946 (excluding 1943). Artistic directors included Carlo Peroni (1941–1942) and Fausto Cleva (1944–1946), and until 1945 Fortune Gallo was general manager. After the war, when consumer goods became more abundant and people spent less money on entertainment, interest in opera collapsed and the company went bankrupt. Rather than try to re-organize, the remaining assets were given to the largest creditor, the landlord of the Civic Opera House, Household Finance, who then paid off the other remaining creditors. After the final collapse of an opera company that had been re-organized five times, there was no resident Chicago opera company until the founding of the Lyric Opera in 1954. One of the original group of organizers was Max Rabinoff. See also *San ...
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Opera
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 ...
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Chicago City Opera Company
The Chicago City Opera Company was a grand opera company in Chicago, organized from the remaining assets of the bankrupt Chicago Grand Opera Company, that produced four seasons of opera at the Civic Opera House from 1935 to 1939 before it too succumbed to financial difficulties. It was succeeded by the Chicago Opera Company. MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ... actress Betty Jaynes, at age 15, made her debut with the Chicago City Opera Company on December 6, 1936. References * Davis, Ronald L., ''Opera in Chicago'', Appleton, New York City, 1966. * Marsh, Robert C. and Norman Pellegrini, ''150 Years of Opera in Chicago'', Northern Illinois University Press, Chicago, 2006. Opera companies in Chicago Musical groups established in 1935 Musical groups ...
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Civic Opera House
The Civic Opera House, also called Lyric Opera House is an opera house located at 20 North Wacker Drive in Chicago. The Civic's main performance space, named for Ardis Krainik, seats 3,563, making it the second-largest opera auditorium in North America, after the Metropolitan Opera House. Built for the Chicago Civic Opera, today it is the permanent home of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It is part of a complex with a 45-story office tower and two 22-story wings, known as the Civic Opera Building that opened November 4, 1929 and features Art Deco details. History Samuel Insull envisioned and hired the design team for building a new opera house to serve as the home for the Chicago Civic Opera. The building has been seen as being shaped like a huge chair and is sometimes referred to as "Insull's Throne" or "Insull's Folly." Insull selected the architecture firm Graham, Anderson, Probst & White who were responsible for numerous buildings in the downtown Chicago Loop (including the ...
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Carlo Peroni (conductor)
Carlo Peroni (1884, Rome – March 12, 1944, New York City) was an Italian opera conductor who served as the musical director of Fortune Gallo's San Carlo Opera Company (SCOC) from 1921 until his death 23 years later. With that company he performed in almost every major city in North America, typically conducting 8 opera performance a week eight months out of the year. In 1934, upon Peroni's 500th performance with the SCOC, ''The New York Times'' declared that he had conducted more grand opera performances in North America than any conductor in history. Life and career Peroni studied music at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. He began working as a musician and music teacher at a young age, and by the age of 13 his wages from teaching piano and harmony was the primary source of income for his family. At the age of 15 he began conducting, leading a 30 piece boys band in Rome. In 1914 he immigrated to the United States where his career was largely centered for the rest of his l ...
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Fausto Cleva
Fausto Cleva (May 17, 1902August 6, 1971) was an Austro-Hungarian Empire-born American operatic conductor. Life and career Fausto Cleva was born in Trieste in 1902. After studies at the Conservatorio in his native city and Milan, Cleva made his debut conducting ''La traviata'' in Teatro Carcano, in Milan, before emigrating to the United States in 1920, becoming an American citizen in 1931. He joined the musical staff of the Metropolitan Opera later that year and for twenty years was an assistant conductor and later chorus-master and répétiteur before making his official conducting debut in February 1942. He later became closely involved with Cincinnati Summer Opera, of which he was musical director from 1934 until 1963. From 1944 to 1946 he was music director of the ill-fated Chicago Opera Company. In 1947 he conducted a performance of ''La bohème'' in Havana, with Hjördis Schymberg as Mimi. Following his return to the Metropolitan Opera in 1950, he conducted over 700 perfor ...
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Fortune Gallo
Fortune Thomas Gallo (May 9, 1878 – March 28, 1970) (born Fortunato Gallo) was an Italian-born opera impresario. Gallo was owner and General Manager of the traveling San Carlo Opera Company from 1913 until its disbandment in the late 1950s. Biography He was born on May 9, 1878 at Torremaggiore, Italy, a little town in the province of Foggia, to Zelinda Accetturo and Tommaso Gallo. He had two sisters, Antonia and Marianna and two brothers, Giuseppe and Giovanni, who became Italian army officers. His childhood was spent at Torremaggiore, where he became involved with music and musicians, especially the " Banda Rossa," which would prove of importance later in his life. In 1895, aboard the vessel "Werra," Gallo immigrated to the United States. He worked as a clerk in an Italian bank on Mulberry Street in New York City. From that base it appears Gallo became involved in politics on the local level, amassing contacts and influence within the Italian community. Shortly after the tur ...
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HSBC Finance
HSBC Finance Corporation is a financial services company and a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings. It is the sixth-largest issuer of MasterCard and Visa credit cards in the United States. HSBC Finance Corporation was formed from the legal entity that had been known as Household International—shortly after Household International settled for US$486 million in charges pertaining to predatory lending, after burning through $389 million in legal fees and expenses—and is now expanding its consumer finance model via the HSBC Group to Brazil, India, Argentina and elsewhere. HSBC Finance Corporation's subsidiaries primarily provide real estate secured loans, auto finance loans, MasterCard and Visa credit card loans, private label credit cards, personal non-credit card loans and specialty insurance products to middle-market consumers. History Origins Household Finance Corp. was founded in 1878 by Frank MacKey of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It claims that in 1895 it was the first financial ...
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Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in ''Norma''. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric. Opera in Chicago 1850–1954 The first opera to be performed in Chicago was Bellini's ''La sonnambula'', presented by a traveling opera company on 29 July 1850. Chicago's first opera house opened in 1865 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871. The second opera house, the Chicago Auditorium, opened in 1889. In 1929 the current Civic Opera House on 20 North Wacker Drive was opened, though ...
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Max Rabinoff
Max A. Rabinoff (March 9, 1877 – April 19, 1966) was a Russian-born, naturalized American opera and ballet impresario and international economic adviser. By the time he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1898 he had already started an international import-export company focusing on encouraging American-Russian commerce. By 1908 he had entered the world of performing arts promotion, helping to organize the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chicago Opera Company. He is best known for founding the Boston Grand Opera Company in 1914, where he introduced American audiences to Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova and her Russian Ballet Company during his time as managing director from 1914-1917. He also discovered, and soon married, singer Marie La Salle, who died less than two years after their marriage. From 1914 to 1917 he was the managing director of the Boston Opera Company featuring Anna Pavlova and her Russian Ballet Company. Continuing his interest in promoting commer ...
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San Carlo Opera Company
The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different opera companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Henry Russell's San Carlo Opera The first company was founded by impresario Henry Russell, initially as a touring arm of the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, Italy, in 1904. The company soon became its own institution and toured to The Royal Opera, London, in the Fall of 1905 and Boston in early 1906. The group remained based in Boston and gave tours annually of mostly Italian operas throughout the United States from 1906 to 1909 in addition to giving performances in Boston. With the opening of the Boston Opera House in 1909, the company essentially became the seed for the newly formed Boston Opera Company under the leadership of Russell. Notable singers to perform with Russell's San Carlo Opera Company included sopranos Fély Dereyne, Alice Nielsen, Lillian Nordica, and Tarquinia Tarquini; tenors Florencio Constantino, Riccardo Martin ...
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Chicago Lyric Opera
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in ''Norma''. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric. Opera in Chicago 1850–1954 The first opera to be performed in Chicago was Bellini's ''La sonnambula'', presented by a traveling opera company on 29 July 1850. Chicago's first opera house opened in 1865 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871. The second opera house, the Chicago Auditorium, opened in 1889. In 1929 the current Civic Opera House on 20 North Wacker Drive was opened, though th ...
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Norman Pellegrini
Norman Pellegrini (July 18, 1929 – July 2, 2009) was an American radio executive, producer, and personality. He was the program director for WFMT radio in Chicago from 1953 to 1996. On air he led WFMT's internationally syndicated broadcasts of live performances from the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1971 until his retirement. He was also the co-host of '' The Midnight Special'', a folk and humor program which ran for years and was syndicated widely. He also hosted the station's broadcasts of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performances beginning in 1976. In 2006 his book ''150 Years of Opera in Chicago'' (co-authored with Robert C. Marsh) was published in Chicago by the Northern Illinois University Press Northern Illinois University Press is a publisher and part of Northern Illinois University. The press publishes about twenty new books per year in history, politics, anthropology, and literature, with about 400 books currently in print.http://www. .... References 1929 bir ...
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