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Cornélie Falcon
Cornélie Falcon (28 January 1814 – 25 February 1897) was a French soprano who sang at the Opéra in Paris. Her greatest success was creating the role of Valentine in Meyerbeer's ''Les Huguenots''. She possessed "a full, resonant voice"Warrack and West 1992, p. 230. with a distinctive dark timbreRobinson and Walton 2011. and was an exceptional actress. Based on the roles written for her voice her vocal range spanned from low A-flat to high D, 2.5 octaves. She and the tenor Adolphe Nourrit are credited with being primarily responsible for raising artistic standards at the Opéra, and the roles in which she excelled came to be known as "falcon soprano" parts.Robinson 1992, p. 110. She had an exceptionally short career, essentially ending about five years after her debut, when at the age of 23 she lost her voice during a performance of Niedermeyer's '' Stradella''. Early life and training She was born Marie-Cornélie Falcon in Le Monastier sur Gazeille (Velay) to Pierre Falcon, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Pound, Eliot, James, Proust and Wilde. Life and times Gautier was born on 30 August 1811 in Tarbes, capital of Hautes-Pyrénées département (southwestern France). His father was Jean-Pierre Gautier,See "Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs – La descendance de Théophile Gautier", landrucimetieres.fr/ref> a fairly cultured minor government official, and his mother was Antoinette-Adelaïde Cocard. The family moved to Paris in 1814, taking up residence in the ancient Marais district. Gautier's education comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of many of the most successful grand operas and opéras-comiques. Born to a middle-class Parisian family, Scribe was intended for a legal career, but was drawn to the theatre, and began writing plays while still in his teens. His early years as a playwright were unsuccessful, but from 1815 onwards he prospered. Writing, usually with one or more collaborators, he produced several hundred stage works. He wrote to entertain the public rather than educate it. Many of his plays were written in a formulaic manner which aimed at neatness of plot and focus on dramatic incident rather than naturalism, depth of characterisation or intellectual substance. For this he was much criticised by intellectuals, but the "well-made play" remained established in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ary Scheffer
Ary Scheffer (10 February 179515 June 1858) was a Dutch-French Romantic painter. He was known mostly for his works based on literature, with paintings based on the works of Dante, Goethe, and Lord Byron, as well as religious subjects. He was also a prolific painter of portraits of famous and influential people in his lifetime. Politically, Scheffer had strong ties to King Louis Philippe I, having been employed as a teacher of the latter's children, which allowed him to live a life of luxury for many years until the French Revolution of 1848. Life Scheffer was the son of Johan Bernard Scheffer (1765–1809), a portrait painter who was born in Homberg upon Ohm or Kassel (both presently in Germany) and moved to the Netherlands in his youth, and Cornelia Lamme (1769–1839), a portrait miniature painter and daughter of landscape painter Arie Lamme of Dordrecht, for whom Arij (later "Ary") was named. Ary Scheffer had two brothers, the journalist and writer Karel Arnold S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second Napoleonic Empire in 1870. He earned a living throughout most of his life producing caricatures and cartoons of political figures and satirizing the behavior of his countrymen in newspapers and periodicals, for which he became well known in his lifetime and is still known today. He was a republican democrat who attacked the bourgeoisie, the church, lawyers and the judiciary, politicians, and the monarchy. He was jailed for several months in 1832 after the publication of ''Gargantua'', a particularly offensive and discourteous depiction of King Louis-Philippe. Daumier was also a serious painter, loosely associated with realism. Although he occasionally exhibited his paintings at the Parisian Salons, his work was largely overlooked and ignore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marguerite Georges
Marguerite Georges (1787–1867) was a French stage actress. She was one of the most famous French actresses of her time. She is also known for her affair with Napoleon, but also claimed to have had an affair with the Duke of Wellington, a claim which is considered probable by some historians. She published under the name Marguerite-Josephine Weimer George. Biography Marguerite Georges was born ''Marguerite-Josephine Weimer'' in Bayeux, the daughter of a German employed in the theatre orchestra in Amiens. She debuted on stage in 1802 at the age of fifteen at the Théâtre Français in Paris; she was made sociétaire in 1804. Her affair with Napoleon took place between 1802 and 1804, and was rumoured to be the reason she left France in 1808. She was active in Saint Petersburg in Russia in 1808–1812, debuting at St. Petersburg, in ''Phèdre'', and alternating nights with the Russian actress Ekaterina Semenova. She toured Europe in 1812–1813, during which she performed at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mademoiselle Mars
Mademoiselle Mars (pseudonym of Anne Françoise Hyppolyte Boutet Salvetat; 9 February 1779 – 20 March 1847), French actress, was born in Paris, the natural daughter of the actor-author named Monvel (Jacques Marie Boutet) (1745–1812) and Jeanne-Marie Salvetat (1748–1838), an actress known as Madame Mars, whose southern accent had made her Paris debut a failure. Life Mlle Mars began her stage career in children's parts, and by 1799, after the rehabilitation of the Comédie-Française, she and her elder half-sister (Marie-Louise-Geneviève Salvetat, called Louise and known professionally as Mlle Mars ''aînée'') joined that company, of which she remained an active member for 33 years. Her beauty and talents soon placed her at the top of her profession. She was incomparable in ingenue parts, and equally charming as the coquette. Molière, Marivaux, Michel-Jean Sedaine, and Pierre Beaumarchais had no more accomplished interpreter, and in her career of half a century, besides ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française () or Théâtre-Français () is one of the few state theatres in France. Founded in 1680, it is the oldest active theatre company in the world. Established as a French state-controlled entity in 1995, it is the only state theatre in France to have its own permanent troupe of actors. The company's primary venue is the Salle Richelieu, which is a part of the Palais-Royal complex and located at 2, Rue de Richelieu on Place André-Malraux in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The theatre has also been known as the Théâtre de la République and popularly as "La Maison de Molière" (The House of Molière). It acquired the latter name from the troupe of the best-known playwright associated with the Comédie-Française, Molière. He was considered the patron of French actors. He died seven years before his troupe became known as the Comédie-Française, but the company continued to be known as "La Maison de Molière" even after the official change of name. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi (22 May 1811 – 29 November 1869) was an Italian opera singer. She performed widely in Europe, the United States and South America and was among the leading sopranos of the 19th century.Chisholm 1911, p. ? Her second husband was Giovanni Matteo Mario de Candia (also known as "Mario the Tenor"), scion of a noble family of the Kingdom of Sardinia. She is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Her grave is marked "Juliette de Candia", styled in her married last name; usually better known by the courtesy title the Marquesse of Candia. Early life Born in Milan, Giulia Grisi was the daughter of Gaetano Grisi, one of Napoleon's Italian officers, and Giovanna née Grassini. She came from a musically gifted family, her maternal aunt Giuseppina Grassini (1773–1850) being a favourite opera singer both on the continent and in London. Her older sister, Giuditta and her cousin Carlotta were both artistes, the former as a singer and the latter as a ballet dancer. Giuditta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caroline Branchu
Thimoléone-Rose-Caroline Chevalier Lavit, known by her married name as Alexandrine-Caroline (or Caroline or simply Mme) Branchu (2 November 1780 – 14 October 1850) was a French opera soprano with origins from the free people of colour of Saint-Domingue where she was born at Cap-Français, the former French colony which is the modern-day Cap-Haïtien, Haiti.She was the daughter of the "free mulatto" Jean-Joseph Lavit, the son of a French nobleman of the colony (Pierre Bardin, ''Joseph Sieur de Saint-Georges : Le Chevalier Noir'', Paris, Guénégaud, 2006, p. 193, ). A gifted vocalist, for the better part of the first quarter of the 19th century, she was a leading soprano at the Paris Opéra. Branchu was one of the first students at the Paris Conservatoire after it opened in 1795, and studied singing under Pierre Garat. Although Branchu frequently performed works by Christoph Willibald Gluck and was notable for roles in '' Anacréon'' and ''Les Abencérages'' by Luigi Cherub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maria Malibran
Maria Felicia Malibran (24 March 1808 – 23 September 1836) was a Spanish singer who commonly sang both contralto and soprano parts, and was one of the best-known opera singers of the 19th century. Malibran was known for her stormy personality and dramatic intensity, becoming a legendary figure after her death in Manchester, England, at age 28. Contemporary accounts of her voice describe its range, power and flexibility as extraordinary. Life and career Malibran was born in Paris as María Felicitas García Sitches into a famous Spanish musical family. Her mother was Joaquina Sitches, an actress and operatic singer. Her father Manuel García was a celebrated tenor much admired by Rossini, having created the role of Count Almaviva in his ''The Barber of Seville''. García was also a composer and an influential vocal instructor, and he was her first voice teacher. He was described as inflexible and tyrannical; the lessons he gave his daughter became constant quarrels between t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
