Faramondo (Zeno)
''Faramondo'', HWV 39, is an opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian libretto adapted from Apostolo Zeno's ''Faramondo''. The story is loosely based upon the legend of Pharamond, a mythological King of the Franks, circa 420 AD, and the early history of France. The opera had its first performance at the King's Theatre, London, on 3 January 1738. Background The German-born Handel, after spending some of his early career composing operas and other pieces in Italy, settled in London, where in 1711 he had brought Italian opera for the first time with his opera '' Rinaldo''. An enormous success, ''Rinaldo'' created a craze in London for Italian '' opera seria'', a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. Handel had presented new operas in London for years with great success. One of the major attractions in Handel's operas was the star '' castrato'' Senesino, whose relationship with the composer was often stormy and who ev ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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George Frideric Handel By Balthasar Denner
George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States * George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States * George V, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1910-1936 * George VI, King of Great Britain, Ireland, the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 1936-1952 * Prince George of Wales * George Papagheorghe also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Giorgio Moroder * George Harrison, an English musician and singer-songwriter Places South Africa * George, Western Cape ** George Airport United States * George, Iowa * George, Missouri * George, Washington * George County, Mississippi * George Air Force Base, a former U.S. Air Force base located in California Characters * George (Peppa Pig), a 2-year-old pig ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aix-la Chapelle
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th-largest city of Germany. It is the westernmost city in Germany, and borders Belgium and the Netherlands to the west, the triborder area. It is located between Maastricht (NL) and Liège (BE) in the west, and Bonn and Cologne in the east. The Wurm River flows through the city, and together with Mönchengladbach, Aachen is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse. Aachen is the seat of the City Region Aachen (german: link=yes, Städteregion Aachen). Aachen developed from a Roman settlement and (bath complex), subsequently becoming the preferred medieval Imperial residence of Emperor Charlemagne of the Frankish Empire, and, from 936 to 1531, the place where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the Germans. O ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Laurence Cummings
Laurence Cummings (born 1968, Birmingham) is a British harpsichordist, organist, and conductor. He is currently music director of the Academy of Ancient Music. Biography Cummings was educated at Solihull School, Christ Church, Oxford and the Royal College of Music. His teachers have included Jill Severs. Cummings has played harpsichord and organ continuo with many leading period instrument groups, including Les Arts Florissants, The Sixteen Choir, the Gabrieli Consort and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Cummings was Head of Historical Performance at the Royal Academy of Music from 1997–2012. He has served as Musical Director of the London Handel Orchestra and the London Handel Festival (since 1999), Musical Director of the Tilford Bach Society, a founding member of the London Handel Players, and a Trustee of the Handel House Museum. In September 2011, he became the artistic director of the Göttingen International Handel Festival. He has also conducted ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Göttingen International Handel Festival
The Göttingen International Handel Festival (German, ''Internationale Händel-Festspiele Göttingen'') is a German festival of baroque music, based in Göttingen, Germany. The festival was established in 1919 by Oskar Hagen, art historian and father of actress Uta Hagen, and gave its first performances in 1920. The festival has largely focused on the music of George Frideric Handel and has helped to revive and cultivate increased performances of Handel's music during the twentieth century. The festival involves professional musicians from throughout the world and their performances are largely concerned with employing historical baroque performance practices. The festival produces one fully staged opera by Handel every year and several of his oratorios. In 2006, the festival created its own professional orchestra, the Festspiel Orchester Göttingen (FOG), which focuses on performing baroque music. In addition, the Festival features several performances of the chamber music of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism that plucks one or more strings with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic. The strings are under tension on a soundboard, which is mounted in a wooden case; the soundboard amplifies the vibrations from the strings so that the listeners can hear it. Like a pipe organ, a harpsichord may have more than one keyboard manual, and even a pedal board. Harpsichords may also have stop buttons which add or remove additional octaves. Some harpsichords may have a buff stop, which brings a strip of buff leather or other material in contact with the strings, muting their sound to simulate the sound of a plucked lute. The term denotes the whole family of similar plucked-keyboard instruments, including the smaller virginals, muselar, and spinet. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Historically Informed Performance
Historically informed performance (also referred to as period performance, authentic performance, or HIP) is an approach to the performance of Western classical music, classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in which a work was originally conceived. It is based on two key aspects: the application of the stylistic and technical aspects of performance, known as performance practice; and the use of #Early instruments, period instruments which may be reproductions of historical instruments that were in use at the time of the original composition, and which usually have different timbre and temperament (music), temperament from their modern equivalents. A further area of study, that of changing listener expectations, is increasingly under investigation. Given no Sound recording and reproduction, sound recordings exist of music before the late 19th century, historically informed performance is largely derived from Musicology, music ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East Germany
East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state was a part of the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. Commonly described as a communist state, it described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state".Patrick Major, Jonathan Osmond, ''The Workers' and Peasants' State: Communism and Society in East Germany Under Ulbricht 1945–71'', Manchester University Press, 2002, Its territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the end of World War II—the Soviet occupation zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder–Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin but did not include it and West Berlin remained outside the jurisdiction of the GDR. Most scholars and academics describe the GDR as a totalitarian dictatorship. The GDR was establish ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Handel Festival, Halle
The Handel Festival (in German: Händel-Festspiele) in Halle an der Saale, Saxony-Anhalt, is an international music festival concentrating on the music of George Frideric Handel in the composer's birthplace. It was founded in 1922 and it grew into a center of Handel studies and performance in Europe. Especially Handel's operas have been staged regularly, some of them as first revivals. History The first Handel Festival in Halle was conducted in 1922,George Frideric Handel Halle feiert den "Weltbürger Händel" MDR 2009 three years ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Recitative
Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition. Recitative can be distinguished on a continuum from more speech-like to more musically sung, with more sustained melodic lines. The mostly syllabic ''recitativo secco'' ("dry", accompanied only by continuo, typically cello and harpsichord) is at one end of the spectrum, through ''recitativo accompagnato'' (using orchestra), the more melismatic arioso, and finally the full-blown aria or ensemble, where the pulse is entirely governed by the music. Secco recitatives can be more improvisatory and free for the singer, since the accompaniment is so sparse; in contrast, when recitative is accompanied by orchestra, the singer must per ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Teatro Alibert
The Teatro delle Dame, also known as the Teatro Alibert (its original name), was a theatre in Rome built in 1718 and located on what is now the corner of Via D'Alibert and Via Margutta. In the course of its history it underwent a series of reconstructions and renovations until it was definitively destroyed by a fire in 1863. In their 18th-century heyday, the Teatro delle Dame and its rival, the Teatro Capranica, were the leading opera houses in Rome and saw many world premieres performed by some of the most prominent singers of the time. History The theatre was built by Antonio D'Alibert for the performance of ''opera seria''. It was a project long planned by his father Jacques D'Alibert (1626–1713) who had been the secretary to Queen Christina of Sweden and had managed the Teatro Tordinona. The Teatro Tordinona was Rome's first public theatre but was demolished in 1697 on the orders of Pope Innocent XII who considered public theatres a corrupting influence on the populace. The T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francesco Gasparini
Francesco Gasparini (19 March 1661 – 22 March 1727) was an Italian Baroque composer and teacher whose works were performed throughout Italy, and also on occasion in Germany and England. Biography Born in Camaiore, near Lucca, he studied in Rome with Corelli and Pasquini. His first important opera, ''Roderico'' (1694), was produced there. In 1702 he went to Venice and became one of the leading composers in the city. In 1720 he returned to Rome for his last important work, ''Tigrane'' (1724). He wrote the first opera using the story of Hamlet ('' Ambleto'', 1705) though this was not based on Shakespeare's play. Gasparini was also a teacher, the instructor of Marcello, Quantz and Domenico Scarlatti. He was musical director of the Ospedale della Pietà, where he employed Antonio Vivaldi as a violin master. He wrote a treatise on the harpsichord (1708). At one time, Metastasio was betrothed to his daughter. He died in Rome in 1727. Works Operas See List of operas by France ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Teatro San Bartolomeo
Theatres for diverse musical and dramatic presentations began to open in Naples, Italy, in the mid-16th century as part of the general Spanish cultural and political expansion into the kingdom of Naples, which had just become a vicerealm of Spain. None of the early theaters still function as such, having been replaced by later facilities from the mid-18th century onwards. Neapolitan theatres first built in the 16th and 17th centuries include: Teatro della Commedia Vecchia Built around 1550, the Commedia Vecchia was the first public theatre in Naples. It was the professional home to acting troupes from Spain "playing the provinces," and it provided a stage for the improvised antics of the masked and costumed figures in the then innovative Italian commedia dell'arte. In its heyday, the theatre was so successful that the government put a tax on their proceeds to finance the Casa dei Incurabili, a home for people with incurable diseases. The theatre was acquired in 1587 by a consortium ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |