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Faramondo
''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 eventually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Curran (director)
Paul Curran (born 1964) is a Scottish opera director. He was General Manager (Artistic Director) of the opera company of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet (2007–2011), and artistic consultant to Central City Opera of Denver, Colorado. Early life Curran was born in Maryhill, Glasgow. At the age of five, he was rehoused with his family to Easterhouse. He played clarinet in the Glasgow Schools Orchestra, and saw his first opera (Scottish Opera's production of ''Wozzeck'') in 1980. The following year, his parents discovered that he was gay and threw him out. He went to London, where he trained as a ballet dancer at the London Studio Centre and the Central School of Ballet before studying with Sulamith Messerer. He worked for a time as an usher at English National Opera during the period when Lord Harewood, Mark Elder and David Pountney formed the artistic management of the company. Curran spent two years at the ballet school of the Finnish National Opera and then three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle (Saale), Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and Handel's Naturalisation Act 1727, became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphony, polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apostolo Zeno
Apostolo Zeno (11 December 1668 in Venice – 11 November 1750 in Venice) was a Venetian poet, librettist, journalist, and man of letters. Early life Apostolo Zeno was born in Venice to a colonial branch of the Zeno family, an ancient Venetian patrician family. His family had been transplanted from Venice to the Kingdom of Candia in the 13th century in order to maintain Venetian order and suppress any rebellious subjects. Following the assault on the island by the Ottoman Empire, the remaining members of his family returned to Venice. Upon return they were not readmitted to the patrician class, but were only able to obtain status as ordinary citizens. His father was Pietro Zeno, a doctor of medicine, and his mother, Caterina Sevasto, belonged to an illustrious and powerful family from Candia, Crete. Having lost his father at an early age, he was left to the care of his mother, who remarried to Venetian senator Pier Antonio Cornaro. His education was entrusted to the Somasc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharamond
Pharamond, also spelled Faramund, is a legendary early king of the Franks, first referred to in the anonymous 8th-century ''Liber Historiae Francorum'', which depicts him as the first king of the Franks. Historical sources and scholarship Pharamond first appears in the ''Liber Historiae Francorum'', commonly dated to 727. After relating the legendary Trojan origin of the Franks (which is copied in main from the Chronicle of Fredegar), the ''Liber'' reports that after the death of the Frankish leader Sunno, his brother Marcomer proposed to the Franks that they should have one single king, contrary to their tradition. The ''Liber'' adds that Pharamond, named as Marcomer's son, was chosen as this first king (thus beginning the tradition of long-haired kings of the Franks), and then states that when he died, his son Chlodio was raised up as the next king. Because there is no reference to Pharamond in any source prior to this work, scholars generally consider him a legendary rather t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo
Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (ca. 1653 – 7 February 1723) was an Italian composer, organist, and music director. Known chiefly for his operas, he wrote a total of 85 of them as well as 13 oratorios. His compositional style was initially indebted to the opera tradition of Giovanni Legrenzi and Carlo Pallavicino, but he moved beyond this style with innovations to the compositional structure of the aria characterized by expanded forms and orchestral elaborations. His early work used three part strings in the Legrenzi and Pallacino tradition of orchestration, but his mid and later works had developed into a richer orchestration of five strings parts and expanded instrumentation of brass and woodwinds. He was the first Venetian opera composer and one of the earliest Italian composers to use the oboe in his opera orchestrations. Life and career Born into the Pollarolo family of musicians in Brescia, Carlo Francesco Pollarolo was the son of musician Orazio Pollarolo. His father was the o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
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] |
