|
Gianni Poggi
Gianni Poggi (October 4, 1921 – December 16, 1989) was an Italian tenor, particularly associated with the Italian repertory. Biography Born in Piacenza, Poggi studied first in Bologna with soprano Valeria Manna, and later in Milan with baritone Emilio Ghirardini. He made his debut in Palermo, as Rodolfo, in 1947. He first sang at La Scala in 1948 and appeared there until 1965, his roles included: Riccardo, Enzo, Fernando, Edgardo, Duca di Mantua, Alfredo, Cavaradossi, etc. He also sang at all the major opera houses throughout Italy, notably in Florence in 1955, in a revival of Donizetti's '' Dom Sebastien''. He portrayed the role of Lohengrin at Arena of Verona in 1949 and in his home town Piacenza in 1963 (both sung in Italian). Poggi made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955, in ''Rigoletto'', opposite Robert Merrill and Roberta Peters. He returned for further performances in 1957: ''Rigoletto'' again (now with Leonard Warren), ''Tosca'' (opposite Antonietta Stel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piacenza
Piacenza (; egl, label= Piacentino, Piaṡëinsa ; ) is a city and in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, and the capital of the eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with over 102,000 inhabitants. Westernmost major city of the region of Emilia-Romagna, it has strong relations with Lombardy, with which it borders, and in particular with Milan. It was once defined by Leonardo da Vinci as "Land of passage", in his Codex Atlanticus, by virtue of its crucial geographical location. Piacenza integrates characteristics of the nearby Ligurian and Piedmontese territories added to a prevalent Lombard influence, favored by communications with the nearby metropolis, which attenuate its Emilian footprint. Piacenza is located at a major crossroads at the intersection of Route E35/A1 between Bologna and Milan, and Route E70/A21 between Brescia and Turin. Piacenza is also at the confluence of the Trebbia, draining the north ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there until productio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Schippers
Thomas Schippers (9 March 1930 – 16 December 1977) was an American conductor. He was highly regarded for his work in opera. Biography Of Dutch ancestry and son of the owner of a large appliance store, Schippers was born in Portage, Michigan. He began playing piano at age four. After graduating from high school at age 13, he attended the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School. Schippers made his debut at the New York City Opera at age twenty-one, and the Metropolitan Opera at twenty-five. He conducted world premieres of now well-known music by Gian Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber. He conducted child actor Chet Allen in a theatrical version of Menotti's ''Amahl and the Night Visitors''. Schippers conducted in all the major opera houses of the United States and Europe, most notably the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala, and founded Italy's Spoleto festival with Menotti and once described his perfect orchestra as being composed of "one-third Italian musicians for their line, o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ettore Bastianini
Ettore Bastianini (24 September 1922 – 25 January 1967) was an Italian operatic baritone who was particularly associated with the operas of the ''bel canto'' tradition. Early training and career as a bass Born in Siena, Bastianini first began performing at fifteen while apprenticed to a pastry chef, Gaetano Vanni, who discovered his vocal talent and encouraged him to join the choir of his hometown's cathedral. Between 1937 and 1938, he sang bass during Masses and religious functions at the church. In 1939 he began singing lessons under Fathima and Anselmo Ammanati, who continued training him as a bass. He sang his first professional concerts in 1940 and 1941 in Asciano and Siena at the Fortezza Medicea and Teatro dei Rozzi. In 1942 he won first prize in the 6th National Singing Contest at the Teatro Comunale, Florence, but was soon drafted into the Italian Air Force which prevented him from immediately enjoying the scholarship accompanying the prize. After serving in the It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Licia Albanese
Licia Albanese (July 22, 1909 – August 15, 2014) was an Italian-born American operatic soprano. Noted especially for her portrayals of the lyric heroines of Verdi and Puccini, Albanese was a leading artist with the Metropolitan Opera from 1940 to 1966. She also made many recordings and was chairwoman of The Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, which is dedicated to assisting young artists and singers. Life and career Felicia Albanese was born in July 1909 in Torre Pelosa, (a subdivision of Noicattaro, Italy). Later she went to Torre a Mare, a quarter of Bari (the chief town of the Apulia region). She made her unofficial debut in Milan in 1934, when she replaced another soprano in Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly'', the role for which she would be celebrated. Over 40 years, she sang more than 300 performances of Cio-Cio-San. Although she has been praised for many of her roles, including Mimì, Violetta, Liù and Manon Lescaut, it is her portrayal of the ''geisha'' which has remain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimitri Mitropoulos
Dimitri Mitropoulos ( el, Δημήτρης Μητρόπουλος; The dates 18 February 1896 and 1 March 1896 both appear in the literature. Many of Mitropoulos's early interviews and program notes gave 18 February. In his later interviews, however, the conductor said he was born on 1 March, and most American sources also show this birthdate. The reason for the different dates is that Greece was still using the Julian calendar in 1896, and did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1923, when Mitropulos was 27. By then, the calendars were 13 days apart, but in 1896 they were only 12 days apart. The date 18 February 1896 under the Julian calendar corresponded to 1 March 1896 in the Gregorian. The earlier sources used the original Julian calendar date, and the later sources used the equivalent Gregorian date. – 2 November 1960) was a Greek conductor, pianist, and composer. Life and career Mitropoulos was born in Athens, the son of Yannis and Angelikē Mitropoulos. His father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Cassel
Walter Cassel (May 15, 1910 – July 3, 2000) was an American operatic baritone and actor. He began his career singing on the radio during the mid-1930s and appeared in a couple of Hollywood musical films in the late 1930s. He made his first stage appearances in a handful of Broadway productions during the late 1930s and early 1940s. He began his opera career at the Metropolitan Opera in 1942, and went on to have a long and fruitful association with that house that lasted until his retirement from the stage in 1974. In addition to working with the Met, Cassel was also a regular performer with the New York City Opera between 1948 and 1954 and worked frequently as a freelance artist with important opera companies on the international stage as well as in the United States. Biography Born John Walter Cassel in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Cassel began his musical education studying the trumpet while at Thomas Jefferson High School. He began taking private voice lessons after joining his hig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonietta Stella
Maria Antonietta Stella (15 March 1929 – 23 February 2022) was an Italian operatic soprano, and one of the most prominent Italian spinto sopranos of the 1950s and 1960s. She made her debut in Spoleto in 1950, as Leonora in Verdi's ''Il trovatore'', a year later at Rome Opera, as Leonora in ''La forza del destino'', in 1954 at La Scala in Milan, as Desdemona in ''Otello'', in 1955 at the Royal Opera House in London as Aida, and in 1956 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, in the same role. Life and career Born in Perugia, Stella studied at the in her home town and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, and made her debut in Spoleto, as Leonora in Verdi's ''Il trovatore'', in 1950. The tenor Giuseppe Treppaciani was her partner on stage, and later became her husband. She appeared at the Rome Opera in 1951, as Leonora in Verdi's ''La forza del destino'' alongside Mario del Monaco. The same year, she appeared in Germany at the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonard Warren
Leonard Warren (April 21, 1911 – March 4, 1960) was an American opera singer. A baritone, he was a leading artist for many years with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Especially noted for his portrayals of the leading baritone roles in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, he had few rival baritones in his time. His power and range were the highlights of his vocal instrument. Biography Born Leonard Warenoff in the Bronx to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, Warren was first employed in his father's fur business. In 1935, he joined the chorus at Radio City Music Hall. In 1938, he entered the Metropolitan Opera Auditions of the Air. The Met sent him to Italy that summer with a stipend to study. Returning to the United States, Warren made his concert debut at the Metropolitan Opera in excerpts from ''La traviata'' and ''Pagliacci'' during a concert in New York City in November 1938. His operatic debut took place there in January 1939, when he sang Paolo in ''Simon Boccanegra''. A r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters (May 4, 1930 – January 18, 2017) was an American coloratura soprano. One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, among the longest such associations between a singer and a company in opera. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998. Early life and career Peters was born Roberta Peterman in The Bronx, New York City, the only child of Ruth (née Hersch), a milliner, and Solomon Peterman, a shoe salesman. Her family was Jewish. Encouraged by tenor Jan Peerce, she started her music studies at age 13 with William Herman, a voice teacher known for his exacting and thorough teaching method. Under Herman's training, Peters studied the French, German and Italian languages and practiced singing scales from a clarinet method. After six years of training, Herman introduced her to impresario Sol Hurok, who arranged for an audition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone and actor, who was also active in the musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ... circuit. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1993. Early life Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife, Lillian (née Balaban), Jewish immigrants from Pultusk, Poland, near Warsaw. His paternal grandparents were Berl Milstein and Chana (née Mlawski), both from Pultusk, Poland. His mother claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland (a fact denied by her son in his biographies) and encouraged her son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. As of 2018, the company's current music director is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Performances are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
