|
Giuseppe Cremonini
Giuseppe Cremonini (25 November 1866 – 9 May 1903) was an Italian operatic tenor who had a prominent opera career in Europe and the United States during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Cremonini was born and died in Cremona, Italy. Admired for his full lyric voice, he sang a wide repertoire that encompassed the bel canto works of Donizetti and Rossini, the Italian grand opera of Verdi, the verisimo operas of Mascagni, the French operas of Gounod and Massenet, and the German operas of Richard Wagner. He sang in several world premieres during his career, including creating the role of Chevalier des Grieux in the original 1893 production of Puccini's ''Manon Lescaut''. An immensely popular singer, Cremonini's career abruptly ended upon his sudden death in 1903 at the age of 36.Riemens, ''A concise biographical dictionary of singers'' Biography Cremonini was born into an impoverished family with the name Giuseppe Bianchi. He studied under a teacher with the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Cremonini
Giuseppe Cremonini (25 November 1866 – 9 May 1903) was an Italian operatic tenor who had a prominent opera career in Europe and the United States during the last decade of the nineteenth century. Cremonini was born and died in Cremona, Italy. Admired for his full lyric voice, he sang a wide repertoire that encompassed the bel canto works of Donizetti and Rossini, the Italian grand opera of Verdi, the verisimo operas of Mascagni, the French operas of Gounod and Massenet, and the German operas of Richard Wagner. He sang in several world premieres during his career, including creating the role of Chevalier des Grieux in the original 1893 production of Puccini's ''Manon Lescaut''. An immensely popular singer, Cremonini's career abruptly ended upon his sudden death in 1903 at the age of 36.Riemens, ''A concise biographical dictionary of singers'' Biography Cremonini was born into an impoverished family with the name Giuseppe Bianchi. He studied under a teacher with the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hariclea Darclée
Hariclea Darclée (née Haricli; later Hartulari; 10 June 1860 – 12 January 1939) was a celebrated Romanian operatic soprano who had a three-decade-long career. Darclée's repertoire ranged from coloratura soprano roles to heavier Verdi roles, including many in the Franco-Italian lyric repertory. Throughout her career she participated in several world premieres, creating the title roles in Giacomo Puccini's ''Tosca'', Pietro Mascagni's ''Iris'', and Alfredo Catalani's ''La Wally''. Puccini reportedly considered her to have been "the most beautiful and exquisite Manon". Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo, regarded as the most comprehensive international performing arts encyclopedia, named Darclée "world's greatest singer for 25 years". Darclée was considered the equivalent, in the opera world, of Sarah Bernhardt. Early years Darclée was born Hariclea Haricli in Brăila to a family with Greek roots. Her father, Ion Haricli, was a landlord in Teleorman County. Her mother, Maria Asl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primadonna
In opera or commedia dell'arte, a prima donna (; Italian for "first lady"; plural: ''prime donne'') is the leading female singer in the company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. ''Prime donne'' often had grand off-stage personalities and were seen as demanding of their colleagues. From its original usage in opera, the term has spread in contemporary usage to refer to anyone behaving in a demanding or temperamental fashion, or having an inflated view of oneself and a self-centered attitude. The prima donna in opera was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano. The corresponding term for the male lead (usually a castrato in the 17th and 18th centuries, later a tenor) is primo uomo.H. Rosenthal, H. and J. Warrack, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1979. p. 398. Opera In 19th-century Italy, the leading woman in an opera or commedia dell'arte company was known as the ''prima donna'', literally the "first lady". Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cavalleria Rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic ''verismo'' operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called ''Cav/Pag'' double-bill with ''Pagliacci'' by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Composition history In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novara
Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is an important crossroads for commercial traffic along the routes from Milan to Turin and from Genoa to Switzerland. Novara lies between the rivers Agogna and Terdoppio in northeastern Piedmont, from Milan and from Turin. History Novara was founded around 89 BC by the Romans, when the local Gauls obtained the Roman citizenship. Its name is formed from ''Nov'', meaning "new", and ''Aria'', the name the Cisalpine Gauls used for the surrounding region. Ancient ''Novaria'', which dates to the time of the Ligures and the Celts, was a municipium and was situated on the road from Vercellae (Vercelli) to (Mediolanum) Milan. Its position on perpendicular roads (still intact today) dates to the time of the Romans. After the city was destroyed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Coccia
Teatro Coccia (, " Coccia Theatre") is the main opera house in Novara (as well as one of the major traditional Italian theatres), and is also the most important "historical" theatres in Piedmont. It faces along via Fratelli Rosselli, and delimits piazza dei Martiri to the west and piazza Giacomo Puccini to the east. History Back in the day, Novara did not have a permanent theatre, and operas took place in private venues, such as noblemen's rooms and courts. The preferred venue was ''Casa Petazzi'', equipped with a gallery and boxes. Count Luigi Maria Torinelli, together with the newly formed ''Società dei Palchettisti'' (English: Society of Box Holders), provided the funds for a new theatre. The new theater was called Teatro Civico, also known as Teatro Nuovo. Construction works started in 1777. The opera house was completed in two years, being inaugurated in 1779 (with '' Medonte re d'Epiro'' by Giuseppe Sarti) on a project of Cosimo Morelli. The Galliari brothers completed the d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mignon
''Mignon'' is an 1866 ''opéra comique'' (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's 1795-96 novel '' Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre''. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's " The Dead" (''Dubliners'') and Willa Cather's '' The Professor's House''. Thomas's goddaughter Mignon Nevada was named after the main character. Performance history The first performance was at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 17 November 1866. The piece proved popular: more than 100 performances took place by the following July, the 1,000th was given there on 13 May 1894, and the 1,500th on 25 May 1919. The opera was also adapted and translated into German for performance in Berlin with Madame Lucca as Mignon. Lucca was well received, but the German critics were unhappy with the opera's alterations to the Goethe original, so Thomas composed a shor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ambroise Thomas
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (; 5 August 1811 – 12 February 1896) was a French composer and teacher, best known for his operas ''Mignon'' (1866) and ''Hamlet'' (1868). Born into a musical family, Thomas was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning France's top music prize, the Prix de Rome. He pursued a career as a composer of operas, completing his first opera, ''La double échelle'', in 1837. He wrote twenty further operas over the next decades, mostly comic, but he also treated more serious subjects, finding considerable success with audiences in France and abroad. Thomas was appointed as a professor at the Conservatoire in 1856, and in 1871 he succeeded Daniel Auber as director. Between then and his death at his home in Paris twenty-five years later, he modernised the Conservatoire's organisation while imposing a rigidly conservative curriculum, hostile to modern music, and attempting to prevent composers such as César Franck and Gabriel Fauré from influencing t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linda Di Chamounix
''Linda di Chamounix'' is an operatic ''melodramma semiserio'' in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The Italian libretto was written by Gaetano Rossi. It premiered in Vienna, at the Kärntnertortheater, on 19 May 1842. Performance history ''Linda di Chamounix'' was first presented in the UK on 1 June 1843, with its New York premiere following on 4 January 1847 at Palmo's Opera House. On 1 March 1934, the opera received its Metropolitan Opera premiere with Lily Pons in the title role. Through 25 March 1935, the Met presented the opera in seven more performances, all starring Pons. It has not been performed there since. The Teatro alla Scala produced the opera in March 1972 conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni with Margherita Rinaldi as Linda, Alfredo Kraus as Carlo and Renato Bruson as Antonio. The production was recorded on 17 March. It was given in Geneva in 1975 with the same three cast members and also recorded, as was the performance at the 1983 Wexford Opera Festival. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genoa
Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, which in 2015 became the Metropolitan City of Genoa, had 855,834 resident persons. Over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. On the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean: it is currently the busiest in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union. Genoa was the capital of Republic of Genoa, one of the most powerful maritime republics for over seven centuries, from the 11th century to 1797. Particularly from the 12th century to the 15th century, the city played a leading role in the commercial trade in Europe, becoming one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Politeama
The Teatro Politeama is a theatre in Lisbon, Portugal that opened in 1913. History Teatro Politeama was conceived by Luís António Pereira. Buying land on what is now the Rua das Portas de Santo Antão, close to the ''Coliseu dos Recreios'', a large multipurpose auditorium that was inaugurated in 1890, Pereira laid the first stone of the new theatre on 12 May 1912, having recruited the prestigious architect Miguel Ventura Terra to draw up the plans for the theatre, which had an Art Deco style. José Passos Mesquita was responsible for the construction, while interior decoration was done by the sculptor Jorge Pereira and the painters Benvindo Seia and Veloso Salgado. The theatre, with a capacity of 2264 spectators, was inaugurated on 6 December 1913 with a performance of the operetta ''Valsa de Amor'', starring Cremilda de Oliveira and Sofia Santos. The first night was attended by the first elected Portuguese President, Manuel de Arriaga. Adaptations From 1914 the theatre was a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_(c112-02-14).jpg "Click for more on -> Primadonna")
_-_Archivio_Storico_Ricordi_ICON012377.jpg "Click for more on -> Linda Di Chamounix")
