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Graciela Rivera
Graciela Rivera (17 April 1921 – 17 July 2011) was the first Puerto Rican to sing a lead role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Early years Graciela Rivera was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. She was the seventh of eight children born to evangelical minister-cabinetmaker Gonzalo Salvador Rivera and Enriqueta Padilla. As a child she enjoyed singing. As a church pastor, her father who would often play in his record player the opera music of Caruso. He owned a piano and when he played she would sing church hymns with her mother. She was considered very talented by her family and teachers alike. Her family moved to Cataño and later to Santurce, a section of San Juan, where she finished her primary and secondary education. She was a student at Santurce Central High School when she auditioned and participated in school productions of "The Magic Flute", "Il trovatore", "Rigoletto", "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Aida" (Ms. Rivera believes these were the first operas ever produced ...
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Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1692Some publications/reporters have erroneously stated Ponce's date of founding as 12 December 1692 (see, for example, Jose Fernandez-Colon, The Associated Press, at "Noticias Online" on 24 January 2009, a''Noticias Puerto Rico.''Accessed 23 March 2019.) Another incorrect date sometimes found is 12 September 1692 (See, for example, Jorge L. Perez (El Nuevo Dia) and Jorge Figueroa (Ponce Municipal Historian), a''Historic Buildings and Structures in Ponce, Puerto Rico.'' at the text accompanying Drawing #20, titled "Tumba de los Bomberos". Puerto Rico Historic Buildings Drawings Society. 2019. Accessed 4 February 2019. See als''Mapa de Municipios y Barrios: Ponce, Memoria Numero 27.'' Gobierno del Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. Junta d ...
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Lucia Dunham
Lucia Dunham (died April 3, 1959, Paramus, New Jersey) was an American voice teacher, classical soprano, and academic writer on singing and diction who is chiefly remembered as a longtime professor of vocal performance at the Juilliard School from 1922-1956. Life Born in New York City, she studied voice at the National Conservatory of Music of America and then the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School) where she earned a diploma in 1909 and was a voice student of Adrian Freni, George Henschel, and Milka Ternina. She became a resident artist at the Paris Opera where she continued training with Alfred Giraudet. She pursued further studies with Lilli Lehmann in Salzburg and at the University of California, Berkeley where she also taught as a member of the voice faculty prior to her post at Juilliard. At Berkeley she collaborated closely with musicologist Charles Seeger, and gave recitals of folk songs that were collected and/or arranged by him. She left California afte ...
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Marguerite Piazza
Marguerite Piazza (May 6, 1920 – August 2, 2012) was an American soprano, entertainer and philanthropist from New Orleans, Louisiana. Early life In 1920, Piazza was born as Marguerite Clair Lucille Luft. Piazza's parents were Albert William Luft, Jr. (c. 1897–September 12, 1923) and Margherita (née Piazza; c. 1900–1958, later known as Margaret), who wed on January 24, 1917. Around 1927, Piazza's mother Margaret Luft wed Reuben Davis Breland, whose surname Marguerite adopted. Education In 1940, Piazza earned a degree from Loyola University of the South's College of Music. Piazza attended Louisiana State University, where she was a student of the baritone Pasquale Amato. Career Piazza was the first Queen of the Krewe of Virgilians during Mardi Gras in her native New Orleans. In 1944, she joined the New York City Opera, and was the youngest member of the company. Her first role was Nedda in ''Pagliacci'', and in subsequent seasons appeared in ''La bohème'' (as Muse ...
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Your Show Of Shows
''Your Show of Shows'' is a live 90-minute variety show that was broadcast weekly in the United States on NBC from February 25, 1950, through June 5, 1954, featuring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Other featured performers were Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Bill Hayes, baritone singer Jack Russell, Judy Johnson, The Hamilton Trio and the soprano Marguerite Piazza. José Ferrer made several guest appearances on the series. In 2002, ''Your Show of Shows'' was ranked #30 on ''TV Guide''s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, it was ranked #37 on ''TV Guide''s 60 Best Series of All Time. In 2007, Time placed ''Your Show of Shows'' on its unranked list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME.” In 2013, ''Your Show of Shows'' was ranked #10 on ''Entertainment Weekly''’s Top 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked ''Your'' ''Show of Shows'' #41 on its list of the "101 Best Written TV Series of All Time.” Production The 90-minute live serie ...
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Name That Tune
''Name That Tune'' is an American television music game show. Originally created and produced by orchestra conductor Harry Salter and his wife Roberta Semple Salter, the series features contestants competing to correctly identify songs being played by an on-stage orchestra or band. ''Name That Tune'' premiered on the NBC Radio Network in 1952, where it aired until 1954, and made the move to television in 1953 on the same network. CBS picked up the television series in the summer of 1953 and carried it through 1959. A short-lived revival for syndication followed in 1970 with Richard Hayes as host, but a second revival in 1974 was much more successful. Airing weekly, the 1974 syndicated offering used a new show format and, beginning in 1976, offered a top prize of $100,000 to a lucky champion (after which the show became known as ''The $100,000 Name That Tune''). Tom Kennedy hosted this series, which ran until 1981 and began airing twice weekly during its final season. During ...
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New York 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 ...
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Manuel Fernández Juncos
Manuel Fernández Juncos (December 11, 1846 – August 18, 1928) was a Spanish-born, Puerto Rican journalist, poet, author and humanitarian who wrote the official lyrics to La Borinqueña, Puerto Rico's official anthem. Early years Fernández Juncos was born in Tresmonte, a section of Ribadesella, Asturias, Spain. Orphaned at an early age, he arrived in Puerto Rico in 1858 aboard a Spanish vessel. Fernández-Juncos became a Puerto Rican by adopting the island as his country and where he was to spend the rest of his life.El Nuevo Dia
Manuel Fernandez Juncos School
Fernández Juncos met Dr.

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New Orleans Opera
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to theaters hosting traveling performers and companies. Earlier opera houses Operas were staged at a variety of theaters in the city, the first documented was André Grétry's ''Sylvain'' at the Theatre de la Rue Saint Pierre on 22 May 1796. On 30 January 1808, the Théâtre St. Philippe was opened with the U.S. premiere of Étienne Méhul's ''Une folie''. The U.S. premiere of Luigi Cherubini's ''Les deux journées'' took place at this theater on 12 March 1811. The city's most famous opera venue between 1819 and 1859 was the Théâtre d'Orléans. That theater was succeeded in 1859 by the French Opera House, located on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Living in a cosmopolitan city, New Orleans' inhabitants, whether high in sta ...
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Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ...
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The Barber Of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ''The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera ''The Marriage of Fi ...
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Die Fledermaus
' (, ''The Flittermouse'' or ''The Bat'', sometimes called ''The Revenge of the Bat'') is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée, which premiered in 1874. Background The original literary source for ' was ' (''The Prison''), a farce by German playwright Julius Roderich Benedix that premiered in Berlin in 1851. On 10 September 1872, a three-act French vaudeville play by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, ', loosely based on the Benedix farce, opened at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. Meilhac and Halévy had provided several successful libretti for Offenbach and ''Le Réveillon'' later formed the basis for the 1926 silent film '' So This Is Paris'', directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Meilhac and Halévy's play was soon translated into German by Karl Haffner (1804–1876), at the instigation of Max Steiner, as a non-musical play for production in Vienna. The French custom of a New Year's Eve ''réveillon'', or supper party ...
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Johann Strauss II
Johann Baptist Strauss II (25 October 1825 – 3 June 1899), also known as Johann Strauss Jr., the Younger or the Son (german: links=no, Sohn), was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as "The Waltz King", and was largely responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century. Some of Johann Strauss's most famous works include "The Blue Danube", "Kaiser-Walzer" (Emperor Waltz), "Tales from the Vienna Woods", "Frühlingsstimmen", and the "Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka". Among his operettas, ''Die Fledermaus'' and ''Der Zigeunerbaron'' are the best known. Strauss was the son of Johann Strauss I and his first wife Maria Anna Streim. Two younger brothers, Josef and Eduard Strauss, also became composers of light music, although they were never as well known as their brot ...
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