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Hollis Street Theatre
The Hollis Street Theatre (1885–1935) was a theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, that presented dramatic plays, opera, musical concerts, and other entertainments. Brief history Boston architect John R. Hall designed the 1,600-seat theatre in 1885, on the site of the former Hollis Street Church. The interior was designed by Zachariah Mode, who also designed the interior of the Colonial Theater in Boston. On opening night, The new theatre was crowded to-night by an audience which came from among the best people in Boston. The street was crowded with people in the afternoon, and it was almost impossible to get near the doors at the time they were opened. People holding tickets met with great difficulty in getting in, so that the audience was not entirely seated until some time after the curtain should have risen. As soon as they did get in, however, they found a roomy, gorgeous interior fitted up with every attention to comfort and decorated brightly in gold, blue, and white. Most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritzi Scheff
Fritzi Scheff (born Friederike Scheff; August 30, 1879 – April 8, 1954) was an American actress and singer. Biography Born Friederike Scheff in Vienna to Dr. Gottfried Scheff and Anna Yeager, she studied at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. She made her debut on January 10, 1897 in Nuremberg. She debuted in Munich at the Royal Opera House. In 1901 she first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, singing rôles in ''La Bohème'', ''Die Meistersinger'', ''Die Walküre'', and ''Don Giovanni''. She sang in the Victor Herbert operetta ''Babette'' at Washington, D.C. and New York (1903). Toward the end of the 1904-05 season, Scheff became ill and was replaced by her understudy Ida Hawley to close out the remaining performances of ''Babette''. Scheff had immense success as Fifi in ''Mlle. Modiste'' (1905–1908, 1913) and appeared also in '' The Prima Donna'' (1908), ''The Mikado'' (1910), '' The Duchess'' (1911), and ''The Love Wager'' (1912). From 1913-18, sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Devil's Disciple (play)
''The Devil's Disciple'' is an 1897 play written by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw. The play is Shaw's eighth, and after Richard Mansfield's original 1897 American production it was his first financial success, which helped to affirm his career as a playwright. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection ''Three Plays for Puritans'' together with ''Captain Brassbound's Conversion'' and '' Caesar and Cleopatra''. Set in Colonial America during the Revolutionary era, the play tells the story of Richard Dudgeon, a local outcast and self-proclaimed "Devil's disciple". In a twist characteristic of Shaw's love of paradox, Dudgeon sacrifices himself in a Christ-like gesture despite his professed infernal allegiance. Plot summary The setting is in the Fall of 1777, during the Saratoga Campaign. Act I Dick Dudgeon is an outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire. He returns their hatred with scorn. After the death of his father, Dick returns to his child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whigs (British political party), Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866. Bulwer-Lytton's works sold and paid him well. He coined famous phrases like "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the almighty dollar", "the pen is mightier than the sword", "Guardian of the Threshold, dweller on the threshold", and the opening phrase "It was a dark and stormy night." The sardonic Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held annually since 1982, claims to seek the "opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels". Life Bulwer was born on 25 May 1803 to General ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault (né Boursiquot; 26 December 1820 – 18 September 1890) was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. Although ''The New York Times'' hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century," he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, had applied for and received American citizenship in 1873. Life and career Early life Boucicault was born Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot in Dublin, where he lived on Gardiner Street. His mother was Anne Darley, sister of the poet and mathematician George Darley. The Darleys were an important Anglo-Irish Dublin family influential in many fields and related to the Guinnesses by marriage. Anne was married to Samuel Smith Boursiquot, of Huguenot ancestry, but the identi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncle Tom's Cabin
''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the mericanCivil War". Stowe, a Connecticut-born woman of English descent, was part of the religious Beecher family and an active abolitionist. She wrote the sentimental novel to depict the reality of slavery while also asserting that Christian love could overcome slavery. The novel focuses on the character of Uncle Tom, a long-suffering black slave around whom the stories of the other characters revolve. In the United States, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' was the best-selling novel and the second best-selling book of the 19th century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The influence attributed to the book was so great that a likely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorien Sardou
Victorien Sardou ( , ; 5 September 18318 November 1908) was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play. He also wrote several plays that were made into popular 19th-century operas such as ''La Tosca'' (1887) on which Giacomo Puccini's opera ''Tosca'' (1900) is based, and ''Fédora'' (1882) and '' Madame Sans-Gêne'' (1893) that provided the subjects for the lyrical dramas '' Fedora'' (1898) and '' Madame Sans-Gêne'' (1915) by Umberto Giordano. His play ''Gismonda'', from 1894, was also adapted into an opera of the same name by Henry Février. Early years Victorien Sardou was born at 16 rue Beautreillis (), Paris on 5 September 1831. The Sardous were settled at Le Cannet, a village near Cannes, where they owned an estate, planted with olive trees. A night's frost killed all the trees and the family was ruined. Victorien's father, Antoine Léandre Sardou, came to Paris in search of employment. He was in su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Twelfth Night
''Twelfth Night'', or ''What You Will'' is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–1602 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is disguised as Cesario) falls in love with the Duke Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia. Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love with her thinking she is a man. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. The first recorded public performance was on 2 February 1602, at Candlemas, the formal end of Christmastide in the year's calendar. The play was not published until its inclusion in the 1623 First Folio. Characters * Viola – a shipwrecked young woman who disguises herself a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helena Modjeska
Helena Modrzejewska (; born Jadwiga Benda; 12 October 1840 – 8 April 1909), known professionally as Helena Modjeska, was a Polish actress who specialized in Shakespearean and tragic roles. She was successful first on the Polish stage. After emigrating to the United States (and despite her poor command of English), she also succeeded on stage in America and London. She is regarded as the greatest actress in the history of theatre in Poland. Early life Helena Modjeska was born in Kraków, Poland, on 12 October 1840. Her birth name was recorded as Jadwiga Benda, but she was later baptized Helena Opid, under her godfather's surname. Modjeska's parentage is unclear. Her mother was Józefa (Misel) Benda, the widow of a prosperous Kraków merchant, Szymon Benda. In her autobiography, Modjeska claimed that her father was a musician named Michael Opid. The Benda family did employ a music teacher named Michal Opid, who later stood as Helena's godfather, however Opid did not father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Genée
Franz Friedrich Richard Genée (7 February 1823 – 15 June 1895) was a Prussian born Austrian librettist, playwright, and composer. Life Genée was born in Danzig. He died at Baden bei Wien. Works He is most famous for the libretto of ''Die Fledermaus'', Johann Strauss II's most famous operetta. He co-wrote the libretto without having met top-billed librettist Karl Haffner, who constructed the new story based on a play by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, which was considered too shocking to perform outside Paris. Genée, however, wrote the operetta's actual text and drew nothing from Haffner beyond the names of the characters. Andrew Lamb. Liner Notes, ''Die Fledermaus'', EMI/Angel Records, 1986 One of his best-known works was the libretto of Karl Millöcker's operetta ''Der Bettelstudent'', which he co-wrote with Friedrich Zell (the pseudonym of Camillo Walzel). He also wrote the libretto to Ella Adayevskaya's 1877 opera ''Zarya''. In 1857 he was conductor of the philhar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hattie Delaro
Hattie Delaro (1861 – April 18, 1941) was an American actress. She had a career in theater, then became an actress in silent film in the 1910s and 1920s. Delaro was born in Brooklyn. Delaro debuted on stage in 1881 at Brooklyn's Grand Opera House "in a repertory of comic operas". She portrayed Melissa in the first authorized New York production of Gilbert and Sullivan's ''Princess Ida'' in 1884 and an 1885 production of ''The Mikado ''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan, operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, whe ...'' at Hollis Street Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1888, she was in the production '' The Queen's Mate''. Her other Broadway credits included ''The Pearl of Pekin'' (1889), ''Mam'selle 'Awkins'' (1900), and '' Babes in Toyland'' (1903) She began her film career in 1913 short film '' Love i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signor Brocolini
John Clark, better known as Signor Brocolini (September 26, 1841 – June 7, 1906), was an Irish-born American operatic singer and actor remembered for creating the role of the Pirate King in the original New York City production of ''The Pirates of Penzance'' by Gilbert and Sullivan, in 1879–80. After moving to Brooklyn, New York, as a child, Brocolini became interested in baseball and music. He began his career in the early 1870s as a journalist, then a baseball player, while also beginning a part-time singing career. After brief study in Italy in 1875, he was engaged to sing opera in London and on tour by James Henry Mapleson, adopting his stage name from the borough of Brooklyn, and Italianizing it. In 1879, he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with which he returned to the United States, where he originated the role of the Pirate King. Over the next decade, he mostly toured in America, briefly visiting Australia, and played mostly in Gilbert and Sullivan roles, often w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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