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James Henry Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson (Colonel Mapleson) (4 May 1830 – 14 November 1901) was an English opera impresario, a leading figure in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York in the mid-19th century. Born in a musical family he briefly pursued a career as a singer, before turning to management. In the 1860s he was the dominant force in London's operatic scene. At the Academy of Music in New York, from 1879 to 1883 he presented opera in an unprecedentedly glamorous style. After his early successes Mapleson failed to keep pace with changing public tastes. His productions and repertoire were seen as old-fashioned and he was no longer able to engage the top operatic stars, who were to be seen at the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden. Life and career Early years Mapleson was born in London, on 4 May 1830, the son of James Henry Mapleson (1802–1869) and his wife Elizabeth, ''née'' Rummens. Mapleson senior was, for forty years a violinist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Henry Mapleson
James Henry Mapleson (Colonel Mapleson) (4 May 1830 – 14 November 1901) was an English opera impresario, a leading figure in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York in the mid-19th century. Born in a musical family he briefly pursued a career as a singer, before turning to management. In the 1860s he was the dominant force in London's operatic scene. At the Academy of Music in New York, from 1879 to 1883 he presented opera in an unprecedentedly glamorous style. After his early successes Mapleson failed to keep pace with changing public tastes. His productions and repertoire were seen as old-fashioned and he was no longer able to engage the top operatic stars, who were to be seen at the Metropolitan Opera and Covent Garden. Life and career Early years Mapleson was born in London, on 4 May 1830, the son of James Henry Mapleson (1802–1869) and his wife Elizabeth, ''née'' Rummens. Mapleson senior was, for forty years a violinist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical Western canon, canon; the "Habanera (aria), Habanera" from act 1 and the "Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of ''opéra comique'' with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's historic and primary financial centre. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which also had an entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" has come to be used not only as the name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for both the Metropolitan Police Service itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it. ''The New York Times'' wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London. The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed build ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thames Embankment
The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment. History There had been a long history of failed proposals to embank the Thames in central London. Embankments along the Thames were first proposed by Christopher Wren in the 1660s, then in 1824 former soldier and aide to George IV, Sir Frederick Trench suggested an embankment known as 'Trench's Terrace' from Blackfriars to Charing Cross. Trench brought a bill to Parliament which was blocked by river interests. In the 1830s, the painter John Martin promoted a version, as realised later, to contain an intercepting sewer. In January 1842 the City Corporation backed a plan designed by James Walker but which was dropped due to government infighting. The government itself built the Chelsea Embankment in 1854 from Chelsea Hospital to Millbank. Started in 1862, the Victoria Embankmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Gye
Frederick Gye (the younger) (1810–1878) was an English businessman and opera manager who for many years ran what is now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Life Gye, son of Frederick Gye (the elder), was born at Finchley, Middlesex, in 1810, and educated at Frankfurt-am-Main. He assisted his father in the management of Vauxhall Gardens from about 1830, and at the same period had a contract for lighting some of the government buildings. He was afterwards associated with Monsieur Louis Antoine Jullien in the Covent Garden promenade concerts in 1846, and was his acting-manager when Jullien opened Drury Lane Theatre as an English opera house in 1847. When Edward Delafield became lessee of the Italian Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1848, Gye was appointed business manager. On 14 July 1849 Delafield was declared bankrupt; Gye, in conjunction with the artists, carried on the house for the remainder of the season as a joint-stock undertaking. In September 1849 he was the acknowled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italo Campanini
Italo Campanini (June 30, 1845 – November 14, 1896) was a leading Italian operatic tenor, whose career reached its height in London in the 1870s and in New York City in the 1880s and 1890s. He had a repertoire of 80 operas and was the brother of the orchestral conductor Cleofonte Campanini. Early days Born in Parma, Campanini studied at the Parma Conservatory before making his operatic debut as Manrico in ''Il trovatore'', in 1869, in Odessa. Further study with Francesco Lamperti in Milan followed, and in 1871 he returned to the stage in Bologna, scoring his first major success in the Italian premiere of ''Lohengrin''.Rosenthal and Warrack 1974. London beginnings Early in his 1872 Drury Lane season J. H. Mapleson, the London opera impresario, recruited Campanini from Rome, where he was in competition with the agents of Frederick Gye, the Covent Garden theatre impresario. On May 4, 1872 the tenor made his London debut as Gennaro in ''Lucrezia Borgia'', with Thérèse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christina Nilsson
Christina Nilsson, Countess de Casa Miranda, also called Christine Nilsson (20 August 1843 – 22 November 1921) was a Swedish dramatic coloratura soprano. Possessed of a pure and brilliant voice of first three then two and a half octaves trained in the bel canto technique, and noted for her graceful appearance and stage presence, she enjoyed a twenty-year career as a top-rank international singer before her 1888 retirement. A contemporary of one of the Victorian era's most famous divas, Adelina Patti, the two were often compared by reviewers and audiences, and were sometimes believed to be rivals. Nilsson became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1869. Biography Christina Nilsson was born Christina Jonasdotter in a forester's hut at Sjöabol (or Snugge) farm near Växjö, Småland, the youngest of seven children of the peasants Jonas Nilsson (1798 - 1871) and Stina Cajsa Månsdotter (1804 - 1870). As a young child she received a rudimentary education, attend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giulia Grisi
Giulia Grisi (22 May 1811 – 29 November 1869) was an Italian opera singer. She performed widely in Europe, the United States and South America and was among the leading sopranos of the 19th century.Chisholm 1911, p. ? Her second husband was Giovanni Matteo Mario de Candia (also known as "Mario the Tenor"), scion of a noble family of the Kingdom of Sardinia. She is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Her grave is marked "Juliette de Candia", styled in her married last name; usually better known by the courtesy title the Marquesse of Candia. Early life Born in Milan, Giulia Grisi was the daughter of Gaetano Grisi, one of Napoleon's Italian officers, and Giovanna née Grassini. She came from a musically gifted family, her maternal aunt Giuseppina Grassini (1773–1850) being a favourite opera singer both on the continent and in London. Her older sister, Giuditta and her cousin Carlotta were both artistes, the former as a singer and the latter as a ballet dancer. Giuditta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mario (tenor)
Giovanni Matteo De Candia, also known as Mario (17 October 1810 – 11 December 1883), was an Italian opera singer. The most celebrated tenor of his era, he was lionized by audiences in Paris and London. He was the partner of the opera singer Giulia Grisi. Early life Mario was born in Cagliari, Sardinia on 17 October 1810 as Giovanni Matteo de Candia; his inherited titles were ''Cavaliere'' (Knight), ''Nobile'' (Nobleman) and ''Don'' (Sir) in the Kingdom of Sardinia and subsequently the Kingdom of Italy. His family belonged to the Savoyard- Sardinian nobility and aristocracy, within the Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy. His relatives and parents were members of the Royal Court of Turin, while his father don Stefano, Marquess de Candia, held the ranks of military general, and Royal Governor General of Nice under the Kingdom of Sardinia, and was aide-de-camp to King Charles Felix of Sardinia (house of Savoy).De Candia, "The Romance of a Great Singer" 1910: Italian ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ema Pukšec
Ema Pukšec (February 6, 1834 – January 14, 1889), also known as Ilma de Murska, as well as Ilma di Murska, was a famous 19th-century soprano opera singer from Croatia. Life Ema Pukšec was born in Ogulin (present-day Republic of Croatia). Her mother was Krescencia Brodarotti de Trauenfeld, while her father, Josip Pukšec, was a highly respected military officer stationed in the region around the city of Slunj. For his service in protecting the eastern flanks of western Europe within the Austrian Military Frontier, her father was granted nobility and added the extension ''Murski'' to his name. The feminine variant (''de Murska'') was later used by Ema as her own surname. She began playing the piano at the age of five. After her family moved to Zagreb in 1850, she started to sing, hoping for a later opera career. She married a soldier by the name of Josip Eder in 1851, with whom they had two children (Alfons and Hermina). They moved first to Graz in 1857, then to Vienna in 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
