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La Perle Du Brésil
''La Perle du Brésil'' (''The Pearl of Brazil'') is an 1851 in 3 acts by composer Félicien David to a French-language libretto by J. Gabriel and . Performance history The opera was premiered on 22 November 1851 by the Opéra-National under Edmond Seveste at the Théâtre Historique on the Boulevard du Temple. Hector Berlioz described it as "sometimes good, often bad and in all, of little advantage to the composer". Nevertheless, it was the company's first popular success, being given an unusually long run of 68 performances during the next three years. A revised version of the opera was produced in 1858–59 by the same company under its new name, Théâtre Lyrique, and its new director, Léon Carvalho, with his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Zora, and again in 1863–64 at their new theatre on the Place du Châtelet, for a total of 144 performances. It was revived at the second Salle Favart by the Opéra-Comique under Léon Carvalho on 17 May 1883 with new spoken dialogue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Félicien David
Félicien-César David (13 April 1810 – 29 August 1876) was a French composer. Biography Félicien David was born in Cadenet, and began to study music at the age of five under his father, whose death when the boy was six left him an impoverished orphan. His good voice enabled him to study as a choirboy at the Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur in Aix-en-Provence, which he left at the age of 15 with a sound knowledge of music, and a scholarship which enabled him to study literature at a Jesuit college. However, after three years, he abandoned these studies to pursue a musical career. He first obtained a position in the orchestra of the theatre at Aix. In 1829, he became ''maître de chapelle'' at Aix Cathedral, Saint-Sauveur, but realised that to complete his musical education he needed to study at Paris. An allowance of 50 francs per month from a rich uncle made this possible. In Paris in 1830 he convinced Luigi Cherubini, the director of the Conservatoire de Paris, Conservatoire, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini (29 June 1871 – 28 April 1940) was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame. Tetrazzini "had a scintillating voice with a brilliant timbre and a range and agility well beyond the norm...". She enjoyed a highly successful operatic and concert career in Europe and America from the 1890s through to the 1920s. Her voice lives on in recordings made from 1904–1920. She wrote a memoir, ''My Life of Song'', in 1921 and a treatise, ''How to Sing'', in 1923. After retirement, she taught voice in her homes in Milan and Rome until her death. Biography Early life Tetrazzini was born on 29 June 1871, in Florence, Italy. Her father was a tailor and she had two sisters and two brothers. Reportedly, she began singing at the age of three. Luisa herself recalled singing early on as a child and reminisced that her father was the first person to ever compare her to the famous bel canto soprano, Adelina Patti. Luisa first studied singing with her oldest si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coloratura
Coloratura ( , , ; , from ''colorata'', the past participle of the verb ''colorare'', 'to color') is a passage of music holding elaboration to a melody. The elaboration usually takes the form of runs, trills, wide leaps or other virtuoso material,''Oxford American Dictionaries''.Apel (1969), p. 184. and the melody is obscured during the passage. The term is mostly applied to vocal music; in instrumental music such passages are called ornamentation. Coloratura is often found in operatic music of the 18th and 19th centuries. Operatic roles in which coloratura plays a large part, and their singers, are also called coloratura.Steane, J. B.; Jander, Owen, "Coloratura" in Sadie (1992) 1: 907. History The term ''coloratura'' was first defined in several early non-Italian music dictionaries: Michael Praetorius's ''Syntagma musicum'' (1618); Sébastien de Brossard's ''Dictionaire de musique'' (1703); and Johann Gottfried Walther's ''Musicalisches Lexicon'' (1732). In these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obbligato
In Western classical music, ''obbligato'' (, also spelled ''obligato'') usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking '' ad libitum''. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified instrument, without changes or omissions. The word is borrowed from Italian (an adjective meaning ''mandatory''; from Latin ''obligatus'' p.p. of '' obligare'', to oblige); the spelling ''obligato'' is not acceptable in British English, but it is often used as an alternative spelling in the US. The word can stand on its own, in English, as a noun, or appear as a modifier in a noun phrase (e.g. ''organ obbligato''). The term has also come to refer to a countermelody. Independence ''Obbligato'' includes the idea of independence, as in C. P. E. Bach's 1780 Symphonies (with twelve ''obbligato'' parts) by which Bach was referring to the independent w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Pasternack
Josef Alexander Pasternack (7 July 1881 – 29 April 1940) was a conductor and composer in the first half of the 20th century. Biography He was born in Częstochowa, Poland in 1881, the eldest son of Sigmund and Dora Pasternack. He had two younger brothers, Samuel and David. His father and grandfather had been bandmasters in Poland and he began the study of the violin at age four, under his father's tutelage. At age ten he entered the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, where he initially studied piano and composition. He also took up the study of a new instrument each month, so that by the time he left the Conservatory he could play every instrument in the orchestra except the harp. At age 15 he came to the United States with his two brothers and father. Initially he worked in a hotel restaurant as a busboy. One day when the violin player for the hotel band did not come to work, he informed the bandleader that he was capable of filling in. He ran home and got his violin and retu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amelita Galli-Curci
Amelita Galli-Curci (18 November 1882 – 26 November 1963) was an Italian lyric coloratura soprano. She was one of the most famous operatic singers of the 20th century and a popular recording artist, with her records selling in large numbers. Early life She was born as Amelita Galli into an upper-middle-class Italian family of Spanish heritage in Milan, where she studied piano at the Milan Conservatory, winning a gold medal for piano performance, and at the age of 16 was offered a professorship. She was inspired to sing by her grandmother. Operatic composer Pietro Mascagni also encouraged Galli-Curci's singing ambitions. By her own choice, Galli-Curci's voice was largely self-trained at the beginning of her career. She honed her technique by listening to other sopranos, reading old singing-method books, and doing piano exercises with her voice instead of using a keyboard. During the 1920s and '30s, she was coached by Estelle Liebling in New York City. Career Galli-Curci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Fransella
Albert Fransella (17 March 1865 – 7 March 1935) was a virtuoso flutist and principal flutist of Dutch and British orchestras between 1880 and 1925. Biography Fransella was born in Amsterdam of Dutch parentage but Italian extraction. His mother died when Fransella was just one year old. Fransella only had one lung. Despite this, he learnt to play the flute, and piano, from his father Jacob, a professor of music, and Jacques de Jong, flautist to the King of Holland. At fifteen he appeared at a concert given for Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and was, at that time, second flute in one of the Amsterdam Orchestras. A year later he was appointed as first flute with the Utrecht Orchestra. In 1881 he played for Johannes Brahms, who was enthusiastic about Fransella's playing, saying that a brilliant career lay before the youth. He came to England from The Netherlands in 1884 at the age of nineteen when he was appointed as principal flautist with the Scottish Orc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruth Vincent
Ruth Vincent (born Amy Ruth Bunn, 3 December 1873Baptism of Amy Ruth Bunn (1879) via Ancestry.com – 8 July 1955) was an English opera singer and actress, best remembered for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1890s and her roles in the West End theatre, West End during the first decade of the 20th century, particularly her role as Sophia in ''Tom Jones (Edward German), Tom Jones''. Vincent joined D'Oyly Carte in 1894 in the chorus at the age of 17. She began to play small roles in 1896, taking on larger roles in Gilbert and Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below middle C to the G above middle C (i.e. B2 to G4) in choral music, and from the second B flat below middle C to the C above middle C (B2 to C5) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of tenor include the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word '' tenere'', which means "to hold". As noted in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the enor was thestructurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that sang such parts. All other voices were normally calculated in relation to the ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass (voice Type)
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to '' The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4). Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system. Italians favour subdividing basses into the ''basso cantante'' (singing bass), ''basso buffo'' (comical bass), or the dramatic ''basso profondo'' (deep bass). The American system identifies the bass-baritone, comic bass, lyric bass, and dramatic bass. The German '' Fach'' system offers further distinctions: Spielbass (Bassbuffo), Schwerer Spielbass (Schwerer Bassbuffo), Charakterbass (Bassbariton), and Seriöser Bass. These classifications tend to describe roles rather than singers: it is rare for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral music, or to soprano C (C6) or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura soprano, coloratura, soubrette, lyric soprano, lyric, spinto soprano, spinto, and dramatic soprano, dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word ''wikt:sopra, sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as the soprano is the highest pitch human voice, often given to the leading female roles in operas. "Soprano" refers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
