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Le Cocu Imaginaire
''Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold'' (french: Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu imaginaire) is a one-act comedy in verse by Molière. It was first performed on 28 May 1660 at the Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon in Paris to great success. Molière himself played the role of Sganarelle at the premiere and continued to perform it throughout his career. The story deals with the consequences of jealously and hasty assumptions in a farcical series of quarrels and misunderstandings involving Sganarelle (the imagined cuckold of the title), his wife, and the young lovers, Célie and Lélie. History Although there are no direct literary sources for the play, ''The Imaginary Cuckold'' was influenced by both the French farce and the Italian ''commedia dell'arte'' traditions with the story unfolding over 24 scenes written in alexandrine verse. Molière wrote the character of Sganarelle as a vehicle for himself and played him in the premiere. The Sganarelle character first appeared in his 1645 play ''Le M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world literature. His extant works include comedies, farces, tragicomedies, comédie-ballets, and more. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed at the Comédie-Française more often than those of any other playwright today. His influence is such that the French language is often referred to as the "language of Molière". Born into a prosperous family and having studied at the Collège de Clermont (now Lycée Louis-le-Grand), Molière was well suited to begin a life in the theatre. Thirteen years as an itinerant actor helped him polish his comedic abilities while he began writing, combining Commedia dell'arte elements with the more refined French comedy. Through the patronage of aristocrats including ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marquise-Thérèse De Gorla
Marquise-Thérèse de Gorla, also known under her stage name Mademoiselle Du Parc (1633 – Paris, 11 December 1668), was a French actress and ballet dancer. She was one of the stars of Molière's company. She was also known for her love affairs and as an object of affection for many famous people. Biography She was the daughter of Giacomo Gorla, who was an "operator" in Lyon in 1635. She seems to have started as a dancer and actress in a travelling troupe, before becoming a member of Molière's company in the city of Lyon. On February 23, 1653 she married one of her colleagues in the troupe, René Berthelot, who used the stage names Du Parc and, more descriptive, Gros-René (fat René). After the marriage she took on the stage name Mlle. Du Parc. He was an actor who specialized in playing the roles of servants, such as La Montagne in Molière's ''Les fâcheux'' (The Pests). Du Parc was the subject of poems by Corneille; rumors appeared of both Pierre and brother Thomas Corneill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Signor Deluso
''Signor Deluso'' is an opera buffa in one act composed by Thomas Pasatieri. The English-language libretto, written by the composer, is loosely based on Molière's 1660 comedy ''Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu imaginaire'' ("Sganarelle, or The Imaginary Cuckold"). It premiered on 27 July 1974 at the Madeira School auditorium in McLean, Virginia performed by the Wolf Trap Opera Company. It has been subsequently performed many times by various small opera companies in the United States and Europe. In a review of a 2008 revival in Washington, D.C., Anne Midgette described it as "an exuberant sendup of over-the-top comic opera plots, filled with effusive lovers leaping with alacrity to wrong conclusions in floods of extreme vocalism." Background and performance history A commission from the Juilliard School of Music, the opera was composed when Pasatieri was 28. He chose the subject after reading Molière's ''Sganarelle, ou Le Cocu imaginaire''. He wrote the libretto himself and completed th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Violet Archer
Violet Louise Archer (24 April 191321 February 2000) was a Canadian composer, teacher, pianist, organist, and percussionist. Born Violet Balestreri in Montreal, Quebec, in 1913, her family changed their name to Archer in 1940. She died in Ottawa on 21 February 2000. Education and teaching career Archer earned an L MUS from McGill University in 1934, and a B MUS from McGill in 1936 where she studied composition with Douglas Clarke. She travelled to New York City in the summer of 1942 where she studied with Béla Bartók, "who introduced her to Hungarian folk tunes and to variation technique. She taught at the McGill Conservatory from 1944 to 1947. Later in the 1940s she studied with Paul Hindemith at Yale. She earned a B MUS from Yale in 1948, and a M MUS also from Yale in 1949. From 1950 to 1953 Archer was Composer-in-Residence at the University of North Texas. From 1953 through 1961 she taught at the University of Oklahoma. Returning to Canada in 1961 for doctoral study at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Kaufmann (composer)
Walter Kaufmann (1 April 1907 – 9 September 1984) was a composer, conducting, conductor, ethnomusicologist, librettist and educator. Born in Karlovy Vary, Karlsbad, Kingdom of Bohemia, Bohemia (at that time part of Austria-Hungary), he trained in Prague and Berlin before fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews to work in Mumbai, Bombay until Indian Independence. He then moved to London and Canada before settling in the USA as a professor of musicology at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana in 1957. In 1964, he became a United States nationality law, naturalized U.S. citizen. Biography Kaufmann was born in Karlovy Vary to Julius and Josefine Antonia. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin training under Franz Schreker and Curt Sachs between 1927 and 1930. He then studied in Prague under Gustav Becking and Paul Nettl (father of the musicologist Bruno Nettl). While a student he met and became friends with Albert Einstein. He graduated in 1934 with a dissertation on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamber Opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergolesi's ''La serva padrona'' (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas. Other 20th-century examples include Gustav Holst's '' Savitri'' (1916). Benjamin Britten wrote works in this category in the 1940s when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces. ''The Rape of Lucretia'' (1946) was his first example in the genre, and Britten followed it with ''Albert Herring'' (1947), ''The Turn of the Screw'' (1954) and ''Curlew River'' (1964). Other composers, including Hans Werner Henze, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, William Walton, and Philip Glass have written in this genre. Instrumentation for chamber operas vary: Britten scored ''The Rape ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Miller (playwright)
James Miller (1704–1744) was an English playwright, poet, librettist, and minister. Biography Miller was born in Bridport, Dorset on 11 August 1704, the son of a clergyman who possessed two considerable livings in the county. He studied at Wadham College, Oxford, and while there wrote part of his famous comedy, '' The Humours of Oxford'', which contained music by Richard Charke and was first performed on 9 January 1730, to great success. Miller's family was somewhat unsupportive of his theatrical endeavors. They had wanted him to pursue a career in business, but Miller showed a revulsion to such a path. He therefore was persuaded to follow in his father's profession as a minister, taking holy orders soon after he left Wadham. Miller became a lecturer at Trinity College, Conduit Street and a preacher at Roehampton Chapel. The livings for these positions however did not provide for the lifestyle that Miller was accustomed to, so he continued to write for the stage to supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass (liturgy), Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word ''wiktionary:libro#Italian, libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of ''The Beggar's Opera'', which has since become popular as a folk song and a nursery rhyme. Arne was a leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at the West End's Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He wrote many operatic entertainments for the London theatres and pleasure gardens, as well as concertos, sinfonias, and sonatas. Early life Arne was born on March 12th, 1710 in Covent Garden and baptised at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Arne's father and grandfather were both upholsterers and both held office in the Worshipful Company of Upholders of the City of London. His grandfather fell on hard times and died in the debtors' prison of Marshalsea. His father earned enough money not only to rent 31 King Street, a large house in Covent Garden, but also t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballad Opera
The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its distinguishing characteristic is the use of tunes in a popular style (either pre-existing or newly composed) with spoken dialogue. These English plays were 'operas' mainly insofar as they satirized the conventions of the imported ''opera seria''. Music critic Peter Gammond describes the ballad opera as "an important step in the emancipation of both the musical stage and the popular song." Earliest ballad operas Ballad opera has been called an "eighteenth-century protest against the Italian conquest of the London operatic scene."M. Lubbock, ''The Complete Book of Light Opera'' (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962), pp. 467–68 It consists of racy and often satirical spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that are deliberately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum. Biography Early life Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of the Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and Mayor of Oxford. He was baptised on 3 March, his godfather sometimes being said to have been William Shakespeare, who, according to John Aubrey, had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels between London and Stratford-upon-Avon.Edmond, M., ''Yeomen, Citizens, Gentlemen, and Players: The Burbages and Their Connections'', R. B. Parker (ed), ''Elizabethan Theater: Essays in Honor of S. Schoenbaum'', University o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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