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Michele Pertusi
Michele Pertusi is an Italian opera singer ( bass) born in Parma on January 12, 1965. He studied at the Conservatory of Parma with Mauro Uberti, and obtained an advanced degree in singing and piano. He also followed the teaching of Carlo Bergonzi, Arrigo Pola and Rodolfo Celetti. He began his career on December 19, 1984, at the municipal theater of Modena with the role of Silva in '' Ernani'', at only 19 years old, after winning the "voci verdiane" competition. He quickly sang on the great Italian (Rome, Milan, Parma, Modena ...) and international (Paris, New York, Geneva, Staatsoper in Vienna, Berlin, Lyon, Brussels, Lausanne ...) stages where he tackled the great roles in the Verdean repertoire ( ''Falstaff'' among others, for which he obtained a Grammy Award but also Oberto, conte di San bonifaccio, Verdi's first opera, in 2005), Mozartian (Leporello, Don Alfonso, Figaro ...), bel canto with Rossini (Alidoro, Assur, Mustafa ...); Bellini (''I puritani'', ''La sonnambu ...
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Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ...
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Lausanne
, neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), Maxilly-sur-Léman (FR-74), Montpreveyres, Morrens, Neuvecelle (FR-74), Prilly, Pully, Renens, Romanel-sur-Lausanne, Saint-Sulpice, Savigny , twintowns = Lausanne ( , , , ) ; it, Losanna; rm, Losanna. is the capital and largest city of the Swiss French speaking canton of Vaud. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway between the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and facing the French town of Évian-les-Bains across the lake. Lausanne is located northeast of Geneva, the nearest major city. The municipality of Lausanne has a population of about 140,000, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland after Basel, Geneva, and Zurich, with the entire agglomeration area having about 420,000 inhabit ...
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Don Pasquale
''Don Pasquale'' () is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti with an Italian libretto completed largely by Giovanni Ruffini as well as the composer. It was based on a libretto by Angelo Anelli for Stefano Pavesi's opera '' Ser Marcantonio'' written in 1810 but, on the published libretto, the author appears as "M.A." Donizetti so dominated the preparation of the libretto that Ruffini refused to allow his name to be put on the score. This resulted in confusion over the identity of the librettist for more than half a century, but as Herbert Weinstock establishes, it was largely Ruffini's work and, in withholding his name from it as librettist, "Donizetti or is assistantAccursi may have thought that, lacking Ruffini's name, the authorship might as well be assigned to Accursi's initials as to a pseudonym". The opera was first performed on 3 January 1843 by the Théâtre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour in Paris with great success and it is generally reg ...
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Lucia Di Lammermoor
''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''. Donizetti wrote ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' in 1835, when he was reaching the peak of his reputation as an opera composer. Gioachino Rossini had recently retired and Vincenzo Bellini had died shortly before the premiere of ''Lucia'' leaving Donizetti as "the sole reigning genius of Italian opera".Mackerras, p. 29 Not only were conditions ripe for Donizetti's success as a composer, but there was also a widespread interest in the history and culture of Scotland. The perceived romance of its violent wars and feuds, as well as its folklore and mythology, intrigued 19th century readers and audiences. Sir Walter Scott dramatized these elements in his novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor'', which inspired several musical works including ''Lucia''.Mackerra ...
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Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his residency there until productio ...
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La Sonnambula
''La sonnambula'' (''The Sleepwalker'') is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the '' bel canto'' tradition by Vincenzo Bellini set to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ''ballet-pantomime'' written by Eugène Scribe and choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer called ''La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur''. The ballet had premiered in Paris in September 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism. The role of Amina was originally written for the soprano sfogato Giuditta Pasta and the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, but during Bellini's lifetime another soprano sfogato, Maria Malibran, was a notable exponent of the role. The first performance took place at the Teatro Carcano in Milan on 6 March 1831. The majority of twentieth-century recordings have been made with a soprano cast as Amina, usually with added top-notes and other changes according to tradition, although it was released in soprano sfogat ...
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I Puritani
' (''The Puritans'') is an 1835 opera by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and later changed to three acts on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the young composer had become friends. The music was set to a libretto by Count Carlo Pepoli, an Italian émigré poet whom Bellini had met at a salon run by the exile Princess Belgiojoso, which became a meeting place for many Italian revolutionaries. The opera is based on ''Têtes Rondes et Cavaliers'' (''Roundheads and Cavaliers''), a historical play written by Jacques-François Ancelot and Joseph Xavier Saintine and set in the English Civil War, which some sources state was based on Walter Scott's 1816 novel ''Old Mortality,'' while others state that there is no connection. When Bellini arrived in Paris in mid-August 1833, he had intended to stay only about three weeks, the main aim being to continue the negotiations with the Paris Opéra which had begun on his way to London a few months earlier. Howe ...
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Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania". Many years later, in 1898, Giuseppe Verdi "praised the broad curves of Bellini's melody: 'there are extremely long melodies as no-one else had ever made before'." A large amount of what is known about Bellini's life and his activities comes from surviving letters—except for a short period—which were written over his lifetime to his friend Francesco Florimo, whom he had met as a fellow student in Naples and with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Other sources of information come from correspondence saved by other friends and business acquaintances. Bellini was the quintessential composer of the Italian '' bel canto'' era of the early 19th century, and his work has been summed up by the London critic Tim Ashley as: ... also hugely influential, as much a ...
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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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Bel Canto
Bel canto (Italian for "beautiful singing" or "beautiful song", )—with several similar constructions (''bellezze del canto'', ''bell'arte del canto'')—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing. The phrase was not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt definition f bel cantountil after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition. History of the term and its various definitions As generally understood today, the term ''bel canto'' refers to the Italian-originated vocal style that prevailed throughout most of Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Late 19th- and 20th-century sources "would lead us to believe that ''bel canto'' was restricted to ...
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ...
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Oberto (opera)
''Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio'' is an opera in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an existing libretto by probably called ''Rocester''.David Kimbell 2001, in Holden, p. 977 It was Verdi's first opera, written over a period of four years, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 17 November 1839. The La Scala production enjoyed "a fair success" and the theatre's impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, commissioned two further operas from the young composer. Composition history During his student days in Milan, Verdi began the process of making connections to the world of music in that city which were to stand him in good stead. These included an introduction by his teacher Lavigna to an amateur choral group, the Società Filarmonica, where he functioned as rehearsal director and continuo player for Haydn's '' The Creation'' in 1834, as well as conducting Rossini's ''La cenerentola'' himself the following year. 1836 saw hi ...
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