|
Mitridate
''Mitridate, re di Ponto'' ('' Mithridates, King of Pontus''), K. 87 (74a), is an opera seria in three acts by the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto is by , after Giuseppe Parini's Italian translation of Jean Racine's play ''Mithridate''. Mozart wrote ''Mitridate'' while touring Italy in 1770. The musicologist Daniel E. Freeman has demonstrated that it was composed with close reference to the opera ''La Nitteti'' by Josef Mysliveček. The latter was the opera being prepared for production in Bologna when Mozart met Mysliveček for the first time with his father in March 1770. Mysliveček visited the Mozarts frequently in Bologna during the summer of 1770 while Wolfgang was working on ''Mitridate''. Mozart gained expertise in composition from his older friend and also incorporated some of his musical motifs into his own operatic setting. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan, on 26 December 1770 (at the Milan Carnival). It was a success, perfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mithridates VI Eupator
Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( grc-gre, Μιθραδάτης; 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars) to break Roman dominion over Asia and the Hellenic world. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. He cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses; this practice, now called mithridatism, is named after him. After his death he became known as Mithridates the Great. Etymology ''Mithridates'' is the Greek attestation of the Persian name ''Mihrdāt'', meaning "given by Mithra", the name of the ancient Iranian sun god. The name itself is derived from Old Iranian ''Miθra-dāta-''. Ancestry, family and ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mithridates VI Of Pontus
Mithridates or Mithradates VI Eupator ( grc-gre, Μιθραδάτης; 135–63 BC) was ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus in northern Anatolia from 120 to 63 BC, and one of the Roman Republic's most formidable and determined opponents. He was an effective, ambitious and ruthless ruler who sought to dominate Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, waging several hard-fought but ultimately unsuccessful wars (the Mithridatic Wars) to break Roman dominion over Asia and the Hellenic world. He has been called the greatest ruler of the Kingdom of Pontus. He cultivated an immunity to poisons by regularly ingesting sub-lethal doses; this practice, now called mithridatism, is named after him. After his death he became known as Mithridates the Great. Etymology ''Mithridates'' is the Greek attestation of the Persian name ''Mihrdāt'', meaning "given by Mithra", the name of the ancient Iranian sun god. The name itself is derived from Old Iranian ''Miθra-dāta-''. Ancestry, family and early lif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonia Bernasconi
Antonia Bernasconi (1741–1803) was a German operatic soprano, appearing in opera houses in Vienna, Milan, Venice, Naples and London. Life Bernasconi was born in Stuttgart in 1741; her father, named Wagele. was a valet de chambre of the Prince of Württemberg; after Wagele's death his widow married Andrea Bernasconi, ''Kapellmeister'' of the court at Munich and composer. Antonia received early music lessons from her stepfather, and she sang in Munich and other German cities. From 1765 she took part in operas in Vienna; her first appearance in a major role was at the Burgtheater in December 1767, in '' Alceste'', which Gluck had written expressly for her."Bernasconi, Antonia" ''''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mithridate (Racine)
''Mithridate'' is a tragedy in five acts (with respectively 5, 6, 6, 7, and 5 scenes) in alexandrine verse by Jean Racine. Background and history First performed on January 13, 1673 at the Hotel de Bourgogne, Mithridates follows '' Bajazet'' and precedes '' Iphigénie'' in Racine's work. The subject is drawn from ancient history. Mithridates VI Eupator reigned over the kingdom of Pontus, around the Black Sea. Famous for having gradually accustomed to poisons through mithridatization, he long resisted the Romans. He finally killed himself after being betrayed by his own son. Racine shows several episodes of the life of Mithridates in one day and, as usual, gives great importance to the amorous intrigues. However, the epic is still more prevalent than in other tragedies. In terms of style, the piece is distinguished by a large number of long speeches and monologues. Mithridates was the favorite tragedy of another great king, Louis XIV. Over the centuries, the play has become inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Regio Ducale
The Teatro Regio Ducale (Italian, "Royal Ducal Theatre") was the opera house in Milan from 26 December 1717 until 25 February 1776, when it was burned down following a carnival gala. Many famous composers and their operas are associated with it, including the premieres of Mozart's ''Mitridate, re di Ponto'', ''Ascanio in Alba'', and ''Lucio Silla''. The opera house also saw the premiere of Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini's '' Ciro in Armenia'' in 1753; one of the earliest successfully received operas by a female composer. The variant form ''Regio Ducal Teatro'' is also seen. The atmosphere in opera houses at the time was very sociable and congenial, and the Teatro Regio Ducale was no exception. The English traveller and music writer Charles Burney describes its faro tables for gambling, and gives this description: The theatre here is very large and splendid; it has five rows of boxes on each side, one hundred in each row; and parallel to these runs a broad gallery ... as an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Köchel Catalogue
The Köchel catalogue (german: Köchel-Verzeichnis, links=no) is a chronological catalogue of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, originally created by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, in which the entries are abbreviated ''K.'', or ''KV''. The numbers of the Köchel catalogue reflect the continuing establishment of a complete chronology of Mozart's works, and provide a shorthand reference to the compositions. According to Köchel's counting, Requiem in D minor is the 626th piece Mozart composed, thus is designated ''K. 626''; Köchel's original catalogue (1862) has been revised twice; catalogue numbers from the sixth edition are indicated either by parentheses or by superscript: K. 49 (47d) or K. 47d. History In the decades after Mozart's death there were several attempts to catalogue his compositions, for example by Franz Gleißner and Johann Anton André (published in 1833), but it was not until 1862 that Ludwig von Köchel succeeded in producing a comprehensive listing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pharnaces II Of Pontus
Pharnaces II of Pontus ( grc-gre, Φαρνάκης; about 97–47 BC) was the king of the Bosporan Kingdom and Kingdom of Pontus until his death. He was a monarch of Persian and Greek ancestry. He was the youngest child born to King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his first wife, his sister Queen Laodice. He was born and raised in the Kingdom of Pontus and was the namesake of his late double great grandfather Pharnaces I of Pontus. After his father was defeated by the Romans in the Third Mithridatic War (73–63 BC) and died in 63 BC, the Romans annexed the western part of Pontus, merged it with the former Kingdom of Bithynia and formed the Roman province of Bithynia and Pontus. The eastern part of Pontus remained under the rule of Pharnaces as a client kingdom until his death. Rebellion against his father Pharnaces II was raised as his father's successor and treated with distinction. However, we know little of his youth from ancient writers and find him first mentioned after Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Nitteti
''La Nitteti'' is an 18th-century Italian opera in 3 acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It was composed to a libretto by the Italian poet Metastasio that was first performed in 1756, one of the newer (and less popular) of the Metastasian librettos in Mysliveček's day. For a performance in the 1770s, it would only be expected that a libretto of such age would be abbreviated and altered to suit contemporary operatic taste. This opera contains more substitutions of original aria texts than any other Mysliveček setting of a Metastasian libretto. The cuts and changes in the text made for the 1770 performance of Mysliveček's opera are not attributable. All of Mysliveček's operas are of the serious type in Italian language referred to as opera seria. Performance history The opera was first performed at the Teatro Nuovo Pubblico in Bologna on 29 April 1770, a month after Mysliveček first made the acquaintance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his father Leopold the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Seria
''Opera seria'' (; plural: ''opere serie''; usually called ''dramma per musica'' or ''melodramma serio'') is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once ''opera seria'' was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as something of a historical genre. The popular rival to ''opera seria'' was ''opera buffa,'' the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte. Italian ''opera seria'' (invariably to Italian libretti) was produced not only in Italy but almost throughout Europe, and beyond (see Opera in Latin America, Opera in Cuba e. g.). Among the main centres in Europe were the court operas based in Warsaw (since 1628), Munich (founded in 1653), London (established in 1662), Vienna (firmly established 1709; first operatic representation: ''Il pomo d'oro'', 1668), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xiphares
{{no footnotes, date=November 2018 Xiphares ( grc, Ξιφάρης; c. 85 – 65 BC) was, according to Appian, a Pontic prince who was the son of King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his concubine and later wife Stratonice of Pontus. During the Mithridatic Wars, Stratonice turned over Mithridates' stronghold at Coenum, which had been entrusted to her protection, to the Roman forces under Pompey Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (; 29 September 106 BC – 28 September 48 BC), known in English as Pompey or Pompey the Great, was a leading Roman general and statesman. He played a significant role in the transformation of .... In revenge, Mithridates had Xiphares killed, leaving his corpse unburied. References * A. Duggan, ''He Died Old, Mithridates Eupator, King of Pontus'' (1974) 80s BC births 65 BC deaths Iranian people of Greek descent 1st-century BC Iranian people Ancient Persian people Mithridatic dynasty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
