Mefistofele
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Mefistofele
''Mefistofele'' () is an opera in a prologue and five acts, later reduced to four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera with music by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito (there are several completed operas for which he was librettist only). The opera was given its premiere on 5 March 1868 at La Scala, Milan, under the baton of the composer, despite his lack of experience and skill as a conductor. However, it was not a success and was immediately withdrawn after only two performances. Revisions in 1875 resulted in success in Bologna and, with further adjustments in 1876 for Venice, the opera was performed elsewhere. Composition history Boito began consideration of an opera on the Faustian theme after completing his studies at the Milan Conservatory in 1861. ''Mefistofele'' is one of many pieces of classical music based on the Faust legend and, like many other composers, Boito used Goethe's version as his starting point. He was an admirer of Richard Wagner and, li ...
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Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito (; 24 February 1842 10 June 1918) (whose original name was Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito and who wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's last two monumental operas '' Otello'' and ''Falstaff'' (not to mention Amilcare Ponchielli's operatic masterpiece '' La Gioconda'') and his own opera ''Mefistofele''. Along with Emilio Praga and his own brother Camillo Boito, he is regarded as one of the prominent representatives of the Scapigliatura artistic movement. Biography Birthplace in Padua Born in Padua, the son of Silvestro Boito (1802–1856), an Italian painter of miniatures, who was not of noble birth but passed himself off as a nobleman, and his wife, a Polish countess, Józefina Radolińska, Boito studied music at the Milan Conservatory with Alberto Mazzucato until 1861, where a friend, Albert Visetti ...
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Norman Treigle
Norman Treigle (né Adanelle Wilfred Treigle (March 6, 1927February 16, 1975) was an American operatic bass-baritone, who was acclaimed for his great abilities as a singing-actor, and specialized in roles that evoked villainy and terror. Biography Treigle ( ) was born in New Orleans, the fifth and final child of a poor carpenter and his wife. Following his 1946 marriage to the former Loraine Siegel, the bass-baritone began vocal studies with the contralto Elisabeth Wood. In 1947, he made his operatic debut with the New Orleans Opera Association, as the Duke of Verona in '' Roméo et Juliette''. Between 1949 and 1951, he attended Loyola University of the South's College of Music, while performing various roles with the local opera company. ( Loyola's archives now preserve Treigle's personal papers.) In 1953, Treigle made his New York City Opera debut, as Colline in ''La bohème''. Three years later, the bass-baritone scored his first significant success, as the tormented Reve ...
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Tito Capobianco
Tito Capobianco (28 August 1931 – 8 September 2018) was an Argentine American stage director and general manager of several opera companies. Early life Capobianco was born in La Plata, Argentina. His parents had fled from Fascist Italy in 1928 and settled in La Plata, near Buenos Aires. His parents were both musical; his father played trumpet in the local symphonic band. He grew up speaking Italian (a later advantage in the opera world) and attended a bilingual Spanish-Italian school until 4th grade. He continued his musical education at ''Hermanos Maristas de la Enseñanza'' and St. Joseph's College. He then qualified for the chorus and opera school of the Teatro Argentino de La Plata, where he graduated from being a super to singing baritone roles; he also learned stage managing. Career He made his official debut with ''Aida'' at the Teatro Argentino de La Plata in 1953, then worked at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. His American debut came in 1962 with a production of ...
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La Scala
La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's ''Europa riconosciuta''. Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala. The theatre is regarded as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres globally. It is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet, La Scala Theatre Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy ( it, Accademia Teatro alla Scala, links=no), which offers professional training in music, dance, stagecraft, and stage management. Overview La Scala's season opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, the feast day of Milan's patron saint. All performances must end befor ...
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Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain. The Faust of early books—as well as the ballads, dramas, movies, and puppet-plays which grew out of them—is irrevocably damned because he prefers human knowledge over divine knowledge: "he laid the Holy Scriptures behind the door and under the bench, refused to be called doctor of theology, but preferred to be styled doctor of medicine". Plays and comic puppet theatre loosely based on this legend were popular throughout ...
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Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; April 12, 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form. During the first phase of his career, Chaliapin endured direct competition from three other great basses: the powerful (1869–1942), the more lyrical (1871–1948), and Dmitri Buchtoyarov (1866–1918), whose voice was intermediate between those of Sibiriakov and Kastorsky. The fact that Chaliapin is far and away the best remembered of this magnificent quartet of rival basses is a testament to the power of his personality, the acuteness of his musical interpretations, and the vividness of his performances. Spelling note He himself spelled his surname, French-style ...
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Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premieres by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since the First World War, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has accordingly specialised in hosting musical theatre, musicals. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the First World War sensation ''Chu Chin Chow''Larkin, Colin (ed). ''Guinness Who's Who of Stage Musicals'' (Guinness Publishing, 1994) and the ...
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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 ...
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Teatro Comunale Di Bologna
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season. While there had been various theatres presenting opera in Bologna since the early 17th century, they had either fallen into disuse or burnt down. However, from the early 18th century, the ''Teatro Marsigli-Rossi'' had been presenting operatic works by popular composers of the day including Vivaldi, Gluck, and Niccolò Piccinni. The ''Teatro Malvezzi'', built in 1651, burned down in February 1745 and this event prompted the construction of a new public theatre, the ''Nuovo Teatro Pubblico'', as the Teatro Comunale was first called when it opened on 14 May 1763. Design and inauguration Despite opposition from other competitors, the architect Antonio Galli Bibiena won the theatre design contract. The theatre's inaugural performance was Gluck's ''Il trionfo di Clelia'', an opera which Gluck had composed for the occasion. ...
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Teatro Rossini (Venice)
The Teatro San Benedetto was a theatre in Venice, particularly prominent in the operatic life of the city in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It saw the premieres of over 140 operas, including Rossini's ''L'italiana in Algeri'', and was the theatre of choice for the presentation of ''opera seria'' until La Fenice was built in 1792. History The small, elegant theatre was first constructed by Michele Grimani on land owned by the Venier family. It was inaugurated on 26 December 1755 with a performance of Gioacchino Cocchi's opera ''Zoe''. In 1766 the ownership of the San Benedetto passed from Grimani to a consortium of patrician families in Venice who had been box holders at the theatre. The original design of the theatre was circular. However it was rebuilt in the traditional horseshoe shape following a fire in 1773. In 1765 Vincenzo Galeotti, who danced here from 1761, became the ballet master of the theatre and staged his first ballet here (at that time besides Galeotty and h ...
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Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. As of 2018, the company's current music director is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Performances are ...
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Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was published as the first edition of ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. Along with Thurston Dart, Nigel Fortune and Oliver Neighbour he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation. Career Born in Wembley, Sadie was educated at St Paul's School, London, and studied music privately for three years with Bernard Stevens. At Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge he read music under Thurston Dart. Sadie earned Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees in 1953, a Master of Arts degree in 1957, and a PhD in 1958. His doctoral dissertation was on mid-eighteenth-century British chamber music. After Cambridge, he taught at Trinity College of Music, London (1957–1965). Sadie then turned to musi ...
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