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Nephté
''Nephté'' is an opera by the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 15 December 1789. It takes the form of a ''tragédie lyrique'' in three acts. The libretto, by François-Benoît Hoffman, is set in Ancient Egypt but is based on the story of Camma, Queen of Galatia taken from the ancient historian Plutarch. The plot concerns Nephté, Queen of Egypt, whose husband King Séthos has been murdered by his brother Pharès. The widowed queen seeks revenge with the help of the high priest Amédès. However, Pharès has the support of the army and aims to take the throne and to marry Nephté himself. He also threatens the life of Nephté's son. Eventually, Nephté agrees to marry Pharès but she poisons the wedding cup, killing both the usurper and herself and allowing her son to succeed to the throne as king of Egypt. Background and composition Libretto Camma in Plutarch Hoffman based ''Nephté'' on the story of Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (composer)
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne or Moyne (3 April 1751 – 30 December 1796) was a French composer, chiefly of operas. Born in Eymet, Dordogne, he first worked as a musician in Berlin and Warsaw, where in 1775 he produced his first opera, ''Le bouquet de Colette'', starring his pupil Antoinette de Saint-Huberty (''née'' Clavel). He returned to France and wrote the tragic opera '' Électre'', which received its premiere in 1782. Lemoyne claimed his music was following the example of Christoph Willibald Gluck, then the greatest influence on French opera, but when ''Électre'' failed, Gluck rejected any association with the younger composer. Lemoyne turned to Gluck's rivals, Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, as musical models for his next two tragedies, ''Phèdre'' (1786) and the Egyptian-set ''Nephté'' (1789), which had more success. His later operas are less important. He died in Paris. Operas * ''Le bouquet de Colette'', premiered 1775 in Warsaw * '' Électre'', tragédie lyrique in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François-Benoît Hoffman
François-Benoît Hoffman (11 July 1760 – 25 April 1828) was a French playwright and critic, best known today for his operatic librettos, including those set to music by Étienne Méhul and Luigi Cherubini (most notably Cherubini's ''Médée'', 1797). Career Hoffman was born in Nancy, and studied law at the University of Strasbourg. Believing that his stammer hindered his legal career, he entered military service in Corsica. He served there for only a very short time, and, returning to Nancy, wrote some poems which brought him into notice at the little court of Lunéville over which the Marquise de Boufflers then presided. In 1784 he went to Paris where he wrote his first opera libretto, ''Phèdre'', for the composer Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. It was performed at Fontainebleau in October 1786. After quarrelling with Lemoyne, Hoffman offered his libretto ''Adrien, empereur de Rome'' to Cherubini, who turned it down in favour of another Hoffman drama, ''Médée''. ''Adrien'' was acce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antoinette Saint-Huberty
Anne-Antoinette-Cécile Clavel, better known by her stage name Madame Saint-Huberty or Saint-Huberti (Strasbourg, 15 December 1756 – 22 July 1812, Barnes, London), was a celebrated French operatic soprano whose career extended from until 1790. After her retirement from the stage and the publicising of her second marriage, she was also known as the Comtesse d'Antraigues from around 1797. She and her husband were murdered in England. Early life and musical career Antoinette Clavel (later known professionally as Madame Saint-Huberty) was the daughter of Jean-Pierre Clavel, a musician employed as a répétiteur in the private opera troupe of Charles IV Theodore, Elector Palatine. Her mother was Claude-Antoinette Pariset, the daughter of a grocer from Sélestat.Dorlan (1932), p. 25. Her biographers have often disagreed about her place of birth. Renwick, for example, found instances of it being indicated as Toul, Thionville, or Mannheim, and Clayton gives it as Toulouse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camma
Camma ( grc, Κάμμα) was a Galatian princess and priestess of Artemis whom Plutarch writes about in both ''On the Bravery of Women'' and the ''Eroticus'' or ''Amatorius''. As Plutarch is our only source on Camma, her historicity cannot be independently verified. In both works, Plutarch cites her as an exemplar of fidelity and courage in love. In Plutarch's accounts, Camma was wedded to the tetrarch Sinatus, and became known and admired for her virtue and beauty. Sinatus' rival, another tetrarch named Sinorix, murdered Sinatus and proceeded to woo Camma herself. Rather than submit to Sinorix' advances, Camma took him to a temple of Artemis where she served poison to both herself and him in a libation of either milk and honey or mead. Camma died happily, according to Plutarch, in the knowledge that she had avenged the death of her husband.Plutarch. ''De Mulierum Virtutibus'' 20, in the ''Moralia''English translation published online by Bill Thayer./ref> Plutarch's story of Camma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelius De Pauw
Cornelius Franciscus de Pauw or Cornelis de Pauw (; french: Corneille de Pauw; 18 August 1739 — 5 July 1799) was a Dutch philosopher, geographer and diplomat at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia. Biography Although born in Amsterdam, son of Antonius Pauw and Quirina van Heijningen, he spent most of his life in Kleve. Working for the clergy, he nonetheless became familiar with the ideas of the Enlightenment. During his lifetime he was considered to be the greatest expert on the Americas, although he never visited the continent; he also wrote at length on the origins of ancient peoples, rejecting the popular idea of the time that China was originally a colony of Ancient Egypt. He was a specialist in ethnologic studies as well, publishing a study of American Indians in French in 1768. Daniel Webb, an English scholar and translator, translated portions of de Pauw's work into English for a public that was hungry for information regarding the new continent of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while phrases like ''liberté, égalité, fraternité'' reappeared in other revolts, such as the 1917 Russian Revolution, and inspired campaigns for the abolition of slavery and universal suffrage. The values and institutions it created dominate French politics to this day. Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political and economic factors, which the ''Ancien Régime'' proved unable to manage. In May 1789, widespread social distress led to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. Continuing unrest culminated in the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. She became dauphine of France in May 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne. On 10 May 1774, her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI and she became queen. Marie Antoinette's position at court improved when, after eight years of marriage, she started having children. She became increasingly unpopular among the people, however, with the French ''libelles'' accusing her of being profligate, promiscuous, allegedly having illegitimate children, and harboring sympathies for France's perceived enemies—particularly her native Austria. The false accusations of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace damaged her reputation further ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni (; 16 January 1728 – 7 May 1800) was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of the Classical period. Life Piccinni was born in Bari, in the Apulia region. From the age of fourteen, he was educated at the S. Onofrio Conservatory by Leonardo Leo and Francesco Durante,. thanks to the intervention of the Bishop of Bari (his father, although himself a musician, was opposed to his son following the same career). Piccinni's first opera, ''Le donne dispettose'', was produced in 1755 with the patronage of Prince Vintimille. In 1760 he composed, at Rome, the ''chef d'œuvre'' of his early life, '' La Cecchina, ossia la buona Figliuola'', an ''opera buffa'' with a libretto by Goldoni, which "enjoyed a two-year run in Rome and was played in all the important European capitals. It can probably ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them '' Orfeo ed Euridice'' and '' Alceste'', he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian '' opera seria'' had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. Future composers like Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz and Wagner revered Gluck very highly. The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-François De La Harpe
Jean-François de La Harpe (20 November 173911 February 1803) was a French playwright, writer and literary critic. Life La Harpe was born in Paris of poor parents. His father, who signed himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud. Left an orphan at the age of nine, La Harpe was taken care of for six months by the Sisters of Charity, and his education was provided for by a scholarship at the Collège d'Harcourt, now known as the Lycée Saint-Louis. When nineteen he was imprisoned for some months on the charge of having written a satire against his protectors at the college. He was imprisoned at For-l'Évêque. La Harpe always denied his guilt, but this culminating misfortune of an early life spent entirely in the position of a dependent possibly had something to do with the bitterness he evinced in later life. Citations: * Sainte-Beuve, ''Causeries du lundi'', vol. v In 1763, his tragedy of ''Warwick'' was played before the court. This, his first pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journal De Paris
The ''Journal de Paris'' (1777–1840) was the first daily French newspaper.(7 October 2014)The first French daily: Journal de Paris History of JournalismAndrews, ElizabethBetween Auteurs and Abonnés: Reading the Journal de Paris, 1787–1789 ''Journal of the Western Society for French History'', Vol. 37 (2009) The paper was founded by Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux, Jean Romilly, Olivier de Corancez, and Louis d'Ussieux, in 1777, following the model of the ''London Evening Post''. The four-page daily paper eschewed politics in favor of popular culture, the weather, and other light-hearted culture, which made it the subject of jesting in its day. Nevertheless, the model proved popular. In 1784, the paper famously published an anonymous satirical letter by Benjamin Franklin encouraging Parisians to rise earlier in the day, which has been credited (though an overreach) with promoting the concept of daylight saving time. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne-Joseph Floquet
Étienne-Joseph Floquet (23 November 174810 May 1785) was a French composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Aix-en-Provence and began his career by writing church music, before moving to Paris in 1767.Rushton There, Floquet made a name for himself with the requiem he wrote for the funeral of the composer Jean-Joseph de Mondonville in 1772.Dratwicki, ''Antoine Dauvergne'', p. 297 Floquet's first work for the Paris Opéra, the ''ballet héroïque'' ''L'union de l'amour et les arts,'' was a triumph, enjoying 60 performances between its premiere in September 1773 and January 1774. The audience at the premiere was so enthusiastic that the performance had to be stopped several times because of the applause and, at the final curtain, Floquet was presented on stage, the first composer in the history of the Paris Opéra to enjoy such an honour. However, the arrival of the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck in Paris later that year changed French musical taste and Floquet's style beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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