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Olivier Métra
Jules-Louis-Olivier Métra (2 June 1830 – 22 October 1889) was a French composer and conductor. Biography The son of the actor Jean Baptiste Métra, Olivier Métra began his career at a very early age with his father. In 1842, he made his debut at the Théâtre Comte. In addition, he learned the violin and played from the age of 19 years in a ball of Boulevard de Rochechouart. On the advice of an orchestra musician, he followed the lessons of Antoine Elwart at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he obtained a first prize of harmony. From 1855 he conducted the orchestra of the Bal Mabille. During this period he acquired great popularity thanks to waltzes such as ''Le Tour du Monde'', la ''Valse des Roses'', ''Gambrinus'', and ''La Nuit La sérénade''. From 1872 to 1877, he conducted the bals of the Opéra-Comique, the orchestra of the Folies Bergère for which he composed several ballets, including ''Les Volontaires''. From 1874 to 1876, he directed the bals of the Théâtre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caricature
A caricature is a rendered image showing the features of its subject in a simplified or exaggerated way through sketching, pencil strokes, or other artistic drawings (compare to: cartoon). Caricatures can be either insulting or complimentary, and can serve a political purpose, be drawn solely for entertainment, or for a combination of both. Caricatures of politicians are commonly used in editorial cartoons, while caricatures of movie stars are often found in entertainment magazines. In literature, a ''caricature'' is a distorted representation of a person in a way that exaggeration, exaggerates some characteristics and oversimplifies others. Etymology The term is derived for the Italian ''caricare''—to charge or load. An early definition occurs in the English doctor Thomas Browne's ''Christian Morals'', published posthumously in 1716. with the footnote: Thus, the word "caricature" essentially means a "loaded portrait". Until the mid 19th century, it was commonly and m ... [...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] |
Polka
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas. History Etymology The term ''polka'' referring to the dance is derived from the Czech word ''Polka'' meaning "Polish woman" (feminine form corresponding to ''Polák'', a Pole)."polka, n.". Oxford University Press. (accessed 11 July 2012). Czech cultural historian Čeněk Zíbrt also attributes the term to the Czech word ''půlka'' (half), referring to both the half-tempo and the half-jump step of the dance.Čeněk Zíbrt, "Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo: dějiny tance v Čechách, na Moravě, ve Slezsku a na Slovensku z věků nejstarších až do nové doby se zvláštním zřetelem k dějinám tance vůbec", Prague, 189(Google eBook)/ref> The word was widely introduced into the major European languages in the early 1840s. Origin and popularity The polka' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olivier Assayas
Olivier Assayas (born 25 January 1955) is a French film director, screenwriter and film critic. Assayas is known for his slow-burning period pieces, psychological thrillers, neo-noirs and French comedies. His work has become synonymous with the film movement known as the New French Extremity and has collaborated frequently with Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart. The son of filmmaker Jacques Rémy, Assayas began his career as a critic for influential magazine ''Cahiers du Cinéma''. Here he wrote about the World Cinema and its film auteurs who would later influence his own works. Assayas made several shorts, and then made the leap from writer to screenwriter. He made his directorial film debut with ''Disorder'' in 1986. He continued directing films, with '' Cold Water'' (1994) becoming a breakthrough film in his career. It would be his first film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section. His follow up film ''Irma Vep'' (1996) also screened a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sentimental Destinies
''Sentimental Destinies'' (french: Les Destinées sentimentales) is a 2000 French drama film directed by Olivier Assayas. Running from the 1890s to the 1930s, the film tells the story of two wealthy Protestant families in the south-west of France: the Pommerels who make cognac and the Barnerys who make porcelain. It was entered into the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Plot Uninterested in the pottery business, Jean Barnery is ordained as a pastor and marries Nathalie, a woman quite unsuited to the role. When her behaviour with another man excites comment, he sends her and their daughter Aline away with an allowance. When people start commenting that it is worse for a pastor to have a separated wife open to any mischief, he brings her back to the marital home. Then he meets Pauline Pommerel and loses his heart to her. He divorces Nathalie, gives up his calling, marries Pauline, and they move to a rural chalet in Switzerland, where they have a son they name Max. Though the three live s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Autant-Lara
Claude Autant-Lara (; 5 August 1901 – 5 February 2000) was a French film director and later Member of the European Parliament (MEP). Biography Born at Luzarches in Val-d'Oise, Autant-Lara was educated in France and at London's Mill Hill School during his mother's exile as a pacifist. Early in his career, he worked as an art director and costume designer; his best-known work in this vein was possibly for ''Nana'' (1926), a silent film directed by Jean Renoir. Autant-Lara also acted in the film. As a director, he frequently created provocative movies, saying "if a film does not have venom, it is worthless". In the 1960s, he turned his back on the New Wave movement, and from then on he had no popular successes. On 18 June 1989, he came to public notice again, controversially, when he was elected to the European Parliament as a member of the National Front and the oldest member of the assembly. In his maiden speech, in July 1989, he caused a scandal by expressing his "conc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ciboulette (film)
''Ciboulette'' is a 1933 French musical film directed by Claude Autant-Lara and starring Simone Berriau, Robert Burnier and Armand Dranem.Goble p.114 It is an adaptation of the 1923 operetta of the same name. The film's art direction was by Lazare Meerson and Alexandre Trauner. It was part of a popular cycle of operetta films during the decade. Cast * Simone Berriau as Ciboulette * Robert Burnier as Antonin * Armand Dranem as Le père Grenu * André Urban as Monsieur Duparquet * Madeleine Guitty as La mère Pingret * Pomiès as Olivier Métra * Thérèse Dorny as Zénobie * Guy Ferrant as Roger de Lansquenet * Marcel Duhamel as Le voleur * Jacques Prévert as L'Âne * Ginette Leclerc as Une cocotte * Viviane Romance as Une cocotte * Monique Joyce as Une cocotte * Christiane Dor as La servante * Marie-Jacqueline Chantal as Une invitée chez Métra * Charles Camus as Grisart * Louis Florencie as Trancher * Pedro Elviro as Arthur et Meyer * Luci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Léon Vasseur
Félix Augustin Joseph Vasseur, known as Léon Vasseur (28 May 1844 – 25 May 1917), was a French composer, organist and conductor. While working as a cathedral organist, he turned to composing operettas and soon had a hit with ''La timbale d'argent'' (1872). He wrote another thirty operettas but never repeated that early success. He also composed church music including two settings of the mass. Biography Vasseur was born in Bapaume in north-east France, the son of Augustin Vasseur, the local church organist and choirmaster.Havard de La Montagne, Denis."Léon Vasseur, Musicien Atypique" ''Musica et Memoria'' (French text), accessed 23 June 2010. After studying music with his father, Vasseur enrolled at the age of 12 as a student at the École Niedermeyer, the school of church music in Paris,Lamb, Andrew."Vasseur, Léon ''Grove Music Online'', Oxford University Press, accessed 23 June 2010 (requires subscription) He studied under Pierre-Louis Dietsch (harmony), Georges Schmitt (or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmond Audran
Achille Edmond Audran (12 April 184017 August 1901) was a French composer best known for several internationally successful comic operas and operettas. After beginning his career in Marseille as an organist, Audran composed religious music and began to write works for the stage in the 1860s and 1870s. Among these, '' Le grand mogol'' (1877) was the most popular and was later revived in Paris, London and New York. In 1879 he moved to Paris, where some of his pieces achieved considerable success both in France and abroad, including ''Les noces d'Olivette'' (1879), ''La mascotte'' (1880), ''Gillette de Narbonne'' (1882), ''La cigale et la fourmi'' (1886), '' Miss Helyett'' (1890) and ''La poupée'' (1896). Most of his works are now neglected, but ''La mascotte'' has been revived occasionally and has been recorded for the gramophone. Early life and career Audran was born in Lyon, the son of Marius-Pierre Audran (1816–87), who had a career as a tenor at the Opéra-Comique. Lamb, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Lecocq
Alexandre Charles Lecocq (3 June 183224 October 1918) was a French composer, known for his opérettes and opéra comique, opéras comiques. He became the most prominent successor to Jacques Offenbach in this sphere, and enjoyed considerable success in the 1870s and early 1880s, before the changing musical fashions of the late 19th century made his style of composition less popular. His few serious works include the opera ''Plutus (opera), Plutus'' (1886), which was not a success, and the ballet ''Le Cygne (ballet), Le cygne'' (1899). His only piece to survive in the regular modern operatic repertory is his 1872 opéra comique ''La fille de Madame Angot'' (Mme Angot's Daughter). Others of his more than forty stage works receive occasional revivals. After study at the Conservatoire de Paris, Paris Conservatoire, Lecocq shared the first prize with Georges Bizet in an operetta-writing contest organised in 1856 by Offenbach. Lecocq's next successful composition was an opéra-bouffe, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Planquette
Jean Robert Planquette (31 July 1848 – 28 January 1903) was a French composer of songs and operettas. Several of Planquette's operettas were extraordinarily successful in Britain, especially ''Les cloches de Corneville'' (1878), the length of whose initial London run broke all records for any piece of musical theatre up to that time. ''Rip Van Winkle'' (1882) also earned international fame. Life and career The son of a singer, Planquette was born in Paris and educated at the Paris Conservatoire. He did not finish his studies, lacking the funds to do so, and worked as a café pianist and composer and singing (he was a tenor). A few romances that he composed brought less fame than did his song, "Sambre et Meuse", first sung in 1867 by Lucien Fugère, who went on to be one of the foremost French opera singers of his day. In 1876, the director of the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques gave Planquette a commission to compose his first operetta, ''Les cloches de Corneville''. It op ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Ganne
Louis-Gaston Ganne (5 April 1862 in Buxières-les-Mines (Allier) – 13/14 July 1923 in Paris) was a Conductor (music), conductor and composer of French operas, operettas, ballets, and March (music), marches. Biography Ganne was born in the Auvergne (region), Auvergne region of France and grew up in Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the suburbs of Paris. He studied under César Franck and Jules Massenet at the Conservatoire de Paris. He conducted at the Nouveau Théâtre de la Rue Blanche and at the Folies-Bergère, and later led a concert series at the Monte Carlo Casino. Ganne is most recognized today for his popular patriotic marches, ''Le père la victoire'' and ''Marche Lorraine, La marche Lorraine''. He also composed for the ballet, including the 1902 ballet "In Japan".Pritchard, Jane, "'More Natural than Nature, More Artificial than Art': The Dance Criticism of Arthur Symons" (Winter 2003). ''Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research'', 21 (2): pp. 36-89. He is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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