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The Prodigies
"The Prodigies" is a short story by Willa Cather. It was first published in '' Home Monthly'' in July 1897. Plot summary The Mackenzies are invited to the Masseys' at four in the afternoon to hear their children, Hermann and Ad, sing. Later, Mr. Mackenzie overhears the children say they wish they could join other children and play with them instead of working. He chips in and tells them they will go to a dog show with his children the next day, instead of seeing an opera as planned. During their performance, the girl collapses. One month later, Mr. Mackenzie informs Mrs. Massey that the girl's voice has been worn out. Undaunted, she prods her son to become a very successful singer. Characters *Mrs Harriet Mackenzie, a pianist. *Mr Nelson Mackenzie, a doctor. He plays the cornet. *Elsie, the Mackenzies's daughter. *Billy, the Mackenzies's son. *Kate Massey, a pushy mother. *Mr Massey, a businessman, Kate's husband. *Hermann, the Masseys's son. *Ad, the Masseys's daughter. *Madame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willa Cather
Willa Sibert Cather (; born Wilella Sibert Cather; December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including ''O Pioneers!'', '' The Song of the Lark'', and ''My Ántonia''. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for ''One of Ours'', a novel set during World War I. Willa Cather and her family moved from Virginia to Webster County, Nebraska, when she was nine years old. The family later settled in the town of Red Cloud. Shortly after graduating from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Cather moved to Pittsburgh for ten years, supporting herself as a magazine editor and high school English teacher. At the age of 33, she moved to New York City, her primary home for the rest of her life, though she also traveled widely and spent considerable time at her summer residence on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. She spent the last 39 years of her life with her domestic partner, Edith Lewis, before being diagnosed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teodor Leszetycki
Theodor Leschetizky (sometimes spelled Leschetitzky, pl, Teodor Leszetycki; 22 June 1830 – 14 November 1915 was an Austrian- Polish pianist, professor, and composer born in Landshut in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, then a crown land of Austria-Hungary. Life Theodor Leschetizky was born on 22 June 1830 at the estate of the family of Count Potocki in Landshut, Austrian Galicia. Joseph Leschetizky, his father, was a gifted pianist and music teacher of Viennese birth. His mother Thérèse von Ullmann was a gifted singer of German origin. His father gave him his first piano lessons and then took him to Vienna to study with Carl Czerny. At age eleven, he performed a Czerny piano concerto in Landshut, with Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, the son of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, conducting. At the age of fifteen he started to tutor his first students. By the age of eighteen he was a well-known virtuoso in Vienna and beyond. His composition teacher was Simon Sechter, an eminent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1897 Short Stories
Events January–March * January 2 – The International Alpha Omicron Pi sorority is founded, in New York City. * January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin. * January 7 – A cyclone destroys Darwin, Australia. * January 8 – Lady Flora Shaw, future wife of Governor General Lord Lugard, officially proposes the name "Nigeria" in a newspaper contest, to be given to the British Niger Coast Protectorate. * January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal ''Engineering'', the word ''computer'' is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device. * January 23 – Elva Zona Heaster is found dead in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The resulting murder trial of her husband is perhaps the only capital case in United States history, where spectral evidence helps secure a conviction. * January 31 – The Czechoslovak Trade Union Assoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. He is best known for his novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between ''émigré ''Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include '' The Portrait of a Lady'', ''The Ambassadors'', and ''The Wings of the Dove''. His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often wrote in a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Damnation De Faust
''La damnation de Faust'' (English: ''The Damnation of Faust''), Op. 24 is a work for four solo voices, full seven-part chorus, large children's chorus and orchestra by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He called it a "''légende dramatique''" ( dramatic legend). It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 6 December 1846. Background and composition history The French composer was inspired by a translation of Goethe's dramatic poem ''Faust'' and produced a musical work that, like the masterpiece on which it is based, defies easy categorisation. Conceived at various times as a free-form oratorio and as an opera (Berlioz ultimately called it a "légende dramatique") its travelogue form and cosmic perspective have made it an extreme challenge to stage as an opera. Berlioz himself was eager to see the work staged, but once he did, he conceded that the production techniques of his time were not up to the task of bringing the work to dramatic life. Most of the work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Berlioz
In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense of Troy, killing countless Greek warriors. He was ultimately killed in single combat by Achilles, who later dragged his dead body around the city of Troy behind his chariot. Etymology In Greek, is a derivative of the verb ἔχειν ''ékhein'', archaic form * grc, ἕχειν, hékhein, label=none ('to have' or 'to hold'), from Proto-Indo-European *'' seɡ́ʰ-'' ('to hold'). , or as found in Aeolic poetry, is also an epithet of Zeus in his capacity as 'he who holds verything together. Hector's name could thus be taken to mean 'holding fast'. Description Hector was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark-skinned, tall, very stoutly built, strong, good nose, wooly-haired, good beard, sq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sybil Sanderson
Sibyl Sanderson (December 7, 1864May 16, 1903) was a famous American operatic dramatic coloratura soprano during the Parisian Belle Époque. Biography She was born in Sacramento, California, in the United States. Sibyl's father Silas Sanderson was a California politician and lawyer; after serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California, he became a highly paid legal advisor to the Southern Pacific Railroad. After his death in 1886, she and her mother and sisters moved back to Paris and became transplanted socialites. Sanderson proved to be a remarkably gifted singer and began to appear on the stages of the Opéra-Comique, and later Opéra, in Paris, most notably in the works of Jules Massenet. She was his favorite soprano and appeared in the premieres of a number of his operas, the roles having been created for her unique talents (her professional debut took place in Paris in the title role in ''Esclarmonde''). She was also a famous interpreter of ''Manon'', Masse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italo Campanini
Italo Campanini (June 30, 1845 – November 14, 1896) was a leading Italian operatic tenor, whose career reached its height in London in the 1870s and in New York City in the 1880s and 1890s. He had a repertoire of 80 operas and was the brother of the orchestral conductor Cleofonte Campanini. Early days Born in Parma, Campanini studied at the Parma Conservatory before making his operatic debut as Manrico in '' Il trovatore'', in 1869, in Odessa. Further study with Francesco Lamperti in Milan followed, and in 1871 he returned to the stage in Bologna, scoring his first major success in the Italian premiere of '' Lohengrin''.Rosenthal and Warrack 1974. London beginnings Early in his 1872 Drury Lane season J. H. Mapleson, the London opera impresario, recruited Campanini from Rome, where he was in competition with the agents of Frederick Gye, the Covent Garden theatre impresario. On May 4, 1872 the tenor made his London debut as Gennaro in ''Lucrezia Borgia'', with Thérèse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914. Along with her near contemporaries Jenny Lind and Thérèse Tietjens, Patti remains one of the most famous sopranos in history, owing to the purity and beauty of her lyrical voice and the unmatched quality of her ''bel canto'' technique. The composer Giuseppe Verdi, writing in 1877, described her as being perhaps the finest singer who had ever lived and a "stupendous artist". Verdi's admiration for Patti's talent was shared by numerous music critics and social commentators of her era. Biography She was born Adela Juana Maria Patti, in Madrid, the youngest child of tenor Salvatore Patti (1800–1869) and soprano Caterina Barilli (died 1870). Her Italian parents were working in Spain, at the time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean De Reszke
Jean de Reszke (14 January 18503 April 1925) was a Polish tenor and opera star. Reszke came from a musically inclined family. His mother gave him his first singing lessons and provided a home that was a recognized music centre. His sister Josephine and younger brother Édouard performed in Western Europe, and Reszke would perform with each of them throughout his career. He began as a baritone, but after having been trained by Giovanni Sbriglia he found that he was better suited and was most proficient as a tenor. His performance of Meyerbeer's ''Robert le diable'' in Madrid in 1879, made him a notable singer. Reszke ranked as the foremost dramatic tenor from that point until his retirement from the stage. He performed at opera venues in Paris, London, and New York, including command performances for Queen Victoria. He was known for his desire to perform operas in the language in which they were written. Rather than taking the time-honored interpretation of the music and the char ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include "Erlkönig" (D. 328), the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (''Trout Quintet''), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (''Unfinished Symphony''), the "Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the String Quintet (D. 956), the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera ''Fierrabras'' (D. 796), the incidental music to the play ''Rosamunde'' (D. 797), and the song cycles ''Die schöne Müllerin'' (D. 795) and ''Winterreise'' (D. 911). Born in the Himmelpfortgrund suburb of Vienna, Schubert showed uncommon gifts for music from an early age. His father gave him his first violin l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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