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Todd Duncan
Robert Todd Duncan (February 12, 1903 – February 28, 1998) was an American baritone opera singer and actor. One of the first African-Americans to sing with a major opera company, Duncan is also noted for appearing as Porgy in the premier production of ''Porgy and Bess'' (1935). Early life Duncan was born February 12, 1903 in Danville, Kentucky to John and Lettie (Cooper) Duncan. They were married in Danville 1901, he being born in Danville, and she born in Frankfort. John was a garage owner and Lettie was a music teacher. He obtained his musical training at Butler University in Indianapolis with a B.A. in music followed by an M.A. from Columbia University Teachers College. Career In 1934, Duncan debuted in Pietro Mascagni's ''Cavalleria rusticana'' at the Mecca Temple in New York with the Aeolian Opera, a black opera company. Duncan was George Gershwin's personal choice as the first performer of the role of Porgy in ''Porgy and Bess'' in 1935 and played the role more than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danville, Kentucky
Danville is a home rule-class city in Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 17,236 at the 2020 Census. Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of the Boyle and Lincoln counties. In 2001, Danville received a Great American Main Street Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2011, ''Money'' magazine placed Danville as the fourth-best place to retire in the United States. Centre College in Danville was selected to host U.S. vice-presidential debates in 2000 and 2012. History Within Kentucky, Danville is called the "City of Firsts": * It housed the first courthouse in Kentucky. * The first Kentucky constitution was written and signed here. * It was the first capital of Kentucky. * It had the first U.S. post office west of the Allegheny Mountains. * It hosts the first state-supported school for the deaf. * Ephraim McDowell completed the first known successfu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adelaide Hall
Adelaide Louise Hall (20 October 1901 – 7 November 1993) was an American-born UK-based jazz singer and entertainer. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hall entered the '' Guinness Book of World Records'' in 2003 as the world's most enduring recording artist, having released material over eight consecutive decades."Devotees – Honours and Tributes" (researched and compiled by Stephen Bourne), Devotional. Adelaide Hall enters ''Guinness Book of World Records'' as the World's most enduring recording artiste. She performed with major artists such as , |
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013 (when it filed for bankruptcy), and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, dubbed "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943. The company's stated purpose was to make opera accessible to a wide audience at a reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers. The company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street in Manhattan. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010. During this time it produced autumn and spring seasons of opera in repertory, and maintained extensive education and outreach programs, offering arts-in-education programs to 4,000 students in over 30 schools. In 2011, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pagliacci
''Pagliacci'' (; literal translation, "Clowns") is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera tells the tale of Canio, actor and leader of a commedia dell'arte theatrical company, who murders his wife Nedda and her lover Silvio on stage during a performance. ''Pagliacci'' premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on 21 May 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio. Soon after its Italian premiere, the opera played in London (with Nellie Melba as Nedda) and in New York (on 15 June 1893, with Agostino Montegriffo as Canio). ''Pagliacci'' is the composer's only opera that is still widely performed. ''Pagliacci'' is often staged with ''Cavalleria rusticana'' by Pietro Mascagni, a double bill known colloquially as "Cav and Pag". Origin and disputes Leoncavallo was a little-known composer when Pietro Mascagni's ''Cavalleria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo ( , , ; 23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera '' Pagliacci'' (1892) that remained his lasting contribution, despite attempts to escape the shadow of his greatest success. Today he remains largely known for ''Pagliacci'', one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the opera repertory. His other compositions include the song "Mattinata", popularized by Enrico Caruso, and the symphonic poem ''La Nuit de mai''. Biography The son of Vincenzo Leoncavallo, a police magistrate and judge, Leoncavallo was born in Naples on 23 April 1857. As a child, Leoncavallo moved with his father to the town of Montalto Uffugo in Calabria, where he lived during his adolescence. He later returned to Naples and was educated at the city's San Pietro a Majella Conservatory and later the University of Bologna studying literature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/ Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Malloy
George Malloy (23 June 1920 – 16 March 2008) was an American pianist particularly known for his work as an accompanist from the 1940s to the 1970s. In later decades, he focused on coaching singers and served for 31 years as the accompanist of the charitable New York City theatre group, the Blue Hill Troupe. He was, perhaps, best known for accompanying Camilla Williams in her performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" immediately before Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his August 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. Life and career Malloy was born in Los Angeles, California. He accompanied recitals for several well-known singers, including Eileen Farrell, Roberta Peters, Martina Arroyo, Elisabeth Söderström, and Todd Duncan, as well as the harmonica player Larry Adler, among many others. His work as an accompanist took him to many important venues, including Carnegie Hall and the White House. He notably accompanied Camilla Williams in her performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Tracing its history to 1867, from its outset Howard has been nonsectarian and open to people of all sexes and races. It offers undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees in more than 120 programs, more than any other historically black college or university (HBCU) in the nation. History 19th century Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, members of the First Congregational Society of Washington considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of black clergymen. Within a few weeks, the project expanded to include a provision for establishing a university. Within two years, the university consisted of the colleges of liberal arts and medicine. The new institution was named for Gene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Haffenden
Elizabeth Haffenden (18 April 1906 – 29 May 1976) was a British costume designer who won two Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, for '' Ben-Hur'' at the 1959 Academy Awards and '' A Man for All Seasons'' at the 1966 Academy Awards. She also won the BAFTA Award. Haffenden designed the costumes for most of the Gainsborough melodramas of the 1940s. Selected filmography * ''The Last Waltz'' (1936) * '' The Young Mr. Pitt'' (1942) * ''The Man in Grey'' (1943) * '' Fanny by Gaslight'' (1944) * ''Give Us the Moon'' (1944) * ''Two Thousand Women'' (1944) * '' Love Story'' (1944) * ''Madonna of the Seven Moons'' (1945) * ''A Place of One's Own'' (1945) * ''I'll Be Your Sweetheart'' (1945) * '' Caravan'' (1946) * '' Bedelia'' (1946) * ''The Magic Bow'' (1946) * '' The Man Within'' (1947) * '' Jassy'' (1947) * ''Uncle Silas'' (1947) * ''The First Gentleman'' (1948) * ''The Bad Lord Byron'' (1949) * ''Christopher Columbus'' (1949) *'' Call of the Blood'' (1949) * '' The Spider and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter (June 9, 1891 – October 15, 1964) was an American composer and songwriter. Many of his songs became standards noted for their witty, urbane lyrics, and many of his scores found success on Broadway and in film. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, Porter defied his grandfather's wishes for him to practice law and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn to musical theatre. After a slow start, he began to achieve success in the 1920s, and by the 1930s he was one of the major songwriters for the Broadway musical stage. Unlike many successful Broadway composers, Porter wrote the lyrics as well as the music for his songs. After a serious horseback riding accident in 1937, Porter was left disabled and in constant pain, but he continued to work. His shows of the early 1940s did not contain the lasting hits of his best work of the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1948 he made a triumphant comeback with his most successful musical, ''Kiss Me, Kate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer. Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during the Second Boer War for Reuters and the '' Daily Mail''. Struggling with debt, he left South Africa, returned to London and began writing thrillers to raise income, publishing books including '' The Four Just Men'' (1905). Drawing on his time as a reporter in the Congo, covering the Belgian atrocities, Wallace serialised short stories in magazines such as ''The Windsor Magazine'' and later published collections such as ''Sanders of the River'' (1911). He signed with Hodder and Stoughton in 1921 and became an internationally recognised author. After an unsuccessful bid to stand as Liberal MP for Blackpool (as one of David Lloyd George's Independent Liberals) in the 1931 general election, Wallace moved to Hollywood, where he worked as a sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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