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Una Cosa Rara
' (''A Rare Thing, or Beauty and Honesty'') is an opera by the composer Vicente Martín y Soler. It takes the form of a dramma giocoso in two acts. The libretto, by Lorenzo Da Ponte, is based on the play ' by Luis Vélez de Guevara. The opera was first performed at the Burgtheater, Vienna, on 17 November 1786. It was a huge success and was shown 78 times. Mozart quotes a melody from this opera, "", in the orchestral accompaniment to the trio of the finale of ''Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanis ...''.For a detailed discussion of this borrowing, see Daniel E. Freeman, ''Mozart in Prague'' (Minneapolis: Calumet Editions, 2021), 285–286. Roles Synopsis The town mayor and the Spanish prince Don Giovanni try to seduce the virtuous Lilla, who is engaged to Lu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vicente Martín Y Soler
Anastasio Martín Ignacio Vicente Tadeo Francisco Pellegrin Martín y Soler (2 May 175430 January or 10 February 1806) was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure now, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary and admirer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa. In his time he was called "Martini lo spagnuolo" ("Martini the Spaniard"); in modern times, he has been called "the Valencian Mozart". He was known primarily for his melodious Italian comic operas and his work with Lorenzo Da Ponte in the late 18th century, as well as the melody from ''Una cosa rara'' quoted in the dining scene of Mozart's ''Don Giovanni''. Biography Martín y Soler was born in Valencia. His father, Francisco Xavier Martín, was a tenor at the cathedral in town, where Vicente was a chorister there in his youth. Vicente moved to Madrid probably around 1775, and studied music in Bologna under Giovanni Battista Martini. His first opera was ''Il ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera World Premieres At The Burgtheater
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as ''Singspiel'' and ''Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of sing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operas By Vicente Martín Y Soler
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as ''Singspiel'' and ''Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of singing: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1786 Operas
Events January–March * January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed, between the United States and the Choctaw. * January 6 – The outward bound East Indiaman '' Halsewell'' is wrecked on the south coast of England in a storm, with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving. * February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies. * March 1 – The Ohio Company of Associates is organized by five businessmen at a meeting at the Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern in Boston, to purchase land from the United States government to form settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Ohio. * March 13 – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid down by the United Kingdom's Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland. April&ndas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian-language Operas
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It has an official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) – Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version Italian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Benucci
Francesco Benucci (c. 1745 – 5 April 1824) was an Italian bass/baritone singer of the 18th century. He sang a number of important roles in the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Antonio Salieri and other composers. Life Historical background and early career He was born c. 1745 in Livorno and began his early career there around 1768.Link (2004, vii) The start of Benucci's career took place in an already flourishing world of opera buffa, which provided an existing role type, the comic bass singer or ''buffo'', at which Benucci came to excel. The historical background is described by Rice: :In one of his earliest appearances (Livorno 1768) Benucci sang Tritemio in ''Il filosofo di campagna''. That he began his career in an opera by Galuppi and Goldoni and in a role created by Carattoli is emblematic of his place in the history of opera buffa. He took up the tradition ... to which Goldoni, in collaboration with composers as Galuppi and such singers as Carattoli, had contribut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass (voice Type)
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4).; ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'' gives E2–E4/F4 Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system. Italians favour subdividing basses into the ''basso cantante'' (singing bass), ''basso buffo'' ("funny" bass), or the dramatic ''basso profondo'' (low bass). The American system identifies the bass-baritone, comic bass, lyric bass, and dramatic bass. The German ''Fach'' system offers further distinctions: Spielbass (Bassbuffo), Schwerer Spielbass (Schwerer Bassbuffo), Charakterbass (Bassbariton), and Seriöser Bass. These classification systems can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nancy Storace
Anna (or Ann) Selina Storace (; 27 October 176524 August 1817), known professionally as Nancy Storace, was an English operatic soprano. The role of Susanna in Mozart's '' Le nozze di Figaro'' was written for and first performed by her. Born in London, her singing career as a child prodigy began in England by the age of 12. This led to further study in Italy and to a successful singing career there during the late 1770s. While in Monza (or shortly before in Milan) in 1782,Pesqué 2017, p. 56-57 quotes a letter dated November 1785 from Poet Giovanni Battista Casti who informs his correspondent that Storace and Benucci have been already recruited for Vienna. she was recruited to form part of Emperor Joseph II's new Italian opera company in Vienna, where the assembled singers who joined her "created in the two years leading up to the premiere of ''The Marriage of Figaro'', were welded into the finest buffa ensemble anywhere." In Vienna, she befriended both Mozart and Joseph Haydn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Kelly (tenor)
Michael Kelly (25 December 1762 – 9 October 1826) was an Irish tenor, composer and theatrical manager who made an international career of importance in musical history. One of the leading figures in British musical theatre around the turn of the nineteenth century, he was a close associate of playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He also became friends with musicians such as Mozart and Paisiello, and created roles for the operas of both composers. With his friend and fellow singer Nancy Storace, he was one of the first tenors of that era from Britain and Ireland to become famous in Italy and Austria. In Italy he was also known as O'Kelly or even Signor Ochelli. Although the primary source for his life is his ''Reminiscences'', doubt has been cast on the reliability of his own account, and it has been said that ' y statement of Kelly's is immediately suspect.' Dublin beginnings Michael Kelly's father Thomas, a Roman Catholic wine merchant and dancing-master, held an im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squire
In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight. Use of the term evolved over time. Initially, a squire served as a knight's apprentice. Later, a village leader or a lord of the manor might come to be known as a "squire", and still later, the term was applied to members of the landed gentry. In contemporary American usage, "squire" is the title given to justices of the peace or similar local dignitaries. ''Squire'' is a shortened version of the word ''esquire'', from the Old French (modern French ), itself derived from the Late Latin ("shield bearer"), in medieval or Old English a ''scutifer''. The Classical Latin equivalent was ("arms bearer"). Knights in training The most common definition of ''squire'' refers to the Middle Ages. A squire was typically a young boy, training to become a knight. A boy became a page at the age of 7 then a squire at age 14. Squires were the second step to becoming a knight, after having served as a page. Boys s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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