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Verismo
In opera, ''verismo'' (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini. ''Verismo'' as an operatic genre had its origins in an Italian literary movement of the same name. This was in turn related to the international literary movement of naturalism as practised by Émile Zola and others. Like naturalism, the ''verismo'' literary movement sought to portray the world with greater realism. In so doing, Italian ''verismo'' authors such as Giovanni Verga wrote about subject matter, such as the lives of the poor, that had not generally been seen as a fit subject for literature. History A short story by Verga called ' (), then developed into a play by the same author, became the source for what is usually considered to be the first ''verismo'' opera: ''Cavalleria rusticana'' by Mascagni, which premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic ''verismo'' style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are ''La bohème'' (1896), ''Tosca'' (1900), '' Madama Butterfly'' (1904), and ''Turandot'' (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas. Family and education Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verismo (literature)
''Verismo'' (, from , "true") was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s. Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents and the authors of a ''verismo'' manifesto. Capuana published the novel ''Giacinta'', generally regarded as the "manifesto" of Italian ''verismo''. New York City Opera Project: ''Madame Butterfly'' Unlike French naturalism, which was based on ideals, Verga and Capuana rejected claims of the scientific nature and social usefulness of the movement. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 186712 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, ''Marina'', was written for a competition promoted by the music publishers Casa Sonzogno for the best one-act opera, remembered today because it marked the beginning of Italian ''verismo''. The winner was Mascagni's ''Cavalleria rusticana''. Giordano, the youngest contestant, was placed sixth among seventy-three entries with his ''Marina'', a work which generated enough interest for Sonzogno to commission the staging of an opera based on it in the 1891–92 season. The result was ''Mala vita'', a gritty ''verismo'' opera about a labourer who vows to reform a prostitute if he is cured of his tuberculosis. This work caused something of a scandal when performed at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, in February 1892. It played successfully in Vienna, Pragu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrea Chénier
''Andrea Chénier'' () is a verismo opera in four acts by Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica, and first performed on 28 March 1896 at La Scala, Milan. The story is based loosely on the life of the French poet André Chénier (1762–1794), who was executed during the French Revolution. The character Carlo Gérard is partly based on Jean-Lambert Tallien, a leading figure in the Revolution. It remains popular with audiences, though less frequently performed than in the first half of the 20th century. One reason for its survival in the repertoire is the lyrical-dramatic music provided by Giordano for the tenor lead, which gives a talented singer opportunities to demonstrate his skills and flaunt his voice. Giuseppe Borgatti's triumph in the title role at the first performance immediately propelled him to the front rank of Italian opera singers. He went on to become Italy's greatest Wagnerian tenor, rather than a verismo-opera specialist. Performance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Realism (arts)
Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding speculative and supernatural elements. The term is often used interchangeably with naturalism, although these terms are not synonymous. Naturalism, as an idea relating to visual representation in Western art, seeks to depict objects with the least possible amount of distortion and is tied to the development of linear perspective and illusionism in Renaissance Europe. Realism, while predicated upon naturalistic representation and a departure from the idealization of earlier academic art, often refers to a specific art historical movement that originated in France in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1848. With artists like Gustave Courbet capitalizing on the mundane, ugly or sordid, realism was motivated by the renewed interest in the common man and the rise of leftist politics. The Realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate Fre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are '' Manon'' (1884) and ''Werther'' (1892). He also composed oratorios, ballets, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, songs and other music. While still a schoolboy, Massenet was admitted to France's principal music college, the Paris Conservatoire. There he studied under Ambroise Thomas, whom he greatly admired. After winning the country's top musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres, but quickly became best known for his operas. Between 1867 and his death forty-five years later he wrote more than forty stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra-comique to grand-scale depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies, lyric dramas, as well as oratorios, cantatas and ballets. Massenet had a good sense of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alberto Franchetti
Alberto Franchetti (18 September 1860 – 4 August 1942) was an Italian composer, best known for the 1902 opera ''Germania''. Biography Alberto Franchetti was born in Turin, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice, then at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger, and finally in Dresden under Felix Draeseke. His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera ''Asrael''. His operatic style combined Wagnerianism and the traits of Meyerbeer with Italian verismo. During his life, critics sometimes referred to him as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy." The words of music critic G. B. Nappi sum up Franchetti's primary talents: "His character is perhaps unsuitable for passionate dramas, but rather for those subjects, where the fantastic, romantic and epic are required in the symphonic texture and large choral pictures. In this regard Alberto Franchetti knows that he has no rival" (from "Orfeo" 6.3, 1915). '' Grove'' considers '' Cristoforo Colombo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adriana Lecouvreur
''Adriana Lecouvreur'' () is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play ''Adrienne Lecouvreur'' by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan. Background The same play by Scribe and Legouvé which served as a basis for Cilea's librettist was also used by at least three different librettists for operas carrying exactly the same name, ''Adriana Lecouvreur'', and created by three different composers. The first was an opera in three acts by Tomaso Benvenuti (premiered in Milan in 1857). The next two were lyric dramas in 4 acts by Edoardo Vera (to a libretto by Achille de Lauzières) which premiered in Lisbon in 1858, and by Ettore Perosio (to a libretto by his father), premiered in Genoa in 1889. After Cilea created his own ''Adriana'', however, none of those by others were performed anymore and they remain largely unknown today. The opera is based on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louise (opera)
''Louise'' is a “musical novel,” or “,” in four acts and five scenes by Gustave Charpentier. It can be considered an opera. The composer himself penned the French libretto with contributions from Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists. It is an atmospheric story of working-class life in Paris, with the city itself invoked along the way: young Louise, a seamstress living with her parents, loves Julien, an artist; she desires freedom, associated in her mind with him and the city. (Charpentier would later write a sequel, the opera ''Julien'', describing the artist's aspirations.) Musically the work is ''verismo'', it marks the beginning of naturalism in French opera. Performance history ''Louise'' was premiered on 2 February 1900 at the Salle Favart by the Opéra-Comique conducted by André Messager in a production by Albert Carré. It was successful, reaching its 100th performance just over a year later; the 500th performance at the Opéra-Comiqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustave Charpentier
Gustave Charpentier (; 25 June 1860 – 18 February 1956) was a French composer, best known for his opera ''Louise''.Langham Smith R., "Gustave Charpentier", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. Life and career Charpentier was born in Dieuze, Moselle, the son of a baker, and with the assistance of a rich benefactor he studied violin at the conservatoire in Lille before entering the Paris Conservatoire in 1881. There he took lessons in composition under Jules Massenet (from 1885) and had a reputation of wanting to shock his professors. In 1887 he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata ''Didon''. During the time in Rome that the prize gave him, he wrote the orchestral suite ''Impressions d'Italie'' and began work on the libretto and music for what would become his best-known work, the opera ''Louise''. Charpentier returned to Paris, settling in Montmartre, and continued to compose, including songs on texts by Charles Baudelaire and Voltaire. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfredo Catalani
Alfredo Catalani (19 June 1854 – 7 August 1893) was an Italian operatic composer. He is best remembered for his operas ''Loreley'' (1890) and ''La Wally'' (1892). ''La Wally'' was composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica, and features Catalani's most famous aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana." This aria, sung by American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez, was at the heart of Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 film ''Diva''. Catalani's other operas were much less successful. Life and career Born in Lucca, Catalani came from a musical family. He was trained at the Milan Conservatory, where his teachers included Antonio Bazzini. Despite the growing influence of the ''verismo'' style of opera during the 1880s and early 1890s, Catalani chose to compose in a more traditional manner, which had traces of Wagner in it. As a result, his operas (''La Wally'' excepted) have largely lost their place in the modern repertoire, even compared to those of Massenet and Puccini, whose style his own periodically re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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