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William Matteuzzi
William Matteuzzi (born 12 December 1957 in Bologna, Italy) is an Italian operatic tenor renowned for his impressive vocal range and prominent upper register, reaching a high F (above the tenor high C) in full voice, which enabled him to participate in the recent revival of the tenore contraltino repertoire. he is nicknamed "the King of the high F". He is also admired as a fine musician and elegant vocalist. He won the Enrico Caruso Singing Competition in 1980, which led him to Teatro alla Scala. He has sung a wide repertoire ranging from Claudio Monteverdi or Antonio Vivaldi ('' Orlando furioso'') to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ('' Così fan tutte''), Vincenzo Bellini (''I Puritani'' and ''La Sonnambula''), Gaetano Donizetti (''La fille du régiment'') and Giovanni Pacini (''L’ultimo giorno di Pompei''). A highly respected Rossini specialist, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1988 as Count Almaviva in ''Il barbiere di Siviglia''. He has performed Rossini's comic operas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its metropolitan area is home to more than 1,000,000 people. It is known as the Fat City for its rich cuisine, and the Red City for its Spanish-style red tiled rooftops and, more recently, its leftist politics. It is also called the Learned City because it is home to the oldest university in the world. Originally Etruscan, the city has been an important urban center for centuries, first under the Etruscans (who called it ''Felsina''), then under the Celts as ''Bona'', later under the Romans (''Bonōnia''), then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality and later ''signoria'', when it was among the largest European cities by population. Famous for its towers, churches and lengthy porticoes, Bologna has a well-preserved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Barbiere Di Siviglia
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ''The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera ''The Marriage of Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armida (Rossini)
''Armida'' is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto (''dramma per musica'') by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from ''Jerusalem Delivered, Gerusalemme liberata'' by Torquato Tasso. Performance history ''Armida'' was written to be performed at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 11 November 1817 to celebrate the opening of the rebuilt opera house, which had been destroyed by fire the previous year. Isabella Colbran sang the title role, which is one of the longest and most demanding that Rossini wrote, with difficult coloratura passages of every kind during the entire opera. The most notable are to be found in "D'amore al dolce impero" during Act 2, in the duets between Armida and Rinaldo, and in parts of the Act 3 finale. The first modern staging took place at the Teatro Comunale Florence, Teatro Comunale of Florence on 26 April 1952, during the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with Maria Callas and Francesco Albanese in the leading role ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zelmira
''Zelmira'' () is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, ''Zelmire'' by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas. Stendhal called its music Teutonic, comparing it with ''La clemenza di Tito'' but remarking: "...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!" Performance history The first performance of ''Zelmira'' was in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo on 16 February 1822. This was followed by a successful premiere in Vienna on 13 April 1822, as part of a three-month-long Rossini Festival for which Rossini wrote some additional music. Performances in several Italian cities were followed by the London premiere on 24 January 1824, with Rossini conducting and Isabella Colbran (now his wife) in the title role. It was seen in Paris in 1826. There was one presentation in the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otello (Rossini)
''Otello'' is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by after William Shakespeare's play '' Othello, or The Moor of Venice''; it was premiered in Naples, Teatro del Fondo, 4 December 1816. The plot of the libretto differs greatly from Shakespeare's play in that it takes place wholly in Venice, not mainly on Cyprus, and the dramatic conflict develops in a different manner. The role of Iago is much less diabolical than Shakespeare's play or Verdi's 1887 opera ''Otello'', which was also based on it. Shakespeare derived his play from the story ''Un Capitano Moro'' ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. In further contrast, the role of Roderigo, a sub-plot in Shakespeare and Verdi, is very prominent in Rossini's version—some of the most difficult and brilliant music being assigned to the character Rodrigo. The roles of Otello, Iago, and Rodrigo are all composed for the tenor voice. Rossini's ''Otello'' is an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Seria
''Opera seria'' (; plural: ''opere serie''; usually called ''dramma per musica'' or ''melodramma serio'') is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to about 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only attained common usage once ''opera seria'' was becoming unfashionable and beginning to be viewed as something of a historical genre. The popular rival to ''opera seria'' was ''opera buffa,'' the 'comic' opera that took its cue from the improvisatory commedia dell'arte. Italian ''opera seria'' (invariably to Italian libretti) was produced not only in Italy but almost throughout Europe, and beyond (see Opera in Latin America, Opera in Cuba e. g.). Among the main centres in Europe were the court operas based in Warsaw (since 1628), Munich (founded in 1653), London (established in 1662), Vienna (firmly established 1709; first operatic representation: ''Il pomo d'oro'', 1668), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Comte Ory
''Le comte Ory'' (''Count Ory'') is a comic opera written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera ''Il viaggio a Reims'' written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X of France, Charles X. The French libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson adapted from a comedy they had first written in 1817. The work is ostensibly a comic opera in that the story is humorous, even farcical. However, it was devised for the Académie Royale de Musique, Opéra rather than for the Opéra-Comique, Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique and there are structural inconsistencies with the contemporary ''opéra comique'' genre: whereas the latter consists of relatively short lyrical numbers and spoken dialogue, ''Le comte Ory'' consists of "highly developed, even massive musical forms linked by accompanied recitative". Although the opera contains some of Rossini's most colorful orchestral writing, the quaint, brief overture is oddly restraine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Viaggio A Reims
''Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro'' (''The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis'') is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts,Janet Johnson: ''A Lost Masterpiece Recovered'', pp. 37–38 of the liner notes to the 1984 DG recording. by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on ' by Germaine de Staël. Rossini's last opera in the Italian language (all of his later works were in French) premiered under the title ''Le voyage à Reims, ou l'Hôtel du Lys-d'Or''. It was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of French King Charles X in Reims in 1825 and has been acclaimed as one of Rossini's finest compositions. A demanding work, it requires 14 soloists (three sopranos, one contralto, two tenors, four baritones, and four basses). At its premiere, it was sung by the greatest voices of the day. Since the opera was written for a specific occasion, with a plot about European aristocrats ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Pietra Del Paragone
' (''The Touchstone'') is an opera, or ''melodramma giocoso'', in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Romanelli. Performance history ''La pietra del paragone'' was first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 26 September 1812. It was the composer's first commission from a major opera house and was an instant success, being performed 53 times during its first season.''Kobbe'', p. 654 Napoleon's Viceroy in Milan, Eugène de Beauharnais, was so impressed by the opera that he wrote to the Minister of the Interior, "You will kindly arrange for Maestro Joachin Rossini to be exempted from military service. I cannot take it upon myself to expose to the enemy's fire such a precious existence; my contemporaries would never forgive me. We are perhaps losing a mediocre soldier, but we are surely saving a man of genius for the nation." The first performance of the opera in Rio de Janeiro was in 1826. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Cenerentola
' (''Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant'') is an operatic ''dramma giocoso'' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the libretti written by Charles-Guillaume Étienne for the opera '' Cendrillon'' with music by Nicolas Isouard (first performed Paris, 1810) and by Francesco Fiorini for ' with music by Stefano Pavesi (first performed Milan, 1814). All these operas are versions of the fairy tale '' Cendrillon'' by Charles Perrault. Rossini's opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817. Rossini composed ''La Cenerentola'' when he was 25 years old, following the success of ''The Barber of Seville'' the year before. ''La Cenerentola'', which he completed in a period of three weeks, is considered to have some of his finest writing for solo voice and ensembles. Rossini saved some time by reusing an overture from '' La gazzetta'' and part of an aria from ''The Barber of Seville'' and by enlisting a collaborator, Luca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Gazza Ladra
''La gazza ladra'' (, ''The Thieving Magpie'') is a ''melodramma'' or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on ''La pie voleuse'' by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. ''The Thieving Magpie'' is best known for the overture, which is musically notable for its use of snare drums. This memorable section in Rossini's overture evokes the image of the opera's main subject: a devilishly clever, thieving magpie. Rossini wrote quickly, and ''La gazza ladra'' was no exception. A 19th-century biography quotes him as saying that the conductor of the premiere performance locked him in a room at the top of La Scala the day before the premiere with orders to complete the opera's still unfinished overture. He was under the guard of four stagehands whose job it was to toss each completed page out the window to the copyist below. Performance history The first performance of ''The Thieving Magpie'' was on 31 May 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'italiana In Algeri
''L'italiana in Algeri'' (; ''The Italian Girl in Algiers'') is an operatic ''dramma giocoso'' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies. Composition history Rossini wrote ''L'italiana in Algeri'' when he was 21. Rossini stated that he composed the opera in 18 days, though other sources claim that it took him 27 days. Rossini entrusted the composition of the recitatives as well as the aria "Le femmine d'Italia" to an unknown collaborator. The opera is notable for Rossini's mixing of opera seria style with opera buffa. The overture is widely recorded and performed today, known for its distinct opening of slow, quiet pizzicato basses, leading to a sudden loud burst of sound from the full orchestra. This "surp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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