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Opera In Scotland
Scottish opera is a subgenre of music of Scotland, Scottish music. This article deals with three separate, but overlapping subjects: *Opera on Scottish themes, subject matter, or inspired by Scottish writers *Opera by Scottish (-based) composers *Opera in Scotland, including performers, production personnel, and opera companies, etc. A number of operas have been :Operas set in Scotland, set in Scotland, or based around Scottish themes, but the number of notable operas written by Scots is far lower. Their actual connection to Scotland varies greatly. Searching for its typical and characteristic features, Scottish opera (and Scottish classical music as a whole), has often been under strong foreign influence. Italian, French, English and German operas have served as models, even when composers sought to introduce characteristically national elements into their work. This dualism, to a greater or lesser degree, has persisted throughout the whole history of Scottish opera. The Ital ...
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Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani (retouched)
Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani () (4 October 1812 – 3 May 1867) was an Italian soprano particularly associated with bel canto composers, such as Rossini, Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Bellini, and early Verdi. Her 'golden' period in Paris and London was between 1837 and 1848.Ashbrook and Lo Presti 1986, p.216 note 114. Life and career Born in Rome as Francesca Felicita Maria Tacchinardi, she was the daughter of cellist and tenor Nicola Tacchinardi, a very eminent teacher of vocal technique who trained her voice from childhood, and his first wife, Maria Angiola Tacchinardi, a relative. She had two older siblings, Carolina and Ulisse and a younger sibling, Enrichetta "Elisa". She was the half-sister of Guido Tacchinardi who was born from her father's third marriage. In 1830 she married the composer Giuseppe Persiani (1799–1869), and as she embarked on her stage career she added his surname to her own. She made her stage début at Livorno in Giuseppe Fournier-Gorre's ''Francesca d ...
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Saverio Mercadante
Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 179517 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as prolific a number of works as either; and his development of operatic structures, melodic styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Giuseppe Verdi built his dramatic technique. Biography Early years Mercadante was born illegitimate in Altamura, near Bari in Apulia; his precise date of birth has not been recorded, but he was baptised on 17 September 1795. Mercadante studied flute, violin and composition at the conservatory in Naples, and organized concerts among his compatriots.Michael Rose, "Mercadante: Flute Concertos", booklet accompanying the 2004 RCA CD recording with James Galway and I Solisti Veneti under Claudio Scimone. The opera composer Gioachino Rossini sa ...
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Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer (born Jakob Liebmann Beer; 5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864) was a German opera composer, "the most frequently performed opera composer during the nineteenth century, linking Mozart and Wagner". With his 1831 opera ''Robert le diable'' and its successors, he gave the genre of grand opera 'decisive character'. Meyerbeer's grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth century. Born to a rich Jewish family, Meyerbeer began his musical career as a pianist but soon decided to devote himself to opera, spending several years in Italy studying and composing. His 1824 opera '' Il crociato in Egitto'' was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation, but ...
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George Frideric Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque music, Baroque composer well known for his opera#Baroque era, operas, oratorios, anthems, concerto grosso, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle (Saale), Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and Handel's Naturalisation Act 1727, became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphony, polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three c ...
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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 ...
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Nicola Vaccai
Nicola Vaccai (15 March 1790 – 5 or 6 August 1848) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas, and a singing teacher. Life and career as a composer Born at Tolentino, he grew up in Pesaro, and studied music there until his parents sent him to Rome to study law. Having no intention of becoming a lawyer, he took voice lessons and eventually studied counterpoint with Giuseppe Jannaconi, an important Roman composer. When Vaccai turned twenty one, he went to Naples and became a disciple of Paisiello, whose ''Barber of Seville'' was considered a comic masterpiece until Rossini's ''Barber'' swept it from the stage 35 years later.J.G. Paton, 'Introduction', in Nicola Vaccai, ''Practical Method of Italian Singing'' ed. J.G. Paton (G. Schirmer, 1975), pp. iii-iv. Vaccai launched his career in Venice, initially earning his living by writing ballets and teaching voice. He had his first operatic success with ''I solitari di Scozia'' in Naples in 1815. In Parma he was commissioned to ...
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Elisabetta, Regina D'Inghilterra
''Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra'' (; ''Elizabeth, Queen of England'') is a ''dramma per musica'' or opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, from the play ''Il paggio di Leicester'' (''Leicester's Page'') by Carlo Federici, which itself "was derived from a novel ''The Recess'' (1785) by Sophia Lee." It was premiered at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 4 October 1815 and was the first of nine operas which Rossini wrote for the San Carlo. Altogether, this was one of eighteen operas which he wrote during the time he spent in Naples. Rossini took melodies from other operas to compose ''Elisabetta'', including the overture, first written for ''Aureliano in Palmira'', which is famous as the overture to ''The Barber of Seville''. As Holden notes, with the re-uses of earlier music, "it is as if Rossini wished to present himself to the Neapolitan public by offering a selection of the best music from operas unlikely to have been revived in Naples."H ...
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Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ...
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Luigi Ricci (composer)
Luigi Ricci (8 July 1805 – 31 December 1859), was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. He was the elder brother of Federico Ricci, with whom he collaborated on several works. He was also a conductor. Life Ricci was born and educated in Naples, where he wrote his first opera at the conservatory in 1823. His triumphs in 1831 at La Scala with ''Chiara di Rosembergh'' and in 1834 with ''Un'avventura di Scaramuccia'' made him famous throughout Europe, and in 1835 he and his younger brother Federico collaborated in the first of the four operas they wrote together. In 1837 Ricci ran into financial problems, brought about mainly by his extravagant life-style. He was forced to accept a job at Trieste, and he composed no operas for seven years. Then, however, he fell in love, at the same time, with both Francesca and Ludmila, the 17-year-old identical twin sisters of the singer Teresa Stolz, also singers, and this inspired him to create (in 1845) an opera for them both to si ...
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Federico Ricci
Federico Ricci (22 October 1809 – 10 December 1877), was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. Born in Naples, he was the younger brother of Luigi Ricci, with whom he collaborated on several works. Federico studied at Naples as had his brother. His first big success was with ''La prigione di Edimburgo'', one of his best serious works. He stayed with serious subjects for several years, and of these ''Corrado d'Altamura'' was a particular success. However, his last collaboration with his brother, a comedy called ''Crispino e la comare'', was hailed as the masterpiece of both composers, so Federico devoted himself thereafter entirely to comedy. After another success closely followed by a major flop in Vienna, Federico took an official job teaching in St Petersburg and for 16 years he wrote no operas. In 1869 he moved to Paris, and there ''Une folie à Rome'' ran for 77 nights; other French comedies of his — mainly revisions of his own and his brother's earlier works — ...
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Cesare Pugni
Cesare Pugni (; russian: Цезарь Пуни, Cezar' Puni; 31 May 1802 in Genoa – ) was an Italian composer of ballet music, a pianist and a violinist. In his early career he composed operas, symphonies, and various other forms of orchestral music. Pugni is most noted for the ballets he composed for Her Majesty's Theatre in London (1843–1850), and for the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Russia (1850–1870). The majority of his ballet music was composed for the works of the ballet master Jules Perrot, who mounted nearly every one of his ballets to scores by Pugni. In 1850 Perrot departed London for Russia, having accepted the position of ''Premier maître de ballet'' of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres at the behest of Carlotta Grisi, who was engaged as ''Prima ballerina''. Cesare Pugni followed Perrot and Grisi to Russia, and remained in the imperial capital even after Grisi's departure in 1853 and Perrot's departure in 1858. Pugni went on to compose for Perro ...
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Stefano Pavesi
Stefano Pavesi (22 January 1779, Casaletto Vaprio – 28 July 1850) was an Italian composer. He is primarily known as a prolific opera composer; his breakthrough opera was Fingallo e Comala, and his acknowledged opera masterpiece is Ser Marcantonio. He also served as the ''maestro di cappella'' of Crema Cathedral from 1814 to 1818 (shared with Giuseppe Gazzaniga), and alone from 1818 (upon Gazzaniga's death) until his death at the age of 71. His first music studies were in Crema (neighboring his birthplace), followed by studies in Naples. While in Naples, Pavesi actively joined the Parthenopean Republic. After its suppression, Pavesi was denounced, imprisoned, and deported to France (allegedly Cimarosa intervened to prevent his execution). In France he played the serpent in Napoleon's army band and remained in Italy after the Battle of Marengo. He returned to Crema in 1814 after the Austrian occupation of northern Italy after the War of the Sixth Coalition. He suffered a stro ...
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