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Opera Intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo (, , plural form: intermezzi), in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term has had several different usages, which fit into two general categories: the opera intermezzo and the instrumental intermezzo. Renaissance intermezzo The Renaissance intermezzo was also called the intermedio. It was a masque-like dramatic piece with music, which was performed between the acts of a play at Italian court festivities on special occasions, especially weddings. By the late 16th century, the intermezzo had become the most spectacular form of dramatic performance, and an important precursor to opera. The most famous examples were created for Medici weddings in 1539, 1565, and 1589. In Baroque Spain the equivalent entremés or paso was a one-act comic scene, often ending in music and dance, between ''jornadas'' (acts) of a play.Le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermezzo (opera)
''Intermezzo'', Op. 72, is a comic opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to his own German libretto, described as a ' (bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes). It premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on 4 November 1924, with sets that reproduced Strauss' home in Garmisch. The first Vienna performance was in January 1927. Background The story depicts fictionally the personalities of Strauss himself (as "Robert Storch") and his wife Pauline (as "Christine") and was based on real incidents in their lives. Pauline Strauss was not aware of the opera's subject before the first performance. After Lotte Lehmann had congratulated Pauline on this "marvelous present to you from your husband", Pauline's reply was reported as "I don't give a damn". The most celebrated excerpts from the opera are the orchestral interludes between scenes. His usual librettist up to that time, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, refused to work on the opera and suggested that Strauss himself write the libretto, which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scherzi
A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western world, western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a Movement (music), movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often refers to a movement that replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. The term can also refer to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work. Origins The Italian language, Italian word ''scherzo'' means 'joke' or 'jest'. More rarely the similar-meaning word ''badinerie'' (also spelled ''battinerie''; from French language, French, 'jesting') has been used. Sometimes the word ''scherzando'' ('joking') is used in musical notation to indicate that a passage should be executed in a playful manner. An early use of the word ''scherzo'' in music is in light-hearted madrigals of the Baroque music#Early baroque mus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow. Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, violin, voice, and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms has been considered both a traditionalist and an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. Embe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna Hall, Susanna, and twins Hamnet Shakespeare, Hamnet and Judith Quiney, Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn)
At two separate times, Felix Mendelssohn composed music for William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (in German ''Ein Sommernachtstraum''). First in 1826, near the start of his career, he wrote a concert overture ( Op. 21). Later, in 1842, only a few years before his death, he wrote incidental music (Op. 61) for a production of the play, into which he incorporated the existing overture. The incidental music includes the famous "Wedding March". Overture The overture in E major, Op. 21, was written by Mendelssohn at 17 years and 6 months old (it was finished on 6 August 1826).''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', 5th ed., 1954 Contemporary music scholar George Grove called it "the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music". It was written as a concert overture, not associated with any performance of the play. The overture was written after Mendelssohn had read a German translation of the play in 1826. The translation was by A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphony, symphonies, concertos, piano music, Organ (music), organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the Overture#Concert overture, overture and incidental music for ''A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn), A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (which includes his "Wedding March (Mendelssohn), Wedding March"), the ''Symphony No. 4 (Mendelssohn), Italian Symphony'', the ''Symphony No. 3 (Mendelssohn), Scottish Symphony'', the oratorio ''St. Paul (oratorio), St. Paul'', the oratorio ''Elijah (oratorio), Elijah'', the overture ''The Hebrides (overture), The Hebrides'', the mature Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn), Violin Concerto and the Octet (Mendelssohn), String Octet. The melody for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thaïs (opera)
''Thaïs'' () is an opera, a ''comédie lyrique'' in three acts and seven tableaux, by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet, based on the novel ''Thaïs'' by Anatole France. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Paris on 16 March 1894, starring the American soprano Sibyl Sanderson, for whom Massenet had written the title role. The original production was directed by Alexandre Lapissida, with costumes designed by Charles Bianchini and sets by Marcel Jambon (act 1, scene 1; act 3) and Eugène Carpezat (act 1, scene 2; act 2). The opera was later revised by the composer and was premiered at the same opera house on 13 April 1898. The work was first performed in Italy at the Teatro Lirico Internazionale in Milan on 17 October 1903 with Lina Cavalieri in the title role and Francesco Maria Bonini as Athanaël. In 1907, the role served as Mary Garden's American debut in New York in the U.S. premiere performance. ''Thaïs'' takes place in Egypt under the rule of ... [...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] |
Fedora (opera)
''Fedora'' is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1882 play ''Fédora'' by Victorien Sardou. Along with ''Andrea Chénier'' and ''Siberia'', it is one of the most notable works of Giordano. It was first performed at the Teatro Lirico in Milan on 17 November 1898 conducted by the composer; Gemma Bellincioni created the role of Fedora with Enrico Caruso as her lover, Loris Ipanov. Composition history In 1889, Umberto Giordano saw Sardou's play ''Fédora'' at the Teatro Bellini di Napoli, with Sarah Bernhardt (for whom the play was written) in the title role. He immediately asked Sardou for permission to base an opera on the play, and Sardou initially refused because, at the time, Giordano was a relatively unknown composer. Following the premiere of his 1894 ''Regina Diaz'', Giordano's publisher, Edoardo Sonzogno, asked Sardou again. However, Sardou demanded what Sozogno considered an exorbitant fee. It was only on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suor Angelica
''Suor Angelica'' (''Sister Angelica'') is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as ''Il trittico'' (''The Triptych''). It received its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918. Roles Synopsis :Place: A convent in Italy :Time: The latter part of the 17th century The opera opens with scenes showing typical aspects of life in the convent – all the sisters sing hymns, the Monitor scolds two lay-sisters, everyone gathers for recreation in the courtyard. The sisters rejoice because, as the mistress of novices explains, this is the first of three evenings that occur each year when the setting sun strikes the fountain so as to turn its water golden. This event causes the sisters to remember Bianca Rosa, a sister who has died. Sister Genevieve suggests they pour some of the "golden" water onto her tomb. The nuns discuss their desires. While the Moni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manon Lescaut (Puccini)
''Manon Lescaut'' () is an Italian-language opera in four acts composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1889 and 1892 to a libretto by Luigi Illica, Marco Praga and , based on the 1731 novel '' Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut'' by the Abbé Prévost. The opera was first performed in 1893 in Turin, at the Teatro Regio. Composition history The libretto is in Italian, and was cobbled together by five librettists whom Puccini employed: Ruggero Leoncavallo, Marco Praga, Giuseppe Giacosa, and Luigi Illica. The publisher, Giulio Ricordi, and the composer himself also contributed to the libretto. So confused was the authorship of the libretto that no one was credited on the title page of the original score. However, it was Illica and Giacosa who completed the libretto and went on to contribute the libretti to Puccini's next three – and most successful – works, ''La Bohème'', ''Tosca'' and ''Madama Butterfly''. Puccini took some musical elements in ''Manon Lesca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
