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Anna Maria Strada Del Pò
Anna Maria Strada, also known as Anna Maria Strada del Pò, (* 1703 in Bergamo; † July 20, 1775 in Naples) was an Italian soprano. She is best remembered for her association with the composer George Frideric Handel, in whose operas Strada sang. Career After an initial career in Italy that included performances at Venice — in Antonio Vivaldi, Vivaldi's opera ''La verità in cimento'' (1720) — Milan, and Livorno, Strada moved to London in 1729 to sing for Handel after the composer engaged her for his operas. She made her début as Adelaida in ''Lotario (Handel), Lotario'' and was ''prima donna'' in all his operas and oratorios until 1737. She sang in a minimum of 24 of Handel's operas and the opera-ballet ''Terpsicore'', a new prologue to a revision of ''Il pastor fido''. Her roles included Angelica in ''Orlando (opera), Orlando'', the title role in ''Partenope'', Elmira in ''Sosarme'', Thusnelda in ''Arminio'', and Ariadne in ''Giustino (Handel), Giustino'', and the titl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terpsicore
''Terpsicore'' ( HWV)( 8b) is a prologue in the form of an opéra-ballet by George Frideric Handel. Handel composed it in 1734 for a revision of his opera ''Il pastor fido'' which had first been presented in 1712. The revision of ''Il pastor fido'' with ''Terpsicore'' as the prologue was first performed on 9 November 1734 at Covent Garden theatre in London, opening Handel's first season in that newly built theatre. ''Terpsicore'' mixes dance along with solo and choral singing and was patterned after models in French operas, a particular source being ''Les festes grecques et romaines'' by Louis Fuzelier and Colin de Blamont, first presented in Paris in 1723. The work featured the celebrated French dancer Marie Sallé as well as stars of Handel's Italian operas and was a success with audiences of the day. Performance history ''Il pastor fido'', a pastoral opera first performed in 1712, had not been a success with audiences. This was probably due to the fact that it was lacking in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faustina Bordoni
Faustina Bordoni (30 March 1697 – 4 November 1781) was an Italian mezzo-soprano. In Hamburg, Germany, the Johann Adolph Hasse Museum is dedicated to her husband and partly to Bordoni. Early career She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the aristocratic brother composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. Her singing teacher was another composer, Michelangelo Gasparini. For many years in the service of the Elector Palatine, she made her operatic debut at Venice in 1716 in Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's ''Ariodante'', singing in her home city until 1725 in operas by Albinoni, the Gasparini brothers, Giacomelli, Leonardo Leo, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, the Pollarolos, father and son, and Leonardo Vinci, amongst others. In 1718 and 1719 in Venice she sang alongside Francesca Cuzzoni, later to become her great rival. During this period she also performed several times at Reggio nell'Emilia, Naples and Parma, and at least once in Milan, Modena and Flore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Granville
Mary Delany, earlier Mary Pendarves ( Granville; 14 May 1700 – 15 April 1788) was an English artist, letter-writer, and bluestocking, known for her "paper-mosaicks", botanic drawing, needlework and her lively correspondence. Early life Mary Delany was born at Coulston, Wiltshire, the daughter of Colonel Bernard Granville by his marriage to Mary Westcombe, loyal Tory supporters of the Stuart Crown. She was a niece of George Granville, 1st Baron Lansdowne, her father's brother. Mary had one older brother, Bernard (1699), known as Bunny; a younger brother Bevil, born between 1702 and 1706; and a sister, Anne (1707) who married John Dewes (D'Ewes). When Mary was young, her parents moved the family to London, and she attended a school taught by a French refugee, Mademoiselle Puelle. Mary came into close contact with the Court when she was sent to live with her aunt, Lady Stanley, who was childless – the intention being that she would eventually become a maid of honour.Hayden, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Burney
Charles Burney (7 April 1726 – 12 April 1814) was an English music historian, composer and musician. He was the father of the writers Frances Burney and Sarah Burney, of the explorer James Burney, and of Charles Burney, a classicist and book donor to the British Museum. He was a close friend and supporter of Joseph Haydn and other composers. Early life and career Charles Burney was born at Raven Street, Shrewsbury, the fourth of six children of James Macburney (1678–1749), a musician, dancer and portrait painter, and his second wife Ann (''née'' Cooper, –1775). In childhood he and a brother Richard (1723–1792) were for unknown reasons sent to the care of a "Nurse Ball" at nearby Condover, where they lived until 1739. He began formal education at Shrewsbury School in 1737 and was later sent in 1739 to The King's School, Chester, where his father then lived and worked. His first music master was a Mr Baker, the cathedral organist, and a pupil of John Blow. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turin
Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is mainly on the western bank of the Po (river), River Po, below its Susa Valley, and is surrounded by the western Alpine arch and Superga hill. The population of the city proper is 856,745 as of 2025, while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 1.7 million inhabitants. The Turin metropolitan area is estimated by the OECD to have a population of 2.2 million. The city was historically a major European political centre. From 1563, it was the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia ruled by the House of Savoy, and the first capital of the Kingdom of Italy from 1861 to 1865. Turin is sometimes called "the cradle of Italian liberty" for having been the politi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Bononcini
Giovanni Bononcini (or Buononcini) (18 July 1670 – 9 July 1747) (sometimes cited also as Giovanni Battista Bononcini) was an Italian Baroque composer, cellist, singer and teacher, one of a family of string players and composers. He was a rival to George Frederic Handel. Biography Early years Bononcini was born in Modena, the oldest of three sons. His father, Giovanni Maria Bononcini, was a violinist and a composer, and his younger brother, Antonio Maria Bononcini, was also a composer. An orphan from the age of 8, Giovanni Battista studied in the music school of Giovanni Paolo Colonna at San Petronio Basilica in Bologna (perhaps in 1680 or 1681). In 1685, at the age of 15, he published three collections of instrumental works (in two of which he gave his age as 13). On 30 May 1686, he was accepted as a member of the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. His services were already much in demand: he worked at San Petronio as a string player and singer, published fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Of The Nobility
The Opera of the Nobility (or Nobility Opera ) was an opera company set up and funded in 1733 by a group of nobles (under Frederick, Prince of Wales) opposed to George II of Great Britain, in order to rival the (Second) Royal Academy of Music company under Handel (backed by George II and his queen). Nicola Porpora was invited to be its musical director and Owen Swiny considered as its talent scout. The company had Senesino (who had fallen out with Handel) as its lead singer and was based at a theatre at Lincoln's Inn Fields under John Rich which had become available on Rich's opening of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. The company's first opera was '' Arianna in Nasso'' by Porpora, a direct challenge to Handel's ''Arianna in Creta''. The company was not a success in its initial 1733–34 season. Though Farinelli joined it late in the season and thus made it financially solvent, he was unable to prevent its eventual bankruptcy. At the end of its initial season it took over the Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atalanta (opera)
''Atalanta'' (Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis, HWV List of compositions by George Frideric Handel, 35) is a pastoral opera in three acts by George Frideric Handel composed in 1736. It is based upon the Greek mythology, mythological female athlete, Atalanta, the libretto (which is in Italian) being derived from the book ''La Caccia in Etolia'' by Belisario Valeriani. The identity of the libretto, librettist is not known. Handel composed it for the London celebrations of the marriage in 1736 of Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II of Great Britain, King George II, to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. The first performance took place on 12 May 1736 in the Royal Opera House#First theatre, Covent Garden Theatre. It closed with a spectacular display of fireworks, which was highly popular with the royal family and the London audience, and the opera and fireworks display were revived a number of times in the year of its first performance. An arioso from the opera, "Care selve", is o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giustino (Handel)
''Giustino'' ("Justin", Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis, HWV List of compositions by George Frideric Handel, 37) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel. The opera was first given at the Covent Garden Theatre in London on 16 February 1737. The Italian-language libretto was adapted from Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI's court poet Pietro Pariati's libretto for ''Giustino'' (1711), after the much older original libretto of Nicolò Beregan (1682). The libretto had already been adapted by many composers including Giustino (Vivaldi), Vivaldi's ''Giustino'' of 1724 and Tomaso Albinoni's lost opera of 1711. Background By the 1736–37 season in London, the German-born Handel was presenting both operas he had composed in Italian, as he had done for more than twenty years, and oratorio in English, which was a newer form for him. ''Giustino'' was one of three new operas composed by Handel that season. In addition he revived earlier operas and oratorios and presented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arminio
''Arminio'' ( HWV 36) is an opera composed by George Frideric Handel. The libretto is based on a libretto of the same name by Antonio Salvi, which had been set to music by Alessandro Scarlatti. It is a fictionalisation of events surrounding the Germanic leader Arminius, who defeated the Romans under Publius Quinctilius Varus at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, and his wife Thusnelda. The opera was performed for the first time at the Covent Garden Theatre on 12 January 1737. Background The German-born Handel had brought Italian opera to London stages for the first time in 1711 with his opera '' Rinaldo''. An enormous success, ''Rinaldo'' created a craze in London for Italian opera seria, a form focused overwhelmingly on solo arias for the star virtuoso singers. Handel had presented new operas in London for years with great success. One of the major attractions in Handel's operas was the star castrato Senesino whose relationship with the composer was often stormy and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sosarme
''Sosarme, re di Media'' ("Sosarmes, King of Media", HWV 30) is an opera by George Frideric Handel written in 1732 for the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, London, where it ran for 12 performances. The text was based on an earlier libretto by Antonio Salvi, ''Dionisio, Re di Portogallo'' (Dionisius, King of Portugal), and adapted by an unknown writer. The original setting of Portugal was changed to Sardis in Lydia. Performance history ''Sosarme'' had its premiere on 15 February 1732 and was a great success, as noted by the diary known as "Colman's Opera Register": "In Febry Sosarmes - a New Opera - took much by Hendell - & was for many Nights much crowded to some peoples admiration." It was revived for 3 performances in 1734 with arias from '' Riccardo Primo''. The first revival since 1734 was in 1970 at Abingdon, UK, though the work had been broadcast in full by the BBC in 1955, a performance on which the slightly abridged recording of the same year, under Anthony Lewis (liste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
