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Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse (baptised 25 March 1699 – 16 December 1783) was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music. Married to soprano Faustina Bordoni and a friend of librettist Pietro Metastasio, whose libretti he frequently set, Hasse was a pivotal figure in the development of '' opera seria'' and 18th-century music. Early career Hasse was baptised in Bergedorf near Hamburg where his family had been church organists for three generations. His career began in singing when he joined the Hamburg Oper am Gänsemarkt in 1718 as a tenor. In 1719 he obtained a singing post at the court of Brunswick, where in 1721 his first opera, ''Antioco'', was performed; Hasse himself sang in the production. He is thought to have left Germany during 1722. During the 1720s he lived mostly in Naples, dwelling there for six or s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Bergedorf
Bergedorf () is the largest of the seven boroughs of Hamburg, Germany, named after Bergedorf quarter within this borough. In 2020 the population of the borough was 130,994. History The city of Bergedorf received town privileges in 1275, then a part of the younger Duchy of Saxony (1180–1296), which was partitioned by its four co-ruling dukes in 1296 into the branch duchies of Saxe-Lauenburg and Saxe-Wittenberg. Bergedorf then became part of the former. This was only to last until 1303, when Lauenburg's three co-ruling dukes, Albert III, Eric I, and John II partitioned their branch duchy into three smaller duchies. Eric then held Bergedorf ( Vierlande) and Lauenburg and inherited the share of his childless brother Albert III, Saxe-Ratzeburg, after he was already deceased in 1308 and a retained section from Albert's widow Margaret of Brandenburg-Salzwedel on her death. However, his other brother, John II, then claimed a part, so in 1321 Eric conceded Bergedorf (with Vierlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Opera Buffa
Opera buffa (, "comic opera"; : ''opere buffe'') is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ''commedia in musica'', ''commedia per musica'', ''dramma bernesco'', ''dramma comico'', ''divertimento giocoso''. Especially associated with developments in Naples in the first half of the 18th century, whence its popularity spread to Rome and northern Italy, ''buffa'' was at first characterized by everyday settings, local dialects, and simple vocal writing (the basso buffo is the associated voice type), the main requirement being clear diction and facility with patter song, patter. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' considers ''La Cilla'' (music by Michelangelo Faggioli, text by , 1706) and Luigi Ricci (composer), Luigi and Federico Ricci's'' Crispino e la comare'' (1850) to be the first and last appearances of the genre, although the term is still occasionally applied to newer work (for example E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Augustus II The Strong
Augustus II the Strong (12 May 1670 – 1 February 1733), was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1697 to 1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine branch of the House of Wettin. Augustus' great physical strength earned him the nicknames "the Strong", "the Saxon Hercules" and "Iron-Hand". He liked to show that he lived up to his name by breaking horseshoes with his bare hands and engaging in fox tossing by holding the end of his sling with just one finger while two of the strongest men in his court held the other end.Sacheverell Sitwell. ''The Hunters and the Hunted'', p. 60. Macmillan, 1947. He is also notable for List of people with the most children, fathering a very large number of children, with contemporary sources claiming a total of between 360 and 380. In order to be elected king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Augustus converted to Roman Catholicism. As a Catholic, he received th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (), was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of ''opera seria'' libretti. Early life Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal forces. Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, and became a grocer in the ''Via dei Cappellari''. The couple had two sons and two daughters; Pietro was the younger son. Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject. On one such occasion in 1709, two men of distinction stopped to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, famous for legal and literary erudition as well as his directorship of the Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini, a critic of some note. Gravina was attracted by the boy's poetic talent and personal charm, and made Pietro h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cleofide
''Cleofide'' (''Cleophis'') is an opera seria in three acts by Johann Adolf Hasse. The Italian libretto was adapted from Metastasio's '' Alessandro nell'Indie'' by Michelangelo Boccardi. Boccardi's adaptation of the libretto shifted the focus of the story to Cleofide, as the name suggests, instead of Alessandro as in Metastasio's original libretto. Performance history ''Cleofide'' was first performed on 13 September 1731 at the Grosses Königliches Opernhaus am Zwingerhof in Dresden. Hasse returned to the same subject for a new production at the Teatro San Giovanni Gristostomo in Venice on 4 November 1736, however the music was almost completely different. On that occasion, the original title of Metastasio's libretto was used: ''Alessandro nell'Indie''. Although successful after its premiere, the opera has faded into relative obscurity, though a revival was staged at the Semperoper Dresden in March 2005. An audio recording of the opera was produced in 1986. A critical edition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern period, including the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. The house takes its name from Habsburg Castle, a fortress built in the 1020s in present-day Switzerland by Radbot of Klettgau, who named his fortress Habsburg. His grandson Otto II was the first to take the fortress name as his own, adding "Count of Habsburg" to his title. In 1273, Count Radbot's seventh-generation descendant, Rudolph, was elected King of the Romans. Taking advantage of the extinction of the Babenbergs and of his victory over Ottokar II of Bohemia at the Battle on the Marchfeld in 1278, he appointed his sons as Dukes of Austria and moved the family's power base to Vienna, where the Habsburg dynasty gained the name of "House of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Oratorio
An oratorio () is a musical composition with dramatic or narrative text for choir, soloists and orchestra or other ensemble. Similar to opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters (e.g. soloists), and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, and typically involves significant theatrical spectacle, including sets, props, and costuming, as well as staged interactions between characters. In oratorio, there is generally minimal staging, with the chorus often assuming a more central dramatic role, and the work is typically presented as a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are not infrequently presented in concert form. A particularly important difference between opera and oratorio is in the typical subject matter of the text. An opera libretto may deal with any conceivable dramatic subject (e.g. history, mythology, Richard Nixon, Anna Nicole Smith an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. Its larger metropolitan area has a population of nearly 2.9 million, representing nearly one-third of the country's population. Vienna is the Culture of Austria, cultural, Economy of Austria, economic, and Politics of Austria, political center of the country, the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, fifth-largest city by population in the European Union, and the most-populous of the List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. The city lies on the eastern edge of the Vienna Woods (''Wienerwald''), the northeasternmost foothills of the Alps, that separate Vienna from the more western parts of Austria, at the transition to the Pannonian Basin. It sits on the Danube, and is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Dresden
Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area (after Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne), and the third-most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Saxony, Coswig, Radeberg, and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants. The Dresden metropolitan area has approximately 1.34 million inhabitants. Dresden is the second largest city on the River Elbe after Hamburg. Most of the city's population lives in the Dresden Basin, Elbe Valley, but a large, albeit very sparsely populated, area of the city east of the Elbe lies in the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands (the westernmost part of the Sudetes) and thus in Lusatia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Kapellmeister
( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in its meaning and is today used for denoting the leader of a musical ensemble, often smaller ones used for TV, radio, and theatres. Historical usage In German-speaking countries during the approximate period 1500–1800, the word often designated the director of music for a monarch or nobleman. For English speakers, it is this sense of the term that is most often encountered, since it appears frequently in biographical writing about composers who worked in German-speaking countries. During that period, in Italy, the position (Italian: ''maestro di capella'') largely referred to directors of music assigned to cathedrals and sacred institutions rather than those under royal or aristocratic patronage. A Kapellmeister position was a senior one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Philip V Of Spain
Philip V (; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was List of Spanish monarchs, King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724 and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign (45 years and 16 days) is the longest in the history of the Spanish monarchy, surpassing Philip IV of Spain, Philip IV. Although his ascent to the throne precipitated the War of the Spanish Succession, Philip V instigated many important reforms in Spain, most especially the centralization of power of the monarchy and the suppression of regional privileges, via the Nueva Planta decrees, and restructuring of the administration of the Spanish Empire on the Iberian Peninsula and its overseas regions. Philip was born into the House of Bourbon, French royal family (as Philippe, Duke of Anjou) during the reign of his grandfather Louis XIV. He was the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, and was third in line to the French throne after his father and his elder brother, Louis, Duke of Burgund ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
S Giovanni Grisostomo
The Teatro Malibran, known over its lifetime by a variety of names, beginning with the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo (or Crisostomo) after the nearby church,Lynn 2005, pp. 101—103 is an opera house in Venice which was inaugurated in 1678 with a production of the premiere of Carlo Pallavicino's opera ''Vespasiano''. By 1683, it had quickly become known as "the biggest, most beautiful and richest theatre in the city"The ''Mercure Gallant'', March 1683, in Lynn, p. 102 and its operatic importance throughout the 17th and 18th centuries led to an even grander description by 1730: :A true kingdom of marvels....that with the vastness of its magnificent dimension can be rightly compared to the splendours of ancient Rome and that with the grandeur of its more than regal dramatic performances has now conquered the applause and esteem of the whole world. Richly decorated, the theatre consisted of five levels of thirty boxes and a large stalls area. However, as an opera house, its success w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
