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La Bohème
''La bohème'' ( , ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions '':wikt:quadro, quadri'', ''wikt:tableau, tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on ''La Vie de Bohème, Scènes de la vie de bohème'' (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830 and shows the Bohemianism, Bohemian lifestyle (known in French as "") of a poor seamstress and her artist friends. The world premiere of ''La bohème'' was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio (Turin), Teatro Regio, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Since then, ''La bohème'' has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide. In 1946, 50 years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a commemorative performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. A recording of the performa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo (23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Throughout his career, Leoncavallo produced numerous operas and songs but it is his 1892 opera ''Pagliacci'' that remained his lasting contribution, despite attempts to escape the shadow of his greatest success. Today ''Pagliacci'' continues to be his most famous opera and one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the operatic repertory. His other notable compositions include the song " Mattinata", popularized by Enrico Caruso, and, to a lesser extent, his version of ''La bohème'' which, however, was overshadowed by Puccini's highly successful opera of the same name. Biography The son of Vincenzo Leoncavallo, a police magistrate and judge, Leoncavallo was born in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, on 23 April 1857. As a child, Leoncavallo moved with his father to the town of Montalto Uffugo in Calabria, where he lived during his adolescence. In 1868 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for List of compositions by Giacomo Puccini#Operas, his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late Baroque music, Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-nineteenth-century Romantic Italian opera, it later developed in the realistic ''verismo'' style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are ''La bohème'' (1896), ''Tosca'' (1900), ''Madama Butterfly'' (1904), and the unfinished ''Turandot'' (posthumously completed by Franco Alfano), all of which are among the most List of important operas, frequently performed and recorded in the entirety of the operatic repertoire. Family and education Born in Lucca in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, in 1858; he was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Théodore Barrière
Théodore Barrière (1823 – 16 October 1877), French playwright, was born in Paris. He belonged to a family of map engravers which had long been connected with the war department, and spent nine years in that service himself. The success of a vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ... he had performed at the Beaumarchais and which was immediately snapped up for the repertory of the Palais Royal, showed him his real vocation. During the next thirty years he signed, alone or in collaboration, over a hundred plays; among the most successful were: *''La Vie de bohème'' (1849), adapted from Henri Murger’s book with the novelist's help *''Manon Lescaut'' (1851) *''Les Filles de marbre'' (1853) (subsequently adapted into English as ''The Marble Heart'' by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Scala
La Scala (, , ; officially , ) is a historic opera house in Milan, Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as (, which previously was Santa Maria della Scala, Milan, a church). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's ''Europa riconosciuta''. Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala. The theatre is regarded as being one of the leading opera and ballet theatres globally. It is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet, La Scala Theatre Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy (), which offers professional training in music, dance, stagecraft, and stage management. Overview La Scala's season opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, the feast day of Milan's patron saint. All performances must end before midnight and long operas start ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maurizio Bensaude
Maurício (Moisés) Bensaúde (also known professionally as Maurizio Bensaude) (13 February 1863, in Ponta Delgada – 22 December 1912, in Lisbon), was a Portuguese operatic baritone. He arrived in Lisbon in 1884, where he received vocal training for a short time, and then made his debut in the same year at the Teatro da Trindade in Lisbon, in the opérette '' La petite mariée'' by Charles Lecocq. He then worked in another operetta at the Portuguese capital, in the Teatro de D. Maria, where he appeared in operettas and musical comedies. However, he continued to take singing lessons, and began to take on operatic roles as well at the end of the 1880s. He quickly became a success, and went on to have extensive international guest appearances. In 1896, he sang at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, playing Riccardo in Bellini's ''I Puritani'' in 1897, and playing Gunther in ''Twilight of the Gods''. In the 1893–94 and 1898–99 seasons, he was engaged at the Metropolitan Opera in N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Dell'Opera Di Roma
The Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (Rome Opera House) is an opera house in Rome, Italy. Originally opened in November 1880 as the 2,212 seat ''Costanzi Theatre'', it has undergone several changes of name as well modifications and improvements. The present house seats 1,560. Original Teatro Costanzi: 1880 to 1926 The Teatro dell'Opera was originally known as the ''Teatro Costanzi'' after the contractor who built it, (1819–1898). It was financed by Costanzi, who commissioned the Milanese architect Achille Sfondrini (1836–1900), a specialist in the building and renovation of theatres. The opera house was built in eighteen months, on the site where the house of Heliogabalus stood in ancient times, and was inaugurated on 27 November 1880 with a performance of ''Semiramide'' by Gioachino Rossini. Designing the theatre, Sfondrini paid particular attention to the acoustics, conceiving the interior structure as a "resonance chamber", as is evident from the horseshoe shape in particular. W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Comunale Di Bologna
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season. While there had been various theatres presenting opera in Bologna since the early 17th century, they had either fallen into disuse or burnt down. However, from the early 18th century, the ''Teatro Marsigli-Rossi'' had been presenting operatic works by popular composers of the day including Vivaldi, Gluck, and Niccolò Piccinni. The ''Teatro Malvezzi'', built in 1651, burned down in February 1745 and this event prompted the construction of a new theatre, the ''Nuovo Teatro Pubblico'', as the Teatro Comunale was originally called when it opened on 14 May 1763. Design and inauguration Despite opposition from other competitors, the architect Antonio Galli Bibiena won the theatre design contract. The theatre's inaugural performance was Gluck's '' Il trionfo di Clelia'', an opera which Gluck had composed for the occasion ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio Magini-Coletti
Antonio Magini-Coletti (17 February 1855 – 21 July 1912) was a leading Italian baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the late 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. A versatile artist, he appeared in several opera world premieres but was particularly associated with the works of Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner and the verismo composers. He was also an accomplished exponent of the bel canto repertoire. Biography Magini-Coletti was born in 1855 in the medieval town of Iesi (written Jesi in Italian), which is situated inland from Ancona on central Italy's east coast. Published details of his early life are scant but sources agree that he studied singing during the 1870s with the distinguished pedagogue Venceslao Persichini at Rome's Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia. (Persichini's other students included the lyric tenor Francesco Marconi and Magini-Coletti's fellow baritones Mattia Battistini, Giuseppe De Luca and Titta Ruffo.) In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Di San Carlo
The Real Teatro di San Carlo ("Royal Theatre of Saint Charles"), as originally named by the Bourbon monarchy but today known simply as the Teatro (di) San Carlo, is a historic opera house in Naples, Italy, connected to the Royal Palace and adjacent to the Piazza del Plebiscito. It is the oldest continuously active venue for opera in the world, having opened in 1737, decades before either Milan's La Scala or Venice's La Fenice."The Theatre and its history" on the Teatro di San Carlo's official website. (In English). Retrieved 23 December 2013 The opera season runs from late November to July, with the ballet season from December to early June. The house once had a seating capacity of 3,285, but has now been reduced to 1,386 seats. Given its size, structure and antiquity, it was the model for theatr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tessitura
In music, tessitura ( , , ; ; ) is the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for a given singer (or, less frequently, musical instrument). It is the range in which a given type of voice presents its best-sounding (or characteristic) timbre. This broad definition is often interpreted to refer specifically to the pitch range that most frequently occurs within a given part of a musical piece. Hence, in musical notation, ''tessitura'' is the ambitus, or a narrower part of it, in which that particular vocal (or less often instrumental) part lies—whether high or low, etc. However, the tessitura of a part or voice is not decided by the extremes of its range, but rather by the share of this total range which is most used. Hence, it is referred to as the "heart" of a range. For example, throughout the entirety of Wagner's '' Ring'', the music written for the tenor role of Siegfried ranges from C to C, but the tessitura is described as high because the phrases are most oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cesira Ferrani
Cesira Ferrani (May 8, 1863 in Turin – May 4, 1943 in Pollone) was an Italian operatic soprano who is best known for debuting two of the most iconic roles in opera history, Mimì in the original 1896 production of Giacomo Puccini's ''La bohème'' and the title role in Puccini's '' Manon Lescaut'' in its 1893 world premiere. Ferrani sang a wide repertoire that encompassed not only verismo opera but the works of composers like Verdi, Gounod, Wagner, and Debussy. Career Born Cesira Zanazzio, Ferrani studied with Antonietta Fricci in Turin before making her professional opera début in 1887 as Micaëla in Bizet's ''Carmen'' at the Teatro Regio di Torino. That same year she sang Gilda from Verdi's ''Rigoletto'' and Marguerite in Gounod's ''Faust'' at the same theater. Over the next four years she appeared in numerous productions in Catania, Genoa, and Venice. She also sang in several productions in France. In 1892 she appeared at the Teatro Carlo Felice as Amelia into Verdi's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evan Gorga
Evangelista Gennaro Gorga (6 February 1865 – 5 December 1957) was an Italian lyric tenor. He is best known for originating the role of Rodolfo in the original production of Giacomo Puccini's ''La bohème'' at the Teatro Regio Torino in 1896. Early life Evan Gorga was born in Brocco (now Broccostella), Italy in the province of Caserta (now Frosinone). His father, Pietro Gorga, was a small land owner, while his mother, Matilde De Santis, was the daughter of a local nobleman. The family lived in a house that stood in what is now the historical center of Broccostella. Education and career As a teenager and a young man, Gorga studied voice with a teacher with the surname Franceschetti. In 1894, he made his professional opera debut in the title role of Verdi's ''Ernani'' when called in to replace the scheduled performer, Francesco Tamagno, who was sick. In 1895, he performed the role of Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas's ''Mignon'', Le Chevalier des Grieux in Jules Massenet's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
