Léon David
Léon David (18 December 1867, Les Sables d’Olonne, Vendée — 27 October 1962, Les Sables d’Olonne) was a French tenor and voice teacher. Possessing an unusually beautiful vocal timbre, he excelled in lyric tenor roles and was a leading tenor at the Opéra-Comique from 1892 until his retirement from the stage in 1920. He later was a professor of voice at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1924 through 1937. Life and career Léon David trained as a singer at the Conservatoire de Nantes and Conservatoire de Paris before making his professional opera debut at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo in February 1892 as Euxenos in Noël Desjoyeaux’s ''Gyptis''. He began a very long tenure as a resident artist at the Opéra-Comique later that year, making his debut at that theatre in June 1892 as Iopas in ''Les Troyens''. David remained committed to the Opéra-Comique until his retirement from the stage 28 years later in 1920. Among the many roles he performed in operas at that house included ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word '' tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the enor was thestructurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that sang such parts. All other voices were ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manon
''Manon'' () is an ''opéra comique'' in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel '' L'histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut'' by the Abbé Prévost. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 19 January 1884, with sets designed by Eugène Carpezat (act 1), Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon (acts 2 and 3), and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (act 4). Prior to Massenet's work, Halévy (''Manon Lescaut'', ballet, 1830) and Auber (''Manon Lescaut'', opéra comique, 1856) had used the subject for musical stage works. Massenet also wrote a one-act sequel to ''Manon'', '' Le portrait de Manon'' (1894), involving the Chevalier des Grieux as an older man. The composer worked at the score of ''Manon'' at his country home outside Paris and also at a house at The Hague once occupied by Prévost himself. ''Manon'' is Massenet's most popular and enduring opera and, having "quickly conquer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1867 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The Covington–Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, in the United States, becoming the longest single-span bridge in the world. It was renamed after its designer, John A. Roebling, in 1983. * January 8 – African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia. * January 11 – Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again. * January 30 – Emperor Kōmei of Japan dies suddenly, age 36, leaving his 14-year-old son to succeed as Emperor Meiji. * January 31 – Maronite nationalist leader Youssef Bey Karam leaves Lebanon aboard a French ship for Algeria. * February 3 – '' Shōgun'' Tokugawa Yoshinobu abdicates, and the late Emperor Kōmei's son, Prince Mutsuhito, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan in a brief ceremony in Kyoto, ending the Late Tokugawa shogunate. * February 7 – West Virginia University is established in Morgantown, West Virgin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist)
Elizabeth Forbes (3 August 1924 – 22 October 2014) was an English author, music critic, and musicologist who specialised in writing about opera. Her main areas of interest were 19th- and 20th-century opera (French and Scandinavian in particular) and singers, both historical and present-day. She contributed many reviews and articles to several notable periodicals and newspapers internationally including the ''Financial Times'' (which she joined in the early 1970s, working with Andrew Porter and then Ronald Crichton), ''The Independent'', ''The Musical Times'', ''Opera'', ''Opera Canada'' and ''Opera News'' among several others. Born in Camberley, she was the author of numerous books on various subjects related to opera, including her 1985 work, ''Mario and Grisi'', which details the lives of opera singers Giulia Grisi and Giovanni Matteo Mario. She wrote a significant number of singing translations of many operas, from French, German and Swedish, including works by Gaspare Sponti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books by decree in 1586, it is the second oldest university press after Cambridge University Press. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics known as the Delegates of the Press, who are appointed by the vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford. The Delegates of the Press are led by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as OUP's chief executive and as its major representative on other university bodies. Oxford University Press has had a similar governance structure since the 17th century. The press is located on Walton Street, Oxford, opposite Somerville College, in the inner suburb of Jericho. For the last 500 years, OUP has primarily focused on the publication of pedagogical texts a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theory of music. Earlier editions were published under the titles ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', and ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''; the work has gone through several editions since the 19th century and is widely used. In recent years it has been made available as an electronic resource called ''Grove Music Online'', which is now an important part of ''Oxford Music Online''. ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' ''A Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' was first published in London by Macmillan and Co. in four volumes (1879, 1880, 1883, 1889) edited by George Grove with an Appendix edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland in the fourth volume. An Index edited by Mrs. E. Wodehouse was issued as a separate volume in 1890. I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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José Luccioni
José Luccioni (14 October 1903 in Bastia – 5 October 1978 in Marseille) was a French operatic tenor of Corsican origin. He possessed one of the best dramatic voices of the 1930s and 1940s. Initially a racing car driver and mechanic at the Citroën car company, his voice was discovered while he was serving in the military. He studied singing in Paris with the eminent former tenors Léon David and Léon Escalais and made his debut in Rouen as Cavaradossi in ''Tosca'' in 1931. During the 1932-33 season he debuted at both the Palais Garnier and the Opéra-Comique, where he won considerable acclaim as Don José in ''Carmen'', a role he sang an estimated 500 times during his career. He sang widely in Europe, spending much of 1935-37 in Italy, appearing in Florence, Turin and Verona but mostly at the Rome Opera. He also appeared at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden, the Monte Carlo Opera, the Liceo in Barcelona and other European venues. He made his South American ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Risurrezione
''Risurrezione'' (''Resurrection''), is an opera or ''dramma'' in four acts by Franco Alfano. The libretto was written by Camillo Antona Traversi and Cesare Hanau (only Hanau signed it), based on the 1899 novel ''Resurrection'' (russian: Воскресение, link=no) by Leo Tolstoy.Orselli 2021, p. 12. The first performance was given on 30 November 1904 in the , Turin, Italy. Performance history ''Risurrezione'' was Alfano's most successful work. For performances at La Scala Milan in March 1906, Alfano made cuts to the score.Orselli 2021, p. 12. It was translated into French by Paul Ferrier and performed in Brussels, beginning on 18 April 1906.Loewenberg 1978, column 1260. It was translated into German by A. Brüggeman and performed at the Königliche Oper in Berlin, beginning on 5 October 1909. For the Berlin production, Alfano made further revisions to the score. In Italian, it was performed in Modena (18 February 1911), Novara (18 February 1911, altered version), Madrid ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franco Alfano
Franco Alfano (8 March 1875 – 27 October 1954) was an Italian composer and pianist, best known today for his opera '' Risurrezione'' (1904) and for having completed Puccini's opera '' Turandot'' in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime. Career Alfano was born in Posillipo, Naples. He attended piano lessons given privately by Alessandro Longo, and harmony and composition respectively under Camillo de Nardis (1857–1951) and Paolo Serrao at the Conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. Later, after graduating, in 1895 he pursued further composition studies with Hans Sitt and Salomon Jadassohn in Leipzig. While working there he met his idol, Edvard Grieg, and wrote numerous piano and orchestral pieces. From 1918 he was Director of the Conservatory of Bologna, from 1923 Director of the Turin Conservatory, and from 1947 to 1950 Director of the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro. Alfano died in San Remo. Operas Alfano complet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail
' () ( K. 384; ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''; also known as ') is a singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's ''Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail''. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Constanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting. Origins The company that first sponsored the opera was the ''Nationalsingspiel'' ("national Singspiel"), a pet project (1778–1783) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. The Emperor had set up the company to perform works in the German language (as opposed to the Italian opera style widely popular in Vienna). This project was ultimately given up as a failure, but along the way it produced a number of successes, mostly a series of translated works. Mozart's opera emer ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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La Monnaie
The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie (french: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, italic=no, ; nl, Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, italic=no; both translating as the "Royal Theatre of the Mint") is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National Opera of Belgium, a federal institution, takes the name of this theatre in which it is housed—La Monnaie in French or De Munt in Dutch—referring both to the building as well as the opera company. As Belgium's leading opera house, it is one of the few cultural institutions which receive financial support from the Federal Government of Belgium. Other opera houses in Belgium, such as the Vlaamse Opera and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, are funded by regional governments. La Monnaie is located on the Place de la Monnaie/Muntplein, not far from the Rue Neuve/Nieuwstraat and the Place de Brouckère/De Brouckèreplein. The current edifice is the third theatre on the site. The facade dates from 1818 with major alterations made in 1856 and 1 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Werther
''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on Goethe's epistolary novel ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'', which was based both on fact and on Goethe's own early life. Earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer (1792) and Pucitta (1802). Milnes R. Werther. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. Performance history Massenet started composing ''Werther'' in 1885, completing it in 1887. He submitted it to Léon Carvalho, the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique, that year, but Carvalho declined to accept it on the grounds that the scenario was too serious. With the disruption of the fire at the Opéra-Comique and Massenet's work on other operatic projects (especially '' Esclarmonde''), it was put to one side, until the Vienna Opera, pleased with the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |