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Victor-Joseph Étienne De Jouy
Victor-Joseph Étienne, called de Jouy (; 19 October 17644 September 1846), was a French dramatist who abandoned an early military career for a successful literary one. Life De Jouy was born at Versailles in 1764. At the age of eighteen he received a commission in the army, and sailed for South America in the company of the governor of Guiana. He returned almost immediately to France to complete his studies, and re-entered the service two years later. He was sent to India, and many of the events there were afterwards turned to literary account. His literary contemporary Stendhal records in his book ''Memoirs of an Egoist'' one such violent action, of rape. He writes, "One day in India he e Jouyand two or three friends went into a temple to escape the dreadful heat. There they found the priestess, a kind of Vestal Virgin. M. de Jouy found it amusing to maker her unfaithful to Brahma on the very altar of her god. The Indians realised what had happened, came running up in arms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luigi Cherubini
Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest living composer of his era. Cherubini's operas were heavily praised and interpreted by Rossini. Early years Cherubini was born Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini in Florence in 1760. There is uncertainty about his exact date of birth. Although 14 September is sometimes stated, evidence from baptismal records and Cherubini himself suggests the 8th is correct. Perhaps the strongest evidence is his first name, Maria, which is traditional for a child born on 8 September, the feast-day of the Nativity of the Virgin. His instruction in music began at the age of six with his father, Bartolomeo, ''maestro al cembalo'' ("Master of the harpsichord", in other words, ensemble leader from the harpsichor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Vestale
''La vestale'' (''The Vestal Virgin'') is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy. It takes the form of a '' tragédie lyrique'' in three acts. It was first performed on 15 December 1807 by the Académie Impériale de Musique (Paris Opera) at the Salle Montansier and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece. The musical style shows the influence of Gluck and anticipates the works of Berlioz, Wagner, and French Grand opera. Composition history Spontini had finished ''La vestale'' by the summer of 1805 but had faced opposition from leading members of the Opéra and rivalry from fellow composers.Del Teatro The premiere was made possible with the help of Spontini's patron, the Empress Joséphine, but only after being rearranged by Jean-Baptiste Rey and Louis-Luc Loiseau de Persuis. ''La vestale'' was an enormous success, enjoying over two hundred performances by 1830. Performance history Its fame soon spread abroad; it appeared in Naples and in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gasparo Spontini
Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini (14 November 177424 January 1851) was an Italian opera composer and conductor from the classical era. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French ''opera'', and composed over twenty works. Biography Born in Maiolati, Papal State (now Maiolati Spontini, Province of Ancona), he spent most of his career in Paris and Berlin, but returned to his place of birth at the end of his life. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French ''opera''. In his more than twenty operas, Spontini strove to adapt Gluck's classical ''tragédie lyrique'' to the contemporary taste for melodrama, for grander spectacle (in ''Fernand Cortez'' for example), for enriched orchestral timbre, and for melodic invention allied to idiomatic expressiveness of words. As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini, one of four active music conservatories of Nap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Dieulafoy
Joseph-Marie-Armand-Michel Dieulafoy (1762, Toulouse – 13 December 1823) was a French librettist and playwright. Biography He was received lawyer in Toulouse and he seemed destined to the bar where he had started. In his relatives, owners of large properties in the colonies drew him to the New World, and he moved to Santo Domingo where fortunate speculations already promised him a brilliant fortune. But the upheaval and emancipation of the Haitian Revolution destroyed his hopes: his house was burned down and his plantations were devastated by those who had formerly been enslaved there. He escaped the massacre du Cap in 1793 and fled to Philadelphia where he stayed there for a while, then returned to France where he devoted himself to dramatic poetry, mainly the vaudeville genre. The Théâtre du Vaudeville (which was then located rue de Chartres) saw his success since 1798, that is to say at the time of his greatest vogue. He also gave various plays to most theaters of Paris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milton (opera)
''Milton'' is an opéra comique in one act by Gaspare Spontini. The French libretto, by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Armand-Michel Dieulafoy, is based on the life of the English poet John Milton. ''Milton'' was first performed on 27 November 1804 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Feydeau in Paris. It was Spontini's first major success in France. The composer planned a reworked version for performances in Germany under the title ''Das verlorene Paradies'' (''Paradise Lost''), but in the event it was never staged. Roles Synopsis The blind poet Milton and his daughter Emma, fearing political persecution by King Charles II, find refuge with the Quaker Godwin. Godwin's niece Charlotte is in love with Milton's secretary, "Arthur". In reality, Arthur is Sir William Davenant, who has adopted this disguise because he is in love with Emma. Milton dictates verses from his poem ''Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an Epic poetry, epic poem in blank verse by the English poet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Château De St Germain-en-Laye
A château (, ; plural: châteaux) is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowadays, a ''château'' may be any stately residence built in a French style; the term is additionally often used for a winegrower's estate, especially in the Bordeaux wine regions, Bordeaux region of France. Definition The word château is a French word that has entered the English language, where its meaning is more specific than it is in French. The French word ''château'' denotes buildings as diverse as a medieval fortress, a Renaissance palace and a fine 19th-century country house. Care should therefore be taken when translating the French word ''château'' into English, noting the nature of the building in question. Most French châteaux are "palaces" or fine "English country house, country houses" rather than "castles", an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
