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Aída Doninelli
Aída Doninelli (November 4, 1898 – 1996) was a Guatemalan soprano. She was the first opera singer from Guatemala to perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Biography Aída Doninelli was born on November 4, 1898 in Guatemala City, one of six surviving children of a family who emigrated from Italy from 1894 to 1901. Her parents were Antonio Doninelli and Angela Pozzi. Her father reportedly named her Aída because he had just returned from a performance of Verdi's ''Aida'' on the evening of her birth. Doninelli studied under Susana Illescas de Palomo at the Colegio de La Concepción. She debuted as a soloist in a Panama Canal Zone concert for returning World War I soldiers. In 1922, against her father's wishes, she married Mexican cellist José Silvestre Véliz. The pair toured the United States, with Doninelli singing and Véliz as accompanist. Doninelli made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1928 in her namesake ''Aida'' as an unseen priestess, singing offstage. Other r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guatemala
Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically bordered to the south by the Pacific Ocean and to the northeast by the Gulf of Honduras. The territory of modern Guatemala hosted the core of the Maya civilization, which extended across Mesoamerica; in the 16th century, most of this was Spanish conquest of Guatemala, conquered by the Spanish and claimed as part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence from Spain and Mexico in 1821. From 1823 to 1841, it was part of the Federal Republic of Central America. For the latter half of the 19th century, Guatemala suffered instability and civil strife. From the early 20th century, it was ruled by a series of dictators backed by the United States. In 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a pro-democratic m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luisa Miller
''Luisa Miller'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play '' Kabale und Liebe'' (''Intrigue and Love'') by the German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller. Verdi's initial idea for a new opera – for which he had a contract going back over several years – was rejected by the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. He attempted to negotiate his way out of this obligation and, when that failed, Cammarano came up with the idea of adapting the Schiller play, with which Verdi was familiar. The process was set in motion, with Verdi still living and working on initial ideas from Paris, where he had been living for almost two years before moving back to his home town of Busseto in the summer of 1849. It was from there that he wrote the music and traveled to Naples for rehearsals. The first performance was given on 8 December 1849. This was Verdi's 15th opera (counting ''Jérusalem'', the French translation and revision of ''I L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti (20 September 1880 – 13 February 1968) was an Italian composer of classical music, as well as a musicologist and a music critic. Biography Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi, Gian Francesco Malipiero, and Alfredo Casella. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions were not in opera. The instrumental and ''a cappella'' traditions had never died in Italian music and had produced, for instance, the string quartets of Antonio Scontrino (1850–1922) and the works of Respighi's teacher Giuseppe Martucci; but with the "Generation of 1880" these traditions became stronger. Ildebrando Pizzetti was the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was his son's first teacher. At first Pizzetti seemed headed for a career as a playwright—he had written several plays, two of which had been produced—before he decided in 1895 on a career ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Campana Sommersa
(''The Sunken Bell'') is an opera in four acts by Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. Its libretto is by Claudio Guastalla, based on the play '' Die versunkene Glocke'' by German author Gerhart Hauptmann. The opera's premiere was on 18 November 1927 in Hamburg, Germany. Respighi's regular publisher, Ricordi, was displeased by his choice of subject, and refused to publish the opera. This led to its being published by the German publisher Bote & Bock, and a German premiere. The fairy-tale world of Hauptmann's play inspired Respighi to create his most lavishly and imaginatively orchestrated operatic score, which frequently reminds the listener of his famous symphonic poems. Since the opera's anti-hero Enrico is a bell maker, Respighi fills the music with many chiming and ringing effects. Roles Instrumentation ''La campana sommersa'' is scored for the following instruments: 3 flutes (3 doubling on piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. List of compositions by Ottorino Respighi, His compositions range over List of operas by Ottorino Respighi, operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, chamber music, and transcriptions of Italian compositions of the 16th–18th centuries, but his best known and most performed works are his three orchestral tone poems which brought him international fame: ''Fountains of Rome (symphonic poem), Fountains of Rome'' (1916), ''Pines of Rome'' (1924), and ''Roman Festivals (Respighi), Roman Festivals'' (1928). Respighi was born in Bologna to a musical and artistic family. He was encouraged by his father to pursue music at a young age, and took formal tuition in the violin and piano. In 1891, he enrolled at the Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, Liceo Musicale di Bologna, where he studied the vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (; ), often stylized "The Tannhäuser", was a German Minnesinger and traveling poet. Historically, his biography, including the dates he lived, is obscure beyond the poetry, which suggests he lived between 1245 and 1265. His name becomes associated with a " fairy queen"–type folk ballad in German folklore of the 16th century. Historical Tannhäuser The most common tradition has him as a descent from the ''Tanhusen'' family of Imperial '' ministeriales'', documented in various 13th century sources, with their residence in the area of Neumarkt in the Bavarian Nordgau. These sources identify him as being descended of an Old Styrian noble family. The illustrated ''Codex Manesse'' manuscript (about 1300–1340) depicts him clad in the Teutonic Order habit, suggesting he might have fought in the Sixth Crusade led by Emperor Frederick II in 1228/29. For a while, Tannhäuser was an active courtier at the court of the Austrian duke Frederick the Warlike, who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance ''Parzival'' of the '' Minnesänger'' Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance ''Perceval ou le Conte du Graal'' by the 12th-century ''trouvère'' Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. ''Parsifal'' was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on ''Parsifal'' productions until 1914, however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like Aria, arias and Recitative, recitatives. He described this vision in a List of prose works by Richard Wagner, series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Tell (opera)
''William Tell'' (; ) is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play ''William Tell (play), Wilhelm Tell,'' which, in turn, drew on the William Tell legend. The opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly 40 more years. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for ''Guillaume Tell'' to be his last opera even as he composed it. The often-performed William Tell Overture, overture in four sections features a depiction of a storm and a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers". Paris Opéra archivist Charles Malherbe discovered the original orchestral score of the opera in the hands of a second-hand bookseller, resulting in its being acquired by the Paris Conservatoire in 1898. Performance history ''Guillaume Tell'' was first performed by the Paris Opéra at the Salle Le Peletier on 3 August 1829, but within three perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some Church music, sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an alm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Sonnambula
''La sonnambula'' (; ''The Sleepwalker'') is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the ''bel canto'' tradition by Vincenzo Bellini set to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ''ballet-pantomime'' written by Eugène Scribe and choreographed by Jean-Pierre Aumer called ''La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur''. The ballet had premiered in Paris in September 1827 at the height of a fashion for stage works incorporating somnambulism. The role of Amina was originally written for the soprano sfogato Giuditta Pasta and the tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, but during Bellini's lifetime another soprano sfogato, Maria Malibran, was a notable exponent of the role. The first performance took place at the Teatro Carcano in Milan on 6 March 1831. The majority of twentieth-century recordings have been made with a soprano cast as Amina, usually with added top-notes and other changes according to tradition, although it was released in soprano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
