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Bruce Ford (tenor)
Bruce Ford (born August 15, 1956) is an American operatic tenor, particularly associated with Mozart roles and the bel canto repertory. Ford was born in Lubbock, Texas, and studied at Texas Tech University, the University of Texas, and later as a member of the Houston Grand Opera StudioHGO Studio Alumnilink) in Houston, where he created Philip Glass's ''The Madrigal Opera'' in 1981. He left for Europe, where he made his official operatic debut in Wuppertal in 1983, as Belmonte and Tamino, then in Mannheim in 1985, as Ferrando and Don Ramiro. In 1985, he also appeareared at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux as Almaviva, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, as Lindoro. He began specializing in the bel canto repertory notably Rossini, appearing at the Pesaro Festival and the Wexford Festival in roles such as Argirio in ''Tancredi'', Uberto in ''La donna del lago'', Rinaldo in ''Armida'', Agorante in '' Ricciardo e Zoraide'', Antenore in '' Zelmira'', Erisso in ''Maometto II'', O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below middle C to the G above middle C (i.e. B2 to G4) in choral music, and from the second B flat below middle C to the C above middle C (B2 to C5) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of tenor include 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 noted 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 normally calculated in relation to the ten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aix-en-Provence Festival
The Festival d'Aix-en-Provence is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental music. Establishment The first festival took place in July 1948. It was founded by Countess Lily Pastré, who covered the entire costs in 1948.Le Salon de Lily, Hommage à la Comtesse Pastré, mécène , Culture 13 , Culture 13David Coquille [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (now known collectively as the Royal Ballet and Opera). The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mitridate, Re Di Ponto
''Mitridate, re di Ponto'' (''Mithridates, King of Pontus''), K. 87 (74a), is an opera seria in three acts by the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto is by , after Giuseppe Parini's Italian translation of Jean Racine's play '' Mithridate''. Mozart wrote ''Mitridate'' while touring Italy in 1770. The musicologist Daniel E. Freeman has demonstrated that it was composed with close reference to the opera '' La Nitteti'' by Josef Mysliveček. The latter was the opera being prepared for production in Bologna when Mozart met Mysliveček for the first time with his father in March 1770. Mysliveček visited the Mozarts frequently in Bologna during the summer of 1770 while Wolfgang was working on ''Mitridate''. Mozart gained expertise in composition from his older friend and also incorporated some of his musical motifs into his own operatic setting. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Regio Ducale, Milan, on 26 December 1770 (at the Milan Carnival). It was a success, perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ermione
''Ermione'' (1819) is a tragic opera (azione tragica) in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on the play '' Andromaque'' by Jean Racine. Performance history 19th century ''Ermione'' was first performed at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 27 March 1819. For reasons that are as yet unclear, the opera was withdrawn on 19 April after only seven performances, and was not seen again until over a hundred years after Rossini's death. One possible explanation for its failure might be Rossini's choice to renounce the use of ''secco'' recitative in favour of accompanied declamation and to connect each closed number to the next in a manner reminiscent of Gluck's French operas and of Spontini (the latter was also to have a huge influence on Weber's '' Euryanthe'', four years later). Despite the opera's failure, Rossini seemed to be quite fond of this work and kept its manuscript, along with a few others from his Neapolitan years, until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maometto II
''Maometto II'' (or ') is an 1820 opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Cesare della Valle. Set in the 1470s during a time of war between the Turks and Venetians, the work was commissioned by the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Della Valle based his libretto on his earlier play ''Anna Erizo''. The name of the title character, Maometto II, refers to the real-life Ottoman Sultan and conqueror of Constantinople Mehmed II, who lived from 1432 to 1481. Regarded "in some ways s hismost ambitious opera"Brauner, Patricia and Gossett, Philip, "''Maometto II''" in Holden p. 787 and as "the best of Rossini's Neapolitan operas", ''Maometto II'' failed to find an audience in Naples and, "to help ensure tssuccess in Venice and Paris, he smoothed out the most audacious elements of the score". Venice first saw it on 22 December 1822 and then, translated into French and changed significantly, it was presented as '' Le siège de Corinthe'' in 1826. Until the preparat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zelmira
''Zelmira'' () is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, ''Zelmire'' by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas. Stendhal called its music Teutonic, comparing it with ''La clemenza di Tito'' but remarking: "...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!" Performance history The first performance of ''Zelmira'' was in Naples at the Teatro di San Carlo on 16 February 1822. This was followed by a successful premiere in Vienna on 13 April 1822, as part of a three-month-long Rossini Festival for which Rossini wrote some additional music. Performances in several Italian cities were followed by the London premiere on 24 January 1824, with Rossini conducting and Isabella Colbran (now his wife) in the title role. It was seen in Paris in 1826. There was one presentation in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricciardo E Zoraide
''Ricciardo e Zoraide'' (''Ricciardo and Zoraide'') is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa. The text is based on cantos XIV and XV of '' Il Ricciardetto'', an epic poem by Niccolò Forteguerri. Performance history ''Ricciardo e Zoraide'' was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, on 3 December 1818. It continued to be performed until 1846 but fell out of favor afterwards and was not performed in public again until its revival at the Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival in 1990. The Rossini Opera Festival featured a new production of the opera in 2018. Among other performances, the opera received a production at the Rossini in Wildbad festival in 2013. Roles Synopsis :Place: the city of Dongola in ancient Nubia. :Time: The time of the Crusades The Nubian King Agorante, who is infatuated with Zoraide, has defeated her father, Ircano and captured her. Ricciardo, a Christian knight and Zoraide's lover, accompanies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armida (Rossini)
''Armida'' is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto (''dramma per musica'') by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from '' Gerusalemme liberata'' by Torquato Tasso. Performance history ''Armida'' was written to be performed at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, on 11 November 1817 to celebrate the opening of the rebuilt opera house, which had been destroyed by fire the previous year. Isabella Colbran sang the title role, which is one of the longest and most demanding that Rossini wrote, with difficult coloratura passages of every kind during the entire opera. The most notable are to be found in "D'amore al dolce impero" during act 2, in the duets between Armida and Rinaldo, and in parts of the act 3 finale. The first modern staging took place at the Teatro Comunale of Florence on 26 April 1952, during the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, with Maria Callas and Francesco Albanese in the leading roles and Tullio Serafin conducting. More rece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Donna Del Lago
''La donna del lago'' (English language, English: ''The Lady of the Lake'') is an opera composed by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola (whose verses are described as "limpid" by one critic) based on the French translationOsborne, Charles 1994, p. 94 of ''The Lady of the Lake (poem), The Lady of the Lake'', a narrative poem written in 1810 by Sir Walter Scott, whose work continued to popularize the image of the romantic Scottish Highlands. Scott's basic story has been noted as coming from "the hint of an incident stemming from the frequent custom of James V of Scotland, James V, the King of Scotland, of walking through the kingdom in disguise". It was the first of the Opera in Scotland#Operas inspired by Walter Scott, Italian operas to be based on Scott's romantic works,Gossett and Brauner (2001), in Holden (Ed.), p. 785 and marked the beginning of romanticism in Rossini's work. Scott was "deeply influential in the development of Italian romantic opera"Comm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tancredi
''Tancredi'' is a ''melodramma eroico'' (''opera seria'' or heroic opera) in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi (who was also to write ''Semiramide'' ten years later), based on Voltaire's play ''Tancrède (tragedy), Tancrède'' (1760). The opera made its first appearance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 February 1813, less than a month after the premiere of his previous opera ''Il signor Bruschino''. The overture, borrowed from ''La pietra del paragone'', is a popular example of Rossini's characteristic style and is regularly performed in concert and recorded. Considered by Stendhal, Rossini's earliest biographer, to be "high amongst the composer's masterworks", and describing it as "a genuine thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky for the Italian lyric theatre," his librettist Gaetano Rossi notes that, with it, "Rossini rose to glory".Rossi, in Osborne, Richard 2007, p. 199 Richard Osborne proclaims it to be "his fully fledged ''opera seria'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wexford Festival
Wexford Festival Opera () is an opera festival that takes place in the town of Wexford in south-eastern Ireland during the months of October and November. Festival origins, growth and development Tom Walsh, 1951 to 1966 Tom Walsh, an avid opera lover, dreamt of staging an opera production in his hometown Wexford. He started the Wexford Opera Study Circle in 1950, and invited Sir Compton Mackenzie, the founder of the magazine '' The Gramophone'' and a writer on music, for the inaugural lecture for the circle. Mackenzie and Walsh discussed the idea of a local opera festival, and Mackenzie became the first President of the Wexford Festival of Music and the Arts. The result was that a group of opera lovers (including Dr. Tom Walsh who was to become the festival's first artistic director) planned a "Festival of Music and the Arts" (as the event was first called) from 21 October to 4 November 1951. The highlight was a production of the 19t-century Irish composer Michael William Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
