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Don Giovanni (1979 Film)
''Don Giovanni'' is a 1979 French-Italian film directed by Joseph Losey. It is an adaptation of Mozart's classic 1787 opera ''Don Giovanni'', based on the Don Juan legend of a seducer, destroyed by his excesses. The opera itself has been called one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces". The film stars Ruggero Raimondi in the title role and the conductor is Lorin Maazel. Nearly three decades after the film's release, Nicholas Wapshott called it a "near perfect amalgamation of opera and the screen". Plot After an unsuccessful attempt to seduce Donna Anna (soprano Edda Moser), Don Giovanni (baritone Ruggero Raimondi) kills her father ''Il Commendatore'' (bass John Macurdy). The next morning, Giovanni meets Donna Elvira (soprano Kiri Te Kanawa), a woman he previously seduced and abandoned. Later, Giovanni happens upon the preparations for a peasant wedding and tries to seduce the bride-to-be Zerlina (mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza), but his ambition is frustrated by Donna Elvir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American film and theatre director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Hollywood blacklist, Blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s, he moved to Europe where he made the remainder of his films, mostly in the United Kingdom. Among the most critically and commercially successful were the films with screenplays by Harold Pinter: ''The Servant (1963 film), The Servant'' (1963) and ''The Go-Between (1971 film), The Go-Between'' (1971). His 1976 film ''Monsieur Klein'' won the César Awards for César Award for Best Film, Best Film and César Award for Best Director, Best Director. His other notable films included ''The Boy with Green Hair'' (1948), ''Eva (1962 film), Eva'' (1962), ''King & Country'' (1964), ''Modesty Blaise (1966 film), Modesty Blaise'' (1966), ''Figures in a Landscape (film), Figures in a Landscape'' (1970) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Yorker Films
New Yorker Films was an independent film distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his Manhattan movie house, the New Yorker Theater, founded in 1960, after a film's producer would not allow for a movie's single booking. It went out of business in 2009 and was revived the next year with its acquisition by Aladdin Distribution, though it is no longer active as of 2024. Background Through New Yorker Films, Talbot aimed to import foreign films that were not otherwise available in the US market. His first acquisition for distribution was the Bernardo Bertolucci debut film '' Before the Revolution'' (1964). Other early acquisitions, such as Jean-Luc Godard's '' Les Carabiniers'' (1963) and Ousmane Sembène's '' Black Girl'' (1966), helped establish New Yorker Films as a presenter of innovative, artistically significant, and politically engaged films from around the world. Titles introduced New Yorker Films helped gain an audience for controv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Riegel
Kenneth Riegel (April 19, 1938 – June 28, 2023) was an American opera tenor. Life and career Riegel was born on April 19, 1938, in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania. He made his theatrical début as the Alchemist in '' König Hirsch'' at Santa Fe Opera in 1965, debuting at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in the same year. He was engaged at the New York City Opera from 1969 (debut in ''L'heure espanole'', with Karan Armstrong) to 1974. During this period, in 1969,1971 & 1974 he was a soloist with the Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in the Naumburg Bandshell, Central Park, in the summer series. He debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in ''Les Troyens'' in 1973 (as Iopas, opposite Jon Vickers and Shirley Verrett), subsequently appearing at the Met in another 102 performances in operas including ''La clemenza di Tito'', ''Les contes d'Hoffmann'', '' Elektra'', ''Fidelio'', ''Lulu'', ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'', '' The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'', ''Salome'', ''Di ... [...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] |
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano (, ), or mezzo ( ), is a type of classical music, classical female singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic. History While mezzo-sopranos typically sing secondary roles in operas, notable exceptions include the title role in Georges Bizet, Bizet's ''Carmen'', Angelina (Cinderella) in Gioachino Rossini, Rossini's ''La Cenerentola'', and Rosina in Rossini's ''The Barber of Seville, Barber of Seville'' (all of which are also sung by sopranos and contraltos). Many 19th-century French- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass (vocal Range)
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to '' The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4). Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system. Italians favour subdividing basses into the ''basso cantante'' (singing bass), ''basso buffo'' (comical bass), or the dramatic ''basso profondo'' (deep bass). The American system identifies the bass-baritone, comic bass, lyric bass, and dramatic bass. The German '' Fach'' system offers further distinctions: Spielbass (Bassbuffo), Schwerer Spielbass (Schwerer Bassbuffo), Charakterbass (Bassbariton), and Seriöser Bass. These classifications tend to describe roles rather than singers: it is rare for a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hertz, Hz to A5 in Choir, choral music, or to soprano C (C6) or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura soprano, coloratura, soubrette, lyric soprano, lyric, spinto soprano, spinto, and dramatic soprano, dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word ''wikt:sopra, sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' as the soprano is the highest pitch human voice, often given to the leading female roles in operas. "Soprano" refers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas Wapshott
Nicholas Henry Wapshott (born 13 January 1952) is a British journalist, broadcaster and author. He was most recently the opinion editor at ''Newsweek'', and a Reuters contributing columnist on the political economy. He has been an online content consultant to a number of media and private clients. He was the editor of ''The Times'' Saturday edition as well as the founding editor of ''The Times Magazine''. He has written a number of biographies including those of Margaret Thatcher and Carol Reed. His ''Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics'' has become the standard text. His most recent book, ''The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II'', was published by W. W. Norton & Company in November 2014. He is currently writing a sequel to Keynes Hayek. Early life Nicholas Wapshott was born in Dursley, Gloucestershire, the second of four sons of Raymond and (Olivia) Beryl Wapshott. After attending Dursley County Primary School he won ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel (; March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in the concert halls of Europe by 1960 but his career in the U.S. progressed far more slowly. He served as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, among other posts. Maazel was well regarded in baton technique and had a photographic memory for scores. Described as mercurial and forbidding in rehearsal, he mellowed in old age. Early life Maazel was born to American parents of Russian Jewish origin in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. His grandfather Isaac Maazel (1873–1925), born in Poltava, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, was a violinist in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. He and his wife Esther Glazer (1879� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Juan
Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. The original version of the story of Don Juan appears in the 1630 play (''The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest'') by Tirso de Molina. The play includes most of the elements found and later adapted in subsequent works, including the setting (Seville), the characters (Don Juan, his servant, his love interest, and her father, whom he kills), moralistic themes (honor, violence and seduction, vice and retribution), and the dramatic ending in which Don Juan dines with and is then dragged down to hell by the stone statue of the father he had previously slain. Tirso de Molina's play was subsequently adapted into numerous plays and poems, of which the most famous include a 1665 play, ''Dom Juan'', by Molière; a 1787 opera, ''Don Giovanni'', with music by Mozart and a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte largely adapting Tirso de Molina's play; a sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Dollars
The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it into 100 cents, and authorized the minting of coins denominated in dollars and cents. U.S. banknotes are issued in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, popularly called greenbacks due to their predominantly green color. The U.S. dollar was originally defined under a bimetallic standard of (0.7734375 troy ounces) fine silver or, from 1834, fine gold, or $20.67 per troy ounce. The Gold Standard Act of 1900 linked the dollar solely to gold. From 1934, its equivalence to gold was revised to $35 per troy ounce. In 1971 all links to gold were repealed. The U.S. dollar became an important international reserve currency after the First World War, and displaced the pound sterling as the world's primary reserve currency by the Bretton Woods Ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian (language)
Italian (, , or , ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. It evolved from the colloquial Latin of the Roman Empire. Italian is the least divergent language from Latin, together with Sardinian. It is spoken by about 68 million people, including 64 million native speakers as of 2024. Italian is an official language in Italy, San Marino, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), and Vatican City; it has official minority status in Croatia, Slovene Istria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the municipalities of Santa Tereza, Encantado, and Venda Nova do Imigrante in Brazil. Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties) and a local language of Italy, most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
