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Francesco Dominici (tenor)
Francesco Dominici (1885, Havana, Cuba – 3 February 1968, Havana, Cuba) was a Cuban Italian operatic tenor particularly admired for his acting in comedic roles. He made his professional opera debut as Fernando in Donizetti's '' La favorite'' at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo in 1914. He created the role of Prunier in the original 1917 production of Puccini's ''La rondine'' at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo, a role which he performed at many other opera houses including the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Over the next several years he played mostly leading roles at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome including Rodolfo in Puccini's '' La bohème'', Fenton in Verdi's ''Falstaff'', and the Ernesto in Donizetti's '' Don Pasquale''. In the early 1920s he joined the roster at La Scala where he began playing more buffo roles than leading roles. In 1921, he sang the role of doctor Cajus in Verdi's ''Falstaff'' at La Scala and in 1922 was Filipeto in the company's first production of Erma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.Cuba ''The World Factbook''. Central Intelligence Agency. The city has a population of 2.3million inhabitants, and it spans a total of – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the List of metropolitan areas in the West Indies, fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish Empire, Spanish in the 16th century, it served as a springboard for the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Spanish conquest of the Americas becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Scala
La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's ''Europa riconosciuta''. Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala. The theatre is regarded as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres globally. It is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet, La Scala Theatre Orchestra, and the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy ( it, Accademia Teatro alla Scala, links=no), which offers professional training in music, dance, stagecraft, and stage management. Overview La Scala's season opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, the feast day of Milan's patron saint. All performances must end be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1968 Deaths
The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * January 10 – John Gorton is sworn in as 19th Prime Minister of Australia, taking over from John McEwen after being elected leader of the Liberal Party the previous day, following the disappearance of Harold Holt. Gorton becomes the only Senator to become Prime Minister, though he immediately transfers to the House of Representatives through the 1968 Higgins by-election in Holt's vacant seat. * January 15 – The 1968 Belice earthquake in Sicily kills 380 and injures around 1,000. * January 21 ** Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh – One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins, ending on April 8. ** 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash: A U.S. B-52 Stratofortress crashes in Greenland, discharging 4 nuclear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1885 Births
Events January–March * January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam. * January 4 – The first successful appendectomy is performed by Dr. William W. Grant, on Mary Gartside. * January 17 – Mahdist War in Sudan – Battle of Abu Klea: British troops defeat Mahdist forces. * January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster. * January 24 – Irish rebels damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite. * January 26 – Mahdist War in Sudan: Troops loyal to Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad conquer Khartoum; British commander Charles George Gordon is killed. * February 5 – King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State, as a personal possession. * February 9 – The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii. * February 16 – Charles Dow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Operatic Tenors
Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Italian, regional variants of the Italian language ** Languages of Italy, languages and dialects spoken in Italy ** Italian culture, cultural features of Italy ** Italian cuisine, traditional foods ** Folklore of Italy, the folklore and urban legends of Italy ** Mythology of Italy, traditional religion and beliefs Other uses * Italian dressing, a vinaigrette-type salad dressing or marinade * Italian or Italian-A, alternative names for the Ping-Pong virus, an extinct computer virus See also * * * Italia (other) * Italic (other) * Italo (other) * The Italian (other) The Italian may refer to: * ''The Italian'' (1915 film), a silent film by Reginald Barker * ''The Italian'' (2005 film), a Russian film by A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madame Sans-Gêne (opera)
''Madame Sans-Gêne'' is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano. The libretto was taken from Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau's play, adapted for the opera by Renato Simoni. Performance history Its première took place at the Metropolitan Opera on 25 January 1915, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with Geraldine Farrar in the title role, Giovanni Martinelli, and Pasquale Amato. This was followed by a performance in Turin under Ettore Panizza with Farneti, Grassi and Riccardo Stracciari on 28 February 1915. Roles Synopsis Act 1 ''Paris. 10 August 1792, the day of the capture of the Tuileries during the French Revolution'' There is a squabble in the laundry of Caterina Hubscher, a beautiful Alsacian girl, a very free and easy-mannered woman whom everyone calls "Madame Sans-Gêne" (Madame Carefree). One of her customers is Fouché (later Minister of Police under Napoleon), whom Caterina dislikes; another, a quiet young officer who lives nearby, is Napoleon himself. As Cateri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 186712 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, ''Marina'', was written for a competition promoted by the music publishers Casa Sonzogno for the best one-act opera, remembered today because it marked the beginning of Italian ''verismo''. The winner was Mascagni's ''Cavalleria rusticana''. Giordano, the youngest contestant, was placed sixth among seventy-three entries with his ''Marina'', a work which generated enough interest for Sonzogno to commission the staging of an opera based on it in the 1891–92 season. The result was ''Mala vita'', a gritty ''verismo'' opera about a labourer who vows to reform a prostitute if he is cured of his tuberculosis. This work caused something of a scandal when performed at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, in February 1892. It played successfully in Vienna, Pragu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a '' Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's '' Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil'' (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled '' The Magic Flute Part Two''. The allegorical plot was influenced by Schikaneder and Mozart's interest in Freemasonry and concerns the initiation of Prince Tamino. Enlisted by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the high priest Sarastro, Tamino comes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg
(; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera. The story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of '' Meistersinger'' (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depiction of the Nuremberg of the era and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, 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"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle '' Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is " Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic '' Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
