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Gennaro Astarita
Gennaro Astarita (also spelled Astaritta) (c.1745–49 – 18 December 1805) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. The place of his birth is unknown, although he was active in Naples for many years. He began his operatic career in 1765, collaborating with Niccolò Piccinni in the writing of the opera ''L'orfana insidiata''. He became the maestro di cappella in Naples in 1770. Astaritta is also considered to have played an important role in the development of opera in Russia. He first visited the country in 1781 and by 1784 he had become the director of Moscow's Petrovsky Theatre (the predecessor of the Bolshoi Theatre). In 1794, Prince Nicolai Yusupov, who at the time was the director of the Imperial Theatres in St Petersburg, asked him to bring an Italian opera troupe to the city, which he did in 1796. Astarita ran the troupe until 1799. Amongst the singers he recruited was Teresa Saporiti, who had created the role of Donna Anna in Mozart's ''Don Giovanni''.Randel (1996) p. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian People
Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. Their predecessors differ regionally, but generally include populations such as the Etruscan civilization, Etruscans, Rhaetians, Ligurians, Adriatic Veneti, Magna Graecia, Ancient Greeks and Italic peoples, including Latins (Italic tribe), Latins, from which Roman people, Romans emerged and helped create and evolve the modern Italian identity. Legally, Italian nationality law, Italian nationals are citizens of Italy, regardless of ancestry or nation of residence (in effect, however, Italian nationality law, Italian nationality is largely based on ''jus sanguinis'') and may be distinguished from ethnic Italians in general or from people of Italian descent without Italian citizenship and ethnic Italians living in territories adjacent to the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass (liturgy), Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. The Italian language, Italian word (, ) is the diminutive of the word ''wiktionary:libro#Italian, libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language cognates, equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15- to 40-page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its Prague metropolitan area, metropolitan area is home to approximately 2.3 million people. Prague is a historical city with Romanesque architecture, Romanesque, Czech Gothic architecture, Gothic, Czech Renaissance architecture, Renaissance and Czech Baroque architecture, Baroque architecture. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, Charles IV (r. 1346–1378) and Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II (r. 1575–1611). It was an important city to the Habsburg monarchy and Austria-Hungary. The city played major roles in the Bohemian Reformation, Bohemian and the Protestant Reformations, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cortona
Cortona (, ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. It is the main cultural and artistic centre of the Val di Chiana after Arezzo. Toponymy Cortona is derived from Latin Cortōna, and from Etruscan language, Etruscan 𐌂𐌖𐌓𐌕𐌖𐌍 (''curtun'', 𐌍𐌖𐌕𐌓𐌖𐌂 in Etruscan). According to linguist Helmut Rix, ethnic in Etruscan was ''curthute'' (''curѳute''), attested as a gentile in an inscription from Chiusi, in the province of Siena. History Etruscan period An Etruscan civilization, Etruscan presence is found archaeologically from the late Villanovan while there is no such evidence of an Umbrian origin of the city. Between the 8th and 7th centuries BC it became an important member of the Etruscan League or a ''lucumonia''. Most likely, Cortona became a very powerful city thanks to its strategic position, which allowed a wide control of nearby territory. In the 4th century BC the Etruscans built the imposing walls that su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lugo, Emilia-Romagna
Lugo () is a town and ''comune'' in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, in the province of Ravenna. History A settlement in where the city is now is mentioned for the first time in 782 AD, but the names Lucus appears only in 1071. In 1161 it was a fief of the Counts of Cunio, but in 1202 it returned to the Papal States. It was later a possession of the da Polenta, Pepoli, Visconti and Este; the latter maintained it until 1597, when the city was again annexed to the Papal States. In 1424 the Castle of Zagonara (now destroyed) was the seat of the homonymous battle, in which a Milanese army defeated the Florentines. When in 1797 the French revolutionary forces invaded northern Italy, Barnaba Chiaramonti (later pope as Pius VII), then still Bishop of Imola, addressed his flock to refrain from useless resistance to the overwhelming and threatening forces of the enemy. The town of Lugo refused to submit to the invaders and was delivered up to a pillage which had an end ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence
Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence was a centre of Middle Ages, medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful House of Medici, Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The Florentine dialect forms the base of Italian language, standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pietro Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi (3 January 1698 – 12 April 1782), better known by his pseudonym of Pietro Metastasio (), was an Italian poet and Libretto, librettist, considered the most important writer of ''opera seria'' libretti. Early life Metastasio was born in Rome, where his father, Felice Trapassi, a native of Assisi, had taken service in the Corsican regiment of the papal forces. Felice married a Bolognese woman, Francesca Galasti, and became a grocer in the ''Via dei Cappellari''. The couple had two sons and two daughters; Pietro was the younger son. Pietro, while still a child, is said to have attracted crowds by reciting impromptu verses on a given subject. On one such occasion in 1709, two men of distinction stopped to listen: Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, famous for legal and literary erudition as well as his directorship of the Academy of Arcadians, Arcadian Academy, and Lorenzini, a critic of some note. Gravina was attracted by the boy's poetic talent and per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livorno
Livorno () is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 152,916 residents as of 2025. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn (pronounced , "Leghorn" in the Oxford Dictionaries Online. or ). During the Italian Renaissance, Renaissance, Livorno was designed as an "ideal town". Developing considerably from the second half of the 16th century by the will of the House of Medici, Livorno was an important free port. Its intense commercial activity was largely dominated by foreign traders. Also the seat of consulates and shipping companies, it became the main port-city of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The high status of a multiethnic and multicultural Livorno lasted until the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni (, also , ; 25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793) was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes. Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of the Venetian language, regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title ''Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade'', which he claimed in his memoirs the " Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him. Biography Memoirs There is an abundance of autobiographical information on Goldoni, most of which comes from the introductions to his plays and from his ''Memoirs''. However, these memoirs are known to contain many errors of fact, especially about his earli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marco Coltellini
Marco Coltellini (24 May 1724, in Montepulciano – November 1777, in Saint Petersburg) was an Italian opera tenor, libretto, librettist and Printer (publisher), printer. Biography Coltellini embarked on a career in the Church, but had to leave after fathering four daughters. He set up a printing shop in Livorno to publish the works of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment figures such as Algarotti, Francesco Algarotti and Cesare Beccaria. Coltellini was very interested in opera and made the acquaintance of Metastasio (the leading librettist of opera seria) as well as Christoph Willibald Gluck, Ranieri de' Calzabigi and Giacomo Durazzo, who were involved in the reform of Italian opera. In 1763, Coltellini succeeded Metastasio as the Imperial Poet at the Court of Vienna. He provided libretti for Gluck, Johann Adolf Hasse, Hasse (''Piramo e Tisbe'') and Antonio Salieri, Salieri, as well as revising Carlo Goldoni's ''La finta semplice'' so it could be set by Mozart. His collaboratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dresden
Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area (after Berlin, Hamburg, and Cologne), and the third-most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Saxony, Coswig, Radeberg, and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants. The Dresden metropolitan area has approximately 1.34 million inhabitants. Dresden is the second largest city on the River Elbe after Hamburg. Most of the city's population lives in the Dresden Basin, Elbe Valley, but a large, albeit very sparsely populated, area of the city east of the Elbe lies in the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands (the westernmost part of the Sudetes) and thus in Lusatia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venice
Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are linked by 438 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po River, Po and the Piave River, Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta (river), Brenta and the Sile (river), Sile). As of 2025, 249,466 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune of Venice, of whom about 51,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (''centro storico'') and the rest on the mainland (''terraferma''). Together with the cities of Padua, Italy, Padua and Treviso, Italy, Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million. The name is derived from the ancient Adr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
