Otello (Rossini)
''Otello'' is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by after William Shakespeare's play '' Othello, or The Moor of Venice''; it was premiered in Naples, Teatro del Fondo, 4 December 1816. The plot of the libretto differs greatly from Shakespeare's play in that it takes place wholly in Venice, not mainly on Cyprus, and the dramatic conflict develops in a different manner. The role of Iago is much less diabolical than Shakespeare's play or Verdi's 1887 opera ''Otello'', which was also based on it. Shakespeare derived his play from the story ''Un Capitano Moro'' ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. In further contrast, the role of Roderigo, a sub-plot in Shakespeare and Verdi, is very prominent in Rossini's version—some of the most difficult and brilliant music being assigned to the character Rodrigo. The roles of Otello, Iago, and Rodrigo are all composed for the tenor voice. Rossini's ''Otello'' is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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Giuditta Pasta
Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Pasta (; 26 October 1797 – 1 April 1865) was an Italian opera singer. A soprano, she has been compared to the 20th-century soprano Maria Callas. Career Early career Pasta was born Giuditta Angiola Maria Costanza Negri in Saronno, near Milan, on 26 October 1797.Stern (n.d.) She was born of the Negri family, who came from Lomazzo, where the family practiced medical art. Her father, Carlo Antonio Negri or Schwarz, was Jewish and a soldier in the Napoleonic Army. She studied in Milan with Giuseppe Scappa and Davide Banderali, and later with Girolamo Crescentini and Ferdinando Paer among others. In 1816, she married fellow singer Giuseppe Pasta and took his surname as her own. She made her professional opera début in the world première of Scappa's ''Le tre Eleonore'' in Milan that same year. Later that year she performed at the Théâtre Italien in Paris as Donna Elvira in ''Don Giovanni'', Giulietta in Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli's '' Giuliett ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Antonio Cotogni
Antonio "Toto" Cotogni (; 1 August 1831 – 15 October 1918) was an Italian baritone of the first magnitude. Regarded internationally as being one of the greatest male opera singers of the 19th century, he was particularly admired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi. Cotogni forged an important second career as a singing teacher after his retirement from the stage in 1894. Early years and education Antonio Cotogni was born in Rome to Agata Fazzini and Raffaele Cotogni, who managed a small majolica plant. He had four siblings: sister Giuditta (who remained unmarried and lived in the family household); brothers Francesco, Andrea (who owned a meat packing business), and Gaspare (later mayor of Melara). After some initial studies at the Hospice of San Michele, where he was a student of Angelo Scardovelli, Andrea Salesi, and Ludovico Luccesi. He studied music theory at Santa Maria Maggiore under Fontemaggi. Soon after, he began working with Achille Faldi on the study of singing itself ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Francesco Graziani (baritone)
Francesco Graziani (April 26, 1828 – June 30, 1901) was an Italian baritone and voice teacher. Graziani has been called the first modern baritone because his vocal attributes were well suited to the high-lying operatic parts composed by Giuseppe Verdi, with whom he worked. Early life and career Graziani was born in 1828 in Fermo, Italy. His older brother, Lodovico Graziani (1820–1885), was a dramatic tenor. He studied with Cellini and made his debut In Italy in 1851 at Ascoli Piceno in Donizetti's '' Gemma di Vergy''. The next season, he sang in Macerata, performing Francesco in Verdi's '' I masnadieri''.Forbes, Elizabeth. "Graziani" in Sadie (2001). Graziani also appeared at the Salle Ventadour with the Théâtre-Italien from 1853 to 1861, where he particularly excelled in the operas of Verdi, creating for Paris the role of Count di Luna in '' Il trovatore'' and also singing Germont in '' La traviata'', the title role in ''Rigoletto'', and Renato in '' Un ballo in masc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Giorgio Ronconi
Giorgio Ronconi (6 August 1810 – 8 January 1890) was an Italian operatic baritone celebrated for his brilliant acting and compelling stage presence. In 1842, he created the title-role in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Nabucco'' at La Scala, Milan. Personal life Ronconi was born in Milan and had been taught to sing by his father, Domenico Ronconi, who was a leading tenor. He married soprano Elguerra Giannoni on 8 October 1837 in Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. By some accounts Giannoni had sung with some success at the Lyceum Theatre and at the King's Theatre in London. However, Harold Rosenthal has written: "This lady, who failed on virtually every opera stage in Europe, was considered a good concert-room singer only, but so indispensable was her husband to any Italian company that willy-nilly she had to be engaged as well." In his later years, Ronconi founded a school of singing at Granada in Spain and also accepted a professorial post at the Madrid Royal Conservatory. Ronconi d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Giovanni Belletti
Giovanni Battista Belletti (17 February 1813 – 27 December 1890)"Belletti, Giovanni Battista" . Retrieved 15 July 2022. was an Italian operatic . He appeared in operas in Italy, Stockholm, London and Paris, and supported in her tour of America. Life< ...
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Antonio Tamburini
Antonio Tamburini (28 March 1800 – 8 November 1876) was an Italian operatic baritone.Randel (1996) p. 900. Biography Born in Faenza, then part of the Papal States, Tamburini studied the orchestral horn with his father and voice with Aldobrando Rossi, before making his debut as a singer, aged 18, in ''La contessa di colle erbose'' (Pietro Generali). He went on to become one of the finest baritones of his age. He had a beautiful, smooth and flexible voice the quality of which is indicated by the bel canto music written for him. Castil-Blaze described his voice in '' The Harmonicon'' of May 1833: :His voice is a fine baritone, well defined, extending from A to F, occasionally reaching G#, and sometimes descending to Gb. I might have allotted to him the two full octaves without reserve, but I prefer to retrench the semitone, above and below, that I may give to his voice and tone the full praise it merits. It is round, rich, and clear, of wonderful flexibility, and such astonis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Domenico Cosselli
Domenico Cosselli (27 May 1801 in Parma – 9 November 1855 in Parma) was an Italian operatic bass-baritone, particularly associated with Rossini operas. He began his vocal studies in his native city in 1814 and made his stage debut there in 1821. He quickly made a specialty of Rossini roles, singing in '' Il barbiere di Siviglia'', ''Tancredi'', ''La cenerentola'', ''La gazza ladra'', ''Semiramide'', etc. He created for Donizetti the roles of Olivo in '' Olivo e Pasquale'' in 1827, and of Azzo in '' Parisina'' in 1833, also creating the role of Arnoldo in Pacini's '' Carlo di Borgogna'', in 1835. Cosselli was one of the first singers to make the transition between the old conception of the bass vocal range to what we know today as the baritone, a voice type that was still in its infancy. For Donizetti again, he created the role of Enrico in the highly successful ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', at the San Carlo in Naples, in 1835, giving to the role a new dramatic dimension, looking fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Harmonicon
''The Harmonicon'' was an influential monthly journal of music published in London from 1823 to 1833. It was edited at one period by William Ayrton (1777–1858.) Issues contained articles on diverse topics, including reviews of musical compositions, reviews of concert and opera performances, news of contemporary musicians and composers, features on music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ... and the physics of sound, and biographical sketches of important musical figures. George Hogarth was a regular contributor. References The Harmonicon archive at HathiTrust 1823 establishments in the United Kingdom 1833 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom Music magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Manuel García (baritone)
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García (17 March 1805 – 1 July 1906), was a Spanish singer, music educator, and vocal pedagogue. He invented the first laryngoscope. Biography García was born on 17 March 1805 either in Madrid, as has been traditionally stated, or in the town of Zafra in the province of Badajoz, Spain. His father was singer and teacher Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García (Manuel García I, 1775–1832). His sisters were Maria Malibran (1808–1836) and Pauline Viardot (1821–1910). After abandoning his onstage career as a baritone, García began to teach at the Paris Conservatory (1830–48) and the Royal Academy of Music, London (1848–95). Jessie Bond, Camille Everardi, Erminia Frezzolini, Julius Günther, Jenny Lind, Mathilde Marchesi, Christina Nilsson, Julia Ettie Crane, Georgina Schubert, Julius Stockhausen, Marie Tempest, Charles Santley and Henry Wood were among his pupils. He invented a laryngoscope in 1854 and the next year publis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bel Canto
, )—with several similar constructions (, , , pronounced in English as )—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing, and whose definitions have often been misunderstood. ''Bel canto'' was not only seen as a vocal technique, but also as a source of national pride for Italians, specifically in how the musical qualities aligned with their identity. However, this pride was often complicated by political circumstances. The phrase was not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt definition f ''bel canto''until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition. History of the term and its various definitions As generally understood today, the term ''bel canto'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the Greek language, Greek (), meaning "low sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below C (musical note), middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. Scientific pitch notation, F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second G below middle C to the G above middle C (G2 to G4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French Religious music, sacred Polyphony, polyphonic music. At t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |