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Tolomeo II Gallio
''Tolomeo, re d'Egitto'' ("Ptolemy, King of Egypt", HWV 25) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian text by Nicola Francesco Haym, adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's ''Tolomeo et Alessandro''. It was Handel's 13th (or 14th if the one act Handel contributed to the collaborative opera '' Muzio Scevola'' is counted) and last opera for the Royal Academy of Music (1719) and was also the last of the operas he composed for the triumvirate of internationally renowned singers, the castrato Senesino and the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of some events in the life of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, king of Egypt. An aria from the opera,'' Non lo dirò col labbro'', was adapted by Arthur Somervell (1863–1937) as the popular English-language classic "Silent Worship" in 1928. Performance history ''Tolomeo'' was first performed at the King's Theatre, London on 30 April 1728 and received seven perfo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (), is the second largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is the sixth-most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Magdeburg as well as the 31st-largest city of Germany. With around 226,000 inhabitants, it is less populous than the state capital, Magdeburg. With Leipzig, the largest city of Saxony, Halle forms the polycentric Leipzig-Halle conurbation. Leipzig/Halle International Airport lies between the two cities, in Schkeuditz. The Leipzig-Halle conurbation is at the heart of the larger Central German Metropolitan Region. Halle has been known by many names throughout its history. From the 15th to the 17th century: ''Hall in Sachsen''. From then until the beginning of the 20th century, the name Halle an der Saale was used, and still remains a more formal reference for the city. Additionally, from 1965 to 1995 the city was referred to as ''Halle/Saale''. Halle lies i ... [...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] |
Ptolemy X Alexander I
Ptolemy X Alexander I (, ''Ptolemaĩos Aléxandros'') was the Ptolemaic king of Cyprus from 114 BC until 107 BC and of Egypt from 107 BC until his death in 88 BC. He ruled in co-regency with his mother Cleopatra III as Ptolemy Philometor Soter until 101 BC, and then with his niece and wife Berenice III as Ptolemy Philadelphus. He was a son of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III, and younger brother of Ptolemy IX. His birth name was probably Alexander. Ptolemy X was the second son of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III. When Ptolemy VIII died in 116 BC, Ptolemy IX became king with Cleopatra III as his co-regent and Alexander was sent to Cyprus to serve as governor. However, in 114–13 BC, he declared himself king. Cleopatra III quarrelled with Ptolemy IX and arranged for Alexander to return to Egypt in 107 BC and replace his brother as co-regent (with modern sources calling him Ptolemy X). During his reign, Ptolemy X had to fight against his brother Ptolemy IX to maintain control over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faustina Bordoni
Faustina Bordoni (30 March 1697 – 4 November 1781) was an Italian mezzo-soprano. In Hamburg, Germany, the Johann Adolph Hasse Museum is dedicated to her husband and partly to Bordoni. Early career She was born in Venice and brought up under the protection of the aristocratic brother composers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. Her singing teacher was another composer, Michelangelo Gasparini. For many years in the service of the Elector Palatine, she made her operatic debut at Venice in 1716 in Carlo Francesco Pollarolo's ''Ariodante'', singing in her home city until 1725 in operas by Albinoni, the Gasparini brothers, Giacomelli, Leonardo Leo, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, the Pollarolos, father and son, and Leonardo Vinci, amongst others. In 1718 and 1719 in Venice she sang alongside Francesca Cuzzoni, later to become her great rival. During this period she also performed several times at Reggio nell'Emilia, Naples and Parma, and at least once in Milan, Modena and Flore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesca Cuzzoni
Francesca Cuzzoni (2 April 1696 – 19 June 1778) was an Italian operatic soprano of the Baroque era. Early career Cuzzoni was born in Parma. Her father, Angelo, was a professional violinist, and her singing teacher was Francesco Lanzi. She made her debut in her home city in 1714, singing in ''La virtù coronata, o Il Fernando'' by an unknown composer. In 1716–17 she sang at Bologna in operas by Bassani, Buini, Gasparini and Giuseppe Maria Orlandini. By the 1717–18 season she had been appointed ("chamber soloist") to Violante Beatrice, Grand Princess of Tuscany, performing at Florence, Siena, Genoa, Mantua, and Reggio nell'Emilia in operas by Orlandini and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, and in Vivaldi's ''Scanderbeg'' . She also made her Venetian debut in 1718, singing the role of Dalinda in Pollarolo's ''Ariodante'', in which, for the first time, she appeared on the same stage as Faustina Bordoni, later her great rival. They also sang together in Venice the following year ... [...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] |
Cleopatra Selene Of Syria
Cleopatra Selene (; – 69 BC) was the Queen consort of Egypt (Cleopatra Selene or Cleopatra V Selene) from 115 to 102 BC, the Queen consort of Syria from 102 to 92 BC, and the monarch of Syria (Cleopatra II) from 82 to 69 BC. The daughter of Ptolemy VIII Physcon and Cleopatra III of Egypt, Cleopatra Selene was favoured by her mother and became a pawn in Cleopatra III's political manoeuvres. In 115 BC, Cleopatra III forced her son Ptolemy IX to divorce his sister-wife Cleopatra IV, and chose Cleopatra Selene as the new queen consort of Egypt. Tension between the king and his mother grew and ended with his expulsion from Egypt, leaving Cleopatra Selene behind; she probably then married the new king, her other brother Ptolemy X. Following the marriage of the Syrian Seleucid princess Cleopatra I to Ptolemy V of Egypt, dynastic marriages between the two kingdoms became common. In 102 BC, Cleopatra III decided to establish an alliance with her nephew Antiochus VIII of Syria; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senesino
Francesco Bernardi (; 31 October 1686 – 27 November 1758), known as Senesino ( or traditionally ), was an Italian contralto castrato, particularly remembered today for his long collaboration with the composer George Frideric Handel. He was also involved in a public scandal with the soprano Anastasia Robinson in 1724 which was circulated widely by the satirist Jonathan Swift, and inspired a number of anonymously written obscene, misogynistic, and at times sexually subversive epistles written between 1724 and 1736 which have become a topic of study among scholars of Restoration literature. Early life and career Senesino was the son of a barber from Siena (hence his stage-name). He joined the cathedral choir there in 1695 and was castrated at the comparatively late age of thirteen. His debut was at Venice in 1707, and during the next decade he acquired a European reputation and, by the time he sang in Lotti's ''Giove in Argo'' in 1717 at Dresden, a commensurately enormous sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castrato
A castrato (Italian; : castrati) is a male singer who underwent castration before puberty in order to retain a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. The voice can also occur in one who, due to an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity. Castration before puberty (or in its early stages) prevents the larynx from being transformed by the normal physiological events of puberty. As a result, the vocal range of prepubescence (shared by both sexes) is largely retained, and the voice develops into adulthood in a unique way. Prepubescent castration for this purpose diminished greatly in the late 18th century. Methods of castration used to terminate the onset of puberty varied. Methods involved using opium to medically induce a coma, then submerging the boy into an ice or milk bath where the procedure of either twisting the testicles until they atrophied, or complete removal via surgical cutting was performed (however the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alto
The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian (Latin: '' altus''), historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In four-part voice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung in choruses by either low women's or high men's voices. In vocal classification these are usually called contralto and male alto or countertenor. Etymology In choral music for mixed voices, "alto" describes the lowest part commonly sung by women. The explanation for the anomaly of this name is to be found not in the use of adult falsettists in choirs of men and boys but further back in innovations in composition during the mid-15th century. Before this time it was usual to write a melodic ''cantus'' or '' superius'' against a tenor (from Latin ''tenere'', to hold) or 'held' part, to which might be added a contratenor, which was in counterpoint with (in other words, against = contra) the tenor. The composers of Ockeghem's generation wrot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ptolemy IX Soter
Ptolemy IX Soter II Ptolemy IX also took the same title 'Soter' as Ptolemy I. In older references and in more recent references by the German historian Huss, Ptolemy IX may be numbered VIII. (, ''Ptolemaĩos Sōtḗr'' 'Ptolemy Soter, the Saviour'), commonly nicknamed Lathyros (Λάθυρος, ''Láthuros'' 'chickpea'),Ptolemy Soter II and Ptolemy Alexander I at LacusCurtius — (Chapter XI of E. R Bevan's ''House of Ptolemy'', 1923) was twice Pharaoh, King of Ptolemaic Egypt. He was the son of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III. He reigned as Ptolemy Philometor Soter in joint rule with his grandmother Cleopatra II and mother Cleopatra III from 116 to 107 BC, and then again as Ptolemy Soter from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
