|
Traetta
Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta (30 March 1727 – 6 April 1779) was an Italian composer of the Neapolitan School. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he was responsible for certain operatic reforms including reducing ornateness of style and the primacy of star singers. Biography Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari in the Apulia region, in Italy. He eventually became a pupil of the composer, singer and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and scored a first success with his opera ''Il Farnace'' in Naples in 1751. Around this time, he came into contact with Niccolò Jommelli. From here on in, Traetta seems to have had regular commissions from all around the country, running the gamut of the usual classical subjects. Then in 1759, something untoward happened that was to trigger Traetta's first operatic re-think. He accepted a post as court composer at Parma. Parma, it has to be said, was hardly an important place in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ippolito Ed Aricia
''Ippolito ed Aricia'' is a " reform opera" in five acts by Tommaso Traetta with an Italian libretto by Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni. The opera is based upon abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin's libretto for Rameau's earlier opera ''Hippolyte et Aricie'', which was in turn based on Racine's tragedy ''Phèdre''. The work premiered at the Teatro Ducale in Parma on 9 May 1759 and is still occasionally performed today. Background and musical analysis ''Ippolito ed Aricia'' was commissioned in 1759 by Guillaume du Tillot, a minister for Philip, Duke of Parma, on behalf of the duke and his wife, Princess Louise Élisabeth of France. At that time, both France and Spain thought of Parma as a strategic point of interest and subsidized the court heavily. The duke and his wife were particularly fond of French opera and Tillot promoted all forms of French musical theater at the court. However, Tillot decided that he wanted to commission an opera for the court that would merge Italian musical idioms, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni
Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni (21 November 1692 – 20 December 1768) was an Italian poet and librettist. As a poet Frugoni was one of the best of the school of the Arcadian Academy, and his lyrics and pastorals had great facility and elegance. His collected works were published at Parma in 10 volumes in 1799, and a more complete edition appeared at Lucca in the same year in 15 volumes. Biography Born at Genoa, he was originally destined for the church and at the age of fifteen, against his will, was shut up in a convent. In the following year he was forced to make monastic vows, but had no liking for this life. He acquired considerable reputation as an elegant writer both of Latin and Italian prose and verse; and from 1716 to 1724 he filled the chairs of rhetoric at Brescia, Rome, Genoa, Bologna and Modena successively, attracting by his brilliant fluency a large number of students at each university. Through Cardinal Bentivoglio he was recommended to Antonio Francesco Farnese, Duk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antigona (Traetta)
''Antigona'' (''Antigone'') is an opera in three acts in Italian by the composer Tommaso Traetta. The libretto, by Marco Coltellini, is based on the tragedy '' Antigone'' by Sophocles. Performance history ''Antigona'' received its premiere at the Imperial Theatre, Saint Petersburg on 11 November 1772. Roles Synopsis Background The background to the opera is the myth of Oedipus. Oedipus has been expelled from Thebes, the city where he was king, after it was revealed he had killed his father and married his mother. He left four children: Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone and Ismene. Creon, Oedipus' brother-in-law, declares that the vacant throne of Thebes will now be shared by the two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, ruling alternately, but the two have quarrelled. To prevent a war, Creon decrees the two should fight in single combat to decide who will be king. Act 1 Eteocles and Polynices (played by ballet dancers) fight the single combat and kill each other. Adrastus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippolyte Et Aricie
('' Hippolytus and Aricia'') was the first opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It was premiered to great controversy by the Académie Royale de Musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris on October 1, 1733. The French libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy ''Phèdre''. The opera takes the traditional form of a with an allegorical prologue followed by five acts. Early audiences found little else conventional about the work. Background Rameau was almost 50 when he wrote ''Hippolyte et Aricie'' and there was little in his life to suggest he was about to embark on a major new career as an opera composer. He was famous for his works on music theory as well as books of harpsichord pieces. The closest he had come to writing dramatic music was composing a few secular cantatas and some popular pieces for the Paris fairs for his friend Alexis Piron. Yet Rameau's eagerness to write an opera is shown by a letter he wrote in October 1727 to Antoine Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer of his time for the harpsichord, alongside François Couperin. Little is known about Rameau's early years. It was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his '' Treatise on Harmony'' (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, '' Hippolyte et Aricie'' (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lully's style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bitonto
Bitonto (; nap, label= Bitontino, Vetònde) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bari ( Apulia region), Italy. It lies to the west of Bari. It is nicknamed the "City of Olives", due to the numerous olive groves surrounding the city. Geography Bitonto lies approximately to the west of the city of Bari, near the coast of the Adriatic Sea. The bordering municipalities are Bari, Bitetto, Palo del Colle, Altamura, Toritto, Ruvo di Puglia, Terlizzi, and Giovinazzo. The hamlets ('' frazioni'') are Mariotto and Palombaio. History The city was founded by the Peucetii, and its inhabitants referred to by the Greek settlers of the region as ''Butontinoi'', an ethnonym of uncertain derivation.Bitonto.net . According to one tradition, the city was named after Botone, an [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neapolitan School
In music history, the Neapolitan School is a group, associated with opera, of 17th and 18th-century composers who studied or worked in Naples, Italy, Don Michael Randel (2003). ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'', p. 549. . the best known of whom is Alessandro Scarlatti, with whom "modern opera begins". Paul Henry Lang (1997). ''Music in Western Civilization'', p. 453. . Francesco Provenzale is generally considered the school's founder. The Neapolitan School has been considered in between the Roman School and the Venetian School in importance. However, "The concept of Neapolitan school, or more particularly Neapolitan opera, has been questioned by a number of scholars. That Naples was a significant musical center in the 18th century is beyond doubt. Whether the composers working in Naples at that time developed or partook of a distinct and characteristic musical style is less clear" since so little is known about the repertory. Member *Pietro Marchitelli (1643 -1729) *France ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guillaume Du Tillot
Léon Guillaume (du) Tillot (Bayonne, 22 May 1711 — Paris, 1774) was a French politician infused with liberal ideals of the Enlightenment, who from 1759 was the minister of the Duchy of Parma under Philip, Duke of Parma and his wife Princess Louise-Élisabeth of France. At a time when both Bourbon France and Bourbon Spain thought of Parma as a strategic point of interest, Tillot favoured French policies abroad and wide-ranging reforms within the Duchy of Parma. He was made marchese di Felino. Tillot's career was of his own making. The son of a ''valet de chambre'', he studied at the Collège des Quatre-Nations at Paris, then went to the court of Charles III of Spain; after Charles' departure to be King of Sicily, Tillot was attached to the household of Philippe de Bourbon, whose private secretary and treasurer he became. He organised ''fêtes'' for Philippe at Chambéry and elsewhere. Career at Parma In June 1749, at Louis XV's request he left Paris for Parma, to serve as obse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them ''Orfeo ed Euridice'' and '' Alceste'', he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian '' opera seria'' had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. Future composers like Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz and Wagner revered Gluck very highly. The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choir
A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures. The term ''choir'' is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the quire), whereas a ''chorus'' performs in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is not rigid. Choirs may sing without instruments, or accompanied by a piano, pipe organ, a small ensemble, or an orchestra. A choir can be a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th century to 21st century oratorios and masses, 'ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the ''Suda'' says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete ('' Rhesus'' is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.L.P.E.Parker, ''Euripides: Alcestis'', Oxford University Press (2007), Introduction p. lx Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippolytus (play)
''Hippolytus'' ( grc, Ἱππόλυτος, ''Hippolytos'') is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy. Euripides first treated the myth in a previous play, ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' ( – ''Hippolytus Veiled''), which is now lost; what is known of it is based on echoes found in other ancient writings. The earlier play, and the one that has survived are both titled ''Hippolytus'', but in order to distinguish the two they have traditionally been given the names, ''Hippolytus Kalyptomenos'' and ''Hippolytus Stephanophoros'' ( – "Hippolytus the wreath bearer"). It is thought that the contents to the missing ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra, who directly propositioned Hippolytus, which apparently offended the play's audience.Euripides. ''Hippolytus''. Bagg, Robert. Introduction. Oxford U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_-_001.jpg "Click for more on -> Jean-Philippe Rameau")
