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Victorian Burlesques
Victorian burlesque, sometimes known as travesty or extravaganza, is a genre of theatrical entertainment that was popular in Victorian England and in the New York theatre of the mid-19th century. It is a form of parody in which a well-known opera or piece of classical theatre or ballet is adapted into a broad comic play, usually a musical play, usually risqué in style, mocking the theatrical and musical conventions and styles of the original work, and often quoting or pastiching text or music from the original work. Victorian burlesque is one of several forms of burlesque. Like ballad opera, burlesques featured musical scores drawing on a wide range of music, from popular contemporary songs to operatic arias, although later burlesques, from the 1880s, sometimes featured original scores. Dance played an important part, and great attention was paid to the staging, costumes and other spectacular elements of stagecraft, as many of the pieces were staged as extravaganzas. Many of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Beggar's Opera
''The Beggar's Opera'' is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were satiric musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without recitative. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadside ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. ''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of Robert Cambert's '' Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera'' began a revival run of 1,463 p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his "Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria" (an elaboration of a Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach piece) and "Funeral March of a Marionette". Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family, Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''bel canto'' opera style during the first half of the nineteenth century and a probable influence on other composers such as Giuseppe Verdi. Donizetti was born in Bergamo in Lombardy. At an early age he was taken up by Simon Mayr who enrolled him with a full scholarship in a school which he had set up. There he received detailed musical training. Mayr was instrumental in obtaining a place for Donizetti at the Bologna Academy, where, at the age of 19, he wrote his first one-act opera, the comedy ''Il Pigmalione'', which may never have been performed during his lifetime. An offer in 1822 from Domenico Barbaja, the impresario of the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, which followed the composer's ninth opera, led to his move to Naples and his reside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet (; 25 October 18383 June 1875) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, ''Carmen'', which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; ; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was an Italian opera composer famed for his long, graceful melodies and evocative musical settings. A central figure of the era, he was admired not only by the public, but also by many composers who were influenced by his work. His songs balanced florid Ornament (music), embellishment with a deceptively simple approach to lyric setting. Born to a musical family in Sicily, he distinguished himself early and earned a scholarship to study under several noted musicians at Music conservatories of Naples#Conservatorio di San Sebastiano, Naples' Real Collegio di Musica. There he absorbed elements of the Neapolitan School's style and was inspired by performances of Donizetti's and Rossini's operas, among others, in more modern idioms. He wrote his first opera, ''Adelson e Salvini'' (1825), for the conservatory, and his next, ''Bianca e Fernando'' (1826), on a Teatro di San Carlo-affiliated commiss ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leicester Silk Buckingham
Leicester Silk Buckingham (29 June 1825 – 15 July 1867) was an English dramatist, who achieved considerable popularity as a playwright, several of his free adaptations of French comedies being produced in London between 1860 and 1867. Early life Buckingham, the youngest son of James Silk Buckingham, the oriental traveller, and Elizabeth Jennings, was born at 11 Cornwall Terrace, Regent's Park, London, 29 June 1825. In his early life he was the companion of his father in visits made to America, France, and the East, and the experience thus acquired rendered his services valuable as a lecturer on several occasions. When the Royal Panopticon (afterwards the Alhambra in Leicester Square) was originated in 1854 as a scientific institution, Buckingham was selected to write and deliver the explanatory description of the views of various countries, and later at the Egyptian Hall he was the lecturer engaged to illustrate Hamilton's ''Tour of Europe.''Dictionary of National Biography. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate hims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Brough (writer)
William Brough (28 April 1826 – 13 March 1870) was an English writer. As a dramatist, he wrote some of the earliest German Reed Entertainments, as well as Victorian burlesques, farces and other pieces. Life and works Brough was born in London, the son of Barnabas Brough, a brewer, publican, wine merchant and later dramatist, and his wife Frances Whiteside, a poet and novelist. He was the brother of writer Robert (father of actress Fanny Brough), actor Lionel and science writer John Cargill Brough. His father was briefly kidnapped by the Chartists in 1839 and was a prosecution witness at the trial of the Chartist leader John Frost, which resulted in Frost's deportation to Australia. The family was ostracised and ruined financially as a result, and they moved to Manchester in 1843. Brough was educated at Newport, Monmouthshire, and apprenticed to a printer at Brecon. To the ''Liverpool Lion'', a venture of his brother Robert, whom he joined in Liverpool, Brough contribu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Barnabas Brough
Robert Barnabas Brough (10 April 1828 – 26 June 1860) was an English writer. He wrote poetry, novels and plays and was a contributor to many periodicals. Life and work Brough was born on 10 April 1828 in London, the son of Barnabas Brough (c. 1795-1854), a brewer and wine merchant and Frances Whiteside, a poet. His brothers were William, also a playwright, John Cargill Brough (1834–1872), a science writer, and Lionel, a comic actor. The family moved to Pontypool in Monmouthshire, where his father ran a brewery and public house. His father was briefly kidnapped by the Chartists in 1839 and was a crown witness at the trial of the Chartist leader John Frost, which resulted in Frost's deportation to Australia. The family was ostracized and ruined financially as a result, and moved to Manchester in 1843, where Brough worked as a clerk in order to contribute to the family income.Banerji, Nilanjana "Brough, Lionel (1836–1909)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
