ENGLEWOOD "Verismo Opera Fall Open House," Verismo Opera 28th anniversary celebration concert with arias, duets from "Rigoletto" and other operas. Sept.
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That left the VERISMO/MUR crossing, which I find less elegant than HARISSA/SUR.
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The label commonly stuck on the period is "verismo," implying blood-and-guts realism.
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Will didn't like HARISSA in that slot and suggested some alternate fill headed by VERISMO.
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This second weekend, titled "Beyond Verismo," features themed opera and orchestra programs, recitals, panels and lectures.
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I pop an espresso pod in my Verismo machine and start frothing milk to make a latte.
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Perhaps the conductor, Marco Armiliato, could have done more to rein in these moments of verismo pomposity.
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Certain scenes feature spatially separated choirs, creating the illusion of depth and three-dimensional reality that was so important to verismo composers.
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But some works are large-scale tragedies whose arias more easily call to mind Italian verismo, albeit with distinctly Spanish rhythms and melodic turns.
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These men — both academics in higher education — relish the chance to confront solvers with words that you don't come across every day. BARBICEL. VERISMO. ADIT.
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Cilea emerged during a period in Italian opera, dominated by Puccini, when the public could not get enough of hot-blooded, verismo (essentially true to life) music dramas.
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The newly resurrected City Opera, under the direction of Michael Capasso, has tacked away from Handel, showcasing the company's heritage as a producer of verismo works and contemporary pieces.
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Dr. Contino, who specialized in the visceral, unsentimental realism of Italian verismo opera, was also a music professor and vocal coach, but was best known as an acclaimed conductor.
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Composers abounded during the verismo era of Italian opera, from around 1890 to 1920, but none achieved the enormous international success of Puccini, who remains arguably the world's most popular opera composer.
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Perhaps the Met carefully planned this deep dive into verismo, that blood-and-guts, heart-on-sleeve, homicidally inclined genre of Italian potboiler that flourished around the turn of the 20th century.
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Given the general prejudices against naturalism linked to most schools of modern art, Soutine would need to accomplish more "magic" than the static, hackneyed, and by now dissipated traditions of trompe l'oeil verismo.
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In the decades after the composer's death in 1901, performances of Verdi's operas began to fester with the most aggressive excesses of the verismo style that was gaining steam in his final years.
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He is inspired by the verismo writers of the late-nineteenth century, such as Giovanni Verga, whose short stories and personal photography first treated the lives of peasants as something more than comic relief or local colour.
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But his later "Highway One, USA" is a brutally compact piece of American verismo revolving around sibling rivalry and sexual jealousy; it could easily work on a double bill with another one-act ("Cavalleria Rusticana" or "Pagliacci," perhaps).
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Chenier, of the Italian realism 'verismo' genre, is not frequently performed as its score includes a wide-ranging sound spectrum and requires the tones of the three performers to be balanced out and singers to move from conversation to high notes.
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Also this week, Fabio Luisi conducts the verismo double bill, with Yonghoon Lee and Violeta Urmana in "Cavalleria Rusticana" and Marco Berti and Barbara Frittoli in "Pagliacci," which Mr. McVicar updates to a 4066s truck stop (Saturday at 1 and Wednesday at 7:30).
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Kenneth MacMillan's 1965 treatment — indebted to Lavrovsky's and Cranko's productions, "West Side Story" and Franco Zeffirelli's verismo 1960 staging of Shakespeare's play — has become the world's central ballet "Romeo": a war horse of the Royal Ballet since its 1965 premiere, and of American Ballet Theater since 1985.
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Opera careers beat ceaselessly forward, and his repertory has shifted toward heavier roles like Radamès in "Aida," Calàf in "Turandot," the leads in the verismo double bill known as "Cav/Pag," and the title role in "Samson et Dalila," with which he opened the Met's 29-19 season.
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Starbucks, the world's biggest coffee chain, has been selling its coffee for use at home — including a variety of roasts in whole beans, instant or ground versions as well as coffee pods for its Verismo brewers and JAB's Keurig K-Cup system — across North America and in some international markets for years.
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Capercaillie by Friedrich Gauermann, an early representative of the Verismo The Verismo (meaning "realism", from Italian vero, meaning "true") refers to a 19th-century Italian painting style. This style was practiced most characteristically by the "Macchiaioli" group of painters, who were forerunners of the French Impressionists. In this regard, the Wikipedia article on "American verismo". is germane because it contains a long discussion of an instance of American verismo (Jerry Ross) in American painting.
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Some view Puccini as essentially a verismo composer, while others, although acknowledging that he took part in the movement to some degree, do not view him as a "pure" verismo composer. In addition, critics differ as to the degree to which particular operas by Puccini are, or are not, properly described as verismo operas. Two of Puccini's operas, Tosca and Il tabarro, are universally considered to be verismo operas. Puccini scholar Mosco Carner places only two of Puccini's operas other than Tosca and Il tabarro within the verismo school: Madama Butterfly, and La fanciulla del West.
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Verismo (, from , meaning "true") was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s. Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents and the authors of a verismo manifesto. Capuana published the novel Giacinta, generally regarded as the "manifesto" of Italian verismo."Verismo", New York City Opera Project: Madame Butterfly Unlike French naturalism, which was based on positivistic ideals, Verga and Capuana rejected claims of the scientific nature and social usefulness of the movement.
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Retrieved 1 June 2012 An excerpt from Gloria appears on Verismo (Decca Classics, 2009) with Renée Fleming singing Gloria's aria "O mia cuna fiorita".Steane, John (2009). Review: Renée Fleming, Verismo. Gramophone (Awards Issue), p. 115.
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The influence of Émile Zola is evident in the Verismo. Luigi Capuana but most notably Giovanni Verga and were its main exponents and the authors of a verismo manifesto. Capuana published the novel Giacinta, generally regarded as the "manifesto" of Italian verismo. Unlike French naturalism, which was based on positivistic ideals, Verga and Capuana rejected claims of the scientific nature and social usefulness of the movement.
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671–72, The term verismo can cause confusion. In addition to referring to operas written in a realistic style, the term may also be used more broadly to refer to the entire output of the composers of the giovane scuola ("young school"), the generation of composers who were active in Italy during the period that the verismo style was created.. Verismo composer Umberto Giordano told an interviewer in 1905: "The meaning of these words (vero and verismo) needs to be defined once and for all" ("Bisognerebbe adunque definire una buona volta il valore di questi vocaboli.") One author (Alan Mallach) has proposed the term "plebeian opera" to refer to operas that adhere to the contemporary and realistic subject matter for which the term verismo was originally coined. At the same time, Mallach questions the value of using a term such as verismo, which is supposedly descriptive of the subject and style of works, simply to identify an entire generation's music-dramatic output.
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Giacomo Puccini, one of the composers most closely associated with verismo. In opera, verismo (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini. Verismo as an operatic genre had its origins in an Italian literary movement of the same name. This was in turn related to the international literary movement of naturalism as practised by Émile Zola and others.
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It by and large rejects the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, and Andrea Chénier are uniformly considered to be verismo operas. Puccini's career as a composer is almost entirely coincident in time with the verismo movement. Only his Le Villi and Edgar preceded Cavalleria rusticana.
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For most of the composers associated with verismo, traditionally veristic subjects accounted for only some of their operas. For instance, Mascagni wrote a pastoral comedy (L'amico Fritz), a symbolist work set in Japan (Iris), and a couple of medieval romances (Isabeau and Parisina). These works are far from typical verismo subject matter, yet they are written in the same general musical style as his more quintessential veristic subjects. In addition, there is disagreement among musicologists as to which operas are verismo operas, and which are not.
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Thermoplan manufactures the Mastrena, the super-automatic machine made exclusively for Starbucks. The Mastrena is an upgrade of the Verismo 801, using some of the same components, and some face-lifted. The machine is smaller in size than the Verismo 801, due to Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks at the time of its inception), saying the high height of the Verismo 801 prevented baristas from interacting with customers. The machine has all the features of its predecessor, including a larger dual bean hopper, as well as the ability to pull ristretto and lungo shots.
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Mallach, Alan (2007). The Autumn of Italian Opera: From Verismo to Modernism, 1890-1915, pp. 84–88. University Press of New England. The huge success of Cavalleria rusticana based on the verismo play of the same name by Giovanni Verga, led to the choice of a similar subject for Giordano's commission—Salvatore Di Giacomo and Goffredo Cognetti's successful 1888 play Mala vita.
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"Verismo" in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, vol. 19 p. 670, It was followed by Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, which dealt with the themes of infidelity, revenge, and violence. Verismo also reached Britain where pioneers included the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900).
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The strength of it fell into a more violent era for opera: verismo, with Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
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Konrad Claude Dryden (born September 13, 1963) is an American author who has written extensively on Italian opera, particularly about the movement known as Verismo.
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Many musicologists regard Wolf-Ferrari as having written only one verismo opera (I gioielli della Madonna, Berlin, 1911). There are reasons to disagree, and to consider Sly (La Scala, 1927) not only as being, in many ways, a verismo opera, but also as being nearly the last of its kind. And, as such, the virtual end of the noble line of Italian opera, starting, perhaps, with Cimarosa, perhaps with Paisiello, perhaps even much earlier, passing through bel canto, continuing with Verdi and his contemporaries, and eventually ending with verismo. In all these operas the singer was pre- eminent, while in German opera it was the composer and the orchestra.
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"Giordano's 'Mala vita': a 'verismo' Opera Too True to Be Good ". Music & Letters, Vol. 75, No. 3, pp. 381-400. Retrieved via JSTOR 6 September 2017 .
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In 1955, the Bayreuth Festival company visited the theatre and performed three operas. Verismo, especially Puccini, is an esteemed school from the end of 19th century.
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Like naturalism, the verismo literary movement sought to portray the world with greater realism. In so doing, Italian verismo authors such as Giovanni Verga wrote about subject matter, such as the lives of the poor, that had not generally been seen as a fit subject for literature. A short story by Verga called ' (), then developed into a play by the same author, became the source for what is usually considered to be the first verismo opera: Cavalleria rusticana by Mascagni, which premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Thus begun, the operatic genre of verismo produced a handful of notable works such as Pagliacci, which premiered at Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on 21 May 1892, and Puccini's Tosca (premiering at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900.) The genre peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s.
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Carlo Galeffi (4 June 1884 - 22 September 1961) was a leading Italian baritone, particularly associated with the operatic works of Giuseppe Verdi and the various verismo composers.
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Achille D'Orsi (6 August 1845 – 8 February 1929) was an Italian sculptor from Naples. Like his Neapolitan contemporary, Vincenzo Gemito, he worked in the Verismo style of Realism.
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The Verismo 801 was a superautomatic coffee machine designed exclusively for Starbucks, until discontinued in 2008. The Verismo 801 was released to the commercial market shortly before its discontinuation under the Black and White CTS2 brand name. It features dual bean hoppers and is capable of pulling both single, double and half-caff espresso. It has also a steam wand with automatic temperature probe (for programmable auto-shutoff), and hot water spout.
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Dimitri Platanias (born 4 December 1970) is a Greek baritone who has had an active international career since 2007, excelling particularly in the roles of Verdi and the Italian Verismo.
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He sang mostly within the Italian repertoire that encompassed the bel canto literature of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, the grand operas of Giuseppe Verdi, and the verismo operas of Giacomo Puccini.
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With this, Oskar von Miller and Marcel Deprez were able to show that electric power could indeed be transferred over long distances. Miesbach is the birthplace of Verismo painter Christian Schad.
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Sicilian-born, Verga lived in Florence during the same period as the verismo painters – 1865 to 1867 – and his best known story, "Cavalleria rusticana", contains certain verbal parallels to the effects achieved on canvas by the Tuscan landscape school of this era. "Espousing an approach that later put him in the camp of verismo (verism), his particular sentence structure and rhythm have some of the qualities of the macchia. Like the Macchiaioli, he was fascinated by topographical exactitude set in a nationalist framework"— to quote from Albert Boime's work, The Art of the Macchia and the Risorgimento. Verga and verismo differed from naturalism, however, in their desire to introduce the reader's point of view on the matter while not revealing the author's personal opinions.
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American verismo describes an artistic style of American literature, music, or painting influenced and inspired by artistic ideas that began in 19th-century Italian culture, movements that used motifs from everyday life and working class persons from both urban and rural situations. American composers, writers, painters, and poets have used this genre to create works that contain socio-political as well as purely aesthetic statements. farmer In Italy, the term “verismo” is applied to the use of everyday life and characters in artistic works. It was introduced into opera in the early 1900s in reaction to contemporary conventions that were regarded as artificial and untruthful. Generally, “verismo” (meaning "realism," from Italian vero, meaning "true") refers to a 19th-century Italian painting style.
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He is considered to be the musical heir of Federico Chueca; and the influence of Giacomo Puccini and Italian verismo is evident in many of his works. Serrano died in Madrid aged 67.
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Curtiss, pp. 426–29 It has been hailed as the first opera of the verismo school, in which sordid and brutal subjects are emphasised, with art reflecting life—"not idealised life but life as actually lived".Dent, p. 350 The music critic Harold C. Schonberg surmises that, had Bizet lived, he might have revolutionised French opera; as it is, verismo was taken up mainly by Italians, notably Puccini who, according to Dean, developed the idea "till it became threadbare".Dean (1965), pp.
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Luigi Capuana, one of the main exponents of verismo in literature, and the co-author, with Giovanni Verga, of a manifesto on the movement. Literary verismo was begun between around 1875 and 1895 by a group of writers – mostly novelists and playwrights. It did not constitute a formal school, but it was still based on specific principles. Its birth was influenced by a positivist climate which put absolute faith in science, empiricism and research and which developed from 1830 until the end of the 19th century.
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"Verismo" in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, vol. 19, p. 670, In terms of subject matter, generally "[v]erismo operas focused not on gods, mythological figures, or kings and queens, but on the average contemporary man and woman and their problems, generally of a sexual, romantic, or violent nature." However, three of the small handful of verismo operas still performed today take historical subjects: Puccini's Tosca, Giordano's Andrea Chénier and Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur.
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"Musically, verismo composers consciously strove for the integration of the opera's underlying drama with its music." These composers abandoned the "recitative and set-piece structure" of earlier Italian opera. Instead, the operas were "through-composed," with few breaks in a seamlessly integrated sung text. While verismo operas may contain arias that can be sung as stand-alone pieces, they are generally written to arise naturally from their dramatic surroundings, and their structure is variable, being based on text that usually does not follow a regular strophic format.
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Some authors have attempted to trace the origins of verismo opera to works that preceded Cavalleria rusticana, such as Georges Bizet's Carmen, or Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata. Modest Moussorgsky's Boris Godunov should not be ignored as an antecedent of verismo, especially because of Moussorgsky's focus on peasants, alongside princes and other aristocracy and church leaders, and his deliberate relating of the natural speech inflexions of the libretto to the rhythms of the sung music, different from, for example, Tchaikovsky's use of Pushkin's verse as a libretto.
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He was principal conductor and artistic director of the New Jersey State Opera since its founding, guiding the company from an amateur venture to a respected professional company. Silipigni was known for his talent conducting verismo opera.
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Between them, these baritones established the echt performance style for baritones undertaking roles in verismo operas. The chief verismo composers were Giacomo Puccini, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni, Alberto Franchetti, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea. Verdi's works continued to remain popular, however, with audiences in Italy, the Spanish-speaking countries, the United States and the United Kingdom, and in Germany, where there was a major Verdi revival in Berlin between the wars. Outside the field of Italian opera, an important addition to the Austro-German repertory occurred in 1905.
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Roberto Stagno as Turiddu and his de facto wife Gemma Bellincioni as Santuzza, costumed for the 1890 Rome premiere of Cavalleria rusticana. Roberto Stagno (; 18 October 1840 [some sources give 1836 as his birth year] - 26 April 1897) was a prominent Italian opera tenor. He became an important interpreter of verismo music when it burst on to the operatic scene during the 1890s; but he also possessed an agile bel canto technique which he employed in operas dating from earlier periods. In 1890, he created the pivotal verismo role of Turiddu.
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The most famous composers who created works in the verismo style were Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and Francesco Cilea. There were, however, many other veristi: Franco Alfano, Alfredo Catalani, Gustave Charpentier (Louise), Eugen d'Albert (Tiefland), Ignatz Waghalter (Der Teufelsweg and Jugend), Alberto Franchetti, Franco Leoni, Jules Massenet (La Navarraise), Licinio Refice, Spyridon Samaras, Ermanno Wolf- Ferrari (I gioielli della Madonna), and Riccardo Zandonai."Verismo" in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, vol. 19, pp.
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However, late prince's chamberlain Anastas Jovanović pushed the commission in Pazzi's favor. Pazzi was born in Florence in 1819. He was a pupil of the famous sculptor Giovanni Sarti and Duperray. He was representative of the Italian verismo.
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Since 2016, she has turned her focus to Verismo repertoire. She has received multiple awards and honors and has substantial discography made primarily under Deutsche Grammophon. She holds dual Russian and Austrian citizenship and resides in Vienna and New York City.
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Mallach, Alan (2007). The Autumn of Italian Opera: From Verismo to Modernism, 1890-1915, pp. 48–55. University Press of New England. Catalani completed the score of Loreley by November 1887. However, in early 1888, Casa Lucca was acquired by Ricordi.
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Magda Olivero (née Maria Maddalena Olivero) (25 March 1910 – 8 September 2014), was an Italian operatic soprano. Her career started in 1932 when she was 22, and spanned five decades establishing her "as an important link between the era of the verismo composers and the modern opera stage".Siff, Ira, "Magda Olivero, 104, the Last Great Verismo Soprano, Has Died", Opera News, 8 September 2014. She has been regarded as "one of the greatest singers of the twentieth century". "La cantatrice italienne Magda Olivero est morte à l’âge de 104 ans", France Musique, 9 September 2014.
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For example, the authors G. Verga, L. Capuana, D. Ciampoli, R. Fucini, M. Serao introduced the language of common people into their works and made extensive use of dialects. The Italians also created a theater that reflected everyday life, as exemplified by the comedies of G. Rovetta and G. Giacosa. In America, Tobias Picker’s 2013 opera that opened at the San Francisco Opera was acclaimed as a “triumph of American verismo.” Verismo opera composers often chose rural folk, poor city dwellers, and representatives of bohemianism. Early works in this genre were P. Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana( 1890) which chose rural folk, poor city dwellers, and bohemian characters. The American painter Jerry Ross calls his style “American verismo.” Jerry Ross (painter) has been teaching a series of workshops and classes in Eugene, Oregon based on his study of the I Macchiaioli. He founded the group “Club Macchia,” a group of like-minded plein air painters working in Oregon and Washington.
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Famous Dons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries included Scotti and Maurel, as well as Portugal's Francisco De Andrade and Sweden's John Forsell. The verismo baritone, Verdi baritone, and other subtypes are mentioned below, though not necessarily in 19th century context.
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The Glimpse of Reality, A Tragedietta (1909) is a short play by George Bernard Shaw, set Italy during the 15th century. It is a parody of the verismo melodramas in vogue at the time. Shaw included it among what he called his "tomfooleries".
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Nelly Miricioiu in 2008 Nelly Miricioiu (born 31 March 1952) is a Romanian- born British operatic soprano singing a large repertoire ranging from bel canto to verismo."Soprana NELLY MIRICIOIU-KIRK: Una sunt în aparenţă şi alta în fond!" on radioromaniacultural.ro. (In Romanian).
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Davanzo was a realist painter. Characteristic of his work are crystalline atmospheres, verismo in depicting the agrarian world and a refractive synthesis between light and color. In his portraits, Davanzo sought to blend plastic rendition, painterly strokes and psychological scrutiny of the subject.
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Accessed June 23, 2013 On June 23, she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. The only person in the history of the competition to win both prizes before was Romanian tenor Marius Brenciu. She is represented by Columbia Artists Management and Verismo Communications.
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Stanley Sadie (London) young Louise, a seamstress living with her parents, loves Julien, an artist; she desires freedom, associated in her mind with him and the city. (Charpentier would later write a sequel, the opera Julien, describing the artist's aspirations.) Musically the work is verismo.
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Andrew Clark. People: 237 Vivian Tierney. Opera, January 1998, pp. 33–40. From an early age she appreciated music, but was most interested in "the more emotional stuff ... verismo and 20th-century music". From the age of 14 Tierney took singing lessons with Rita Crosby.
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Some prominent practitioners of verismo singing during the movement's Italian lifespan (1890 to circa 1930) include the sopranos Eugenia Burzio, Lina Bruna Rasa and Bianca Scacciati, the tenors Aureliano Pertile, Cesar Vezzani and Amadeo Bassi, and the baritones Mario Sammarco and Eugenio Giraldoni. Their method of singing can be sampled on numerous 78-rpm gramophone recordings. Great early-20th century international operatic stars Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle and Titta Ruffo developed vocal techniques which harmoniously managed to combine fundamental bel canto precepts with a more 'modern', straightforward mode of ripe-toned singing when delivering verismo music, and their example has influenced operatic performers down to this day (see Scott).
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Antonio Cortis (12 August 1891 - 2 April 1952) was a Spanish tenor with an outstanding voice. He was acclaimed by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for his exciting performances of Italian operatic works, especially those by Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini and the verismo composers.
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In Italy, the music of Verdi and Puccini continued to dominate for a number of years. Even the realistic plots and more modern compositional techniques of the operas of Italian verismo, such as Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, did not greatly affect the extremely melodic nature of Italian music.
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Rubén Domínguez was a Venezuelan lirico-spinto tenor. He is recognized for his work within the lirico-spinto repertory, as well as works by Bellini and Donizetti. He played many verismo roles such as Canio in Pagliacci. He also played Otello, Mario Cavaradossi, Manrico, Radamés and Calaf.
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She recorded prolifically from the 1940s through to the 1960s. Her voice was well- suited to Italian operas such as those of Verdi, Ponchielli, Puccini and the verismo composers. She died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan on May 30, 1989 following a stroke, aged 83.
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Ermonela Jaho is an Albanian operatic soprano. She was described in The Economist as "the world’s most acclaimed soprano". The Financial Times said "Ermonela Jaho throws heart and soul into her singing... Don't even try to resist". The Guardian has described her as "one of the great verismo interpreters".
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Ross's work is influenced by the Italian I Macchiaioli and verismo schools of art. He has had exhibitions in Italy, Las Vegas, and Oregon. Ross was also an influence on his younger sister, Diane (Diane Bush), who became an artist as well, and later a fine art photographer.
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Verismo was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini. They sought to bring the naturalism of influential late 19th-century writers such as Émile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, and Henrik Ibsen into opera. This new style presented true- to-life drama that featured gritty and flawed lower-class protagonists while some described it as a heightened portrayal of a realistic event. Although an account considered Giuseppe Verdi's Luisa Miller and La Traviata as the first stirrings of the verismo, some claimed that it began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s.
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In 2009, the Preiser label issued a CD devoted to Malipiero. It contains a selection of arias, ranging in compositional date from the bel canto era through to the verismo period, that he recorded in Italy between 1937 and 1941. Malipiero died 10 days short of his 64th birthday, in Padua.
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420, Edward L. Davis, 2012 "Jin Xiang's style is characterized by a particular sensibility for musical colouring. His opera The Savage Land (Yuanye, 1987) features a Chinese-style verismo, reminiscent of Russian opera but at the same time permuted by distinctly Chinese ..." Shenzhen Youth Opera presented Jin Xiang's work in 2016.
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Alexander "Alick" Morvaren Maclean (20 July 1872 – 18 May 1936) was an English composer and conductor. Maclean's father Charles Maclean was Director of Music at Eton College. The younger Maclean was born there and later went to the school. He became interested in opera and wrote an 'English' verismo work called Petruccio.
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Ibsen's realistic drama in prose has been "enormously influential."Harrison (1998, 160). In opera, verismo refers to a post-Romantic Italian tradition that sought to incorporate the naturalism of Émile Zola and Henrik Ibsen. It included realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of contemporary everyday life, especially the life of the lower classes.
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1895 portrait of De Lucia from "Freund's Weekly" magazine Fernando De Lucia (11 October 1860Arthur Eaglefield Hull (Ed.), A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924) or 1 September 1861 - 21 February 1925) was an Italian opera tenor and singing teacher who enjoyed an international career. De Lucia was admired in his lifetime as a striking exponent of verismo parts — particularly Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci — and of certain roles written by Verdi and Puccini. Since then, however, he has acquired a great posthumous reputation among record-collectors for something different. They hail him as the exemplar of a type of graceful, ornamental tenor singing which originated prior to verismo and that went out of fashion for a long time, only to reemerge in recent years.
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Mela is a global entertainment consumer service with one of the largest aggregations of premium South Asian video content. It was launched in October 2011 by Verismo Networks. Mela offers hit Bollywood and regional South Asian movies and live news and entertainment television channels. The service is distributed through a variety of streaming devices.
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Maria Farneti was born at Forlì, the daughter of Domenico Farneti and Clementina Babini.Roberto Staccioli, "Maria Farneti" Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 45(1995). She studied voice with Virginia Gazzuoli, at the Liceo Rossini in Pesaro.Alan Mallach, The Autumn of Italian Opera: From Verismo to Modernism, 1890-1915 (University Press of New England 2007): 187-188.
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After the Risorgimento, political literature becomes less important. The first part of this period is characterized by two divergent trends of literature that both opposed Romanticism, the Scapigliatura and Verismo. Important early-20th-century writers include Italo Svevo and Luigi Pirandello (winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature). Neorealism was developed by Alberto Moravia.
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Veronesi began recording operas for Deutsche Grammophon in 2006 working with Plácido Domingo in rarer verismo repertoire such as Puccini’s Edgar and rare Puccini arias and duets, Leoncavallo’s I Medici and La Nuit de mai, and Giordano’s Fedora. In 2008 he recorded Mascagni's L'amico Fritz with Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu live in Berlin for Deutsche Grammophon.
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In 1917, in Rome, he appeared in the world premiere of Renzo Bianchi's Gismonda alongside Ida Quaiatti and Edoardo Garbin. He continued singing until age 64, retiring in 1940 with some 70 roles in his repertoire, primarily comprised by Verdi and verismo literature. He lived in Milan, where he taught voice until he died in 1957.
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Gilda Dalla Rizza. Gilda Dalla Rizza (12 October 18925 July 1975) was an important Italian soprano. Born in Verona, she made her operatic debut in Bologna (the Teatro Verdi) in 1912, as Charlotte in Werther. Especially acclaimed in the verismo repertory, she was regarded as being Giacomo Puccini's favorite soprano, creating Magda in his La rondine (1917).
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Carlo Bergonzi (13 July 1924 – 25 July 2014) was an Italian operatic tenor. Although he performed and recorded some bel canto and verismo roles, he was above all associated with the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, including many of the composer's lesser known works he helped revive. He sang more than forty other roles throughout his career.
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Nucci has enjoyed a long and successful career. His repertoire encompasses the entire Italian repertory from bel canto to verismo, and his technique and acting abilities are displayed in Verdi – notably as Rigoletto, Macbeth, Count di Luna, Giorgio Germont, Rodrigo, Amonasro, Iago, and Falstaff. He has sung the role of Rigoletto alone more than 500 times.
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They command a vocal range extending from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6). The spinto repertoire includes many roles written by Verdi, by the various verismo composers, and by Puccini. Some of these roles are extremely popular with opera audiences. Certain Wagnerian heroines such as Elsa, Elisabeth and Sieglinde are also sung by spinto sopranos.
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Its highlight is actually a "set number": Sly's song of the dancing bear, a theme that recurs throughout the opera. There are reminiscences of Kurt Weill, Wolf-Ferrari's earlier comedies and many other composers, including Leoncavallo. But, as the second act unfolds, some of the verismo aspects begin to become paramount, especially in the musical writing of the first duet between Sly and Dolly. Beginning at the point at the end of Act II where Sly realizes that it has been a game, the opera is pure verismo, especially in Sly's highly dramatic "No, io non sono un buffone", to the end where Sly, having just slashed his wrists, finds out that he had killed himself too soon (shades of Roméo et Juliette), and that Dolly truly loves him.
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Other important steps in her career are the opening of La Scala with Luisa Miller in 1969 (replacing Montserrat Caballé) and I masnadieri at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the direction of Riccardo Muti. She covers a wide repertoire ranging from Handel's Giulio Cesare to verismo, with a preference for Verdi's Aida in over 500 performances, as well as performing in Il trovatore, Un ballo in maschera, La traviata and in the already mentioned Luisa Miller and La forza del destino. She also interprets various titles of the first Verdi: Attila, I masnadieri, Nabucco, La battaglia di Legnano, I due Foscari, Ernani. From Puccini's repertoire, she performs La bohème, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica, Turandot (Liù), and works by other verismo composers such as Andrea Chénier, Cavalleria rusticana, and Francesca da Rimini.
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Her operatic repertoire comprises some 12 Verdian soprano roles and 12 verismo operatic roles, 7 of which belong to Puccini. In 2013 the 200th year of Verdi's birth, she performed Verdi's Requiem at the Arena di Verona and Aida in La Scala. She also takes up the Elsa in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin in 2013. He Hui resides at Verona, Italy.
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The film's limited exposure to international markets has garnered it some above average reviews. Though many western critics have faulted the film for its simplistic story, even while praising the film's lush visuals and nuanced portrayal of the Miao people. Derek Elley of Variety, for example, notes that what the film lacks in narrative, it makes up for in its "verismo detail".
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Each season around half a dozen operas are staged. Most of them are well known classics but the company has developed a reputation for producing works from the verismo repertoire and an adventurous production policy. They are sung in the original language and surtitling is used. Opera Holland Park was named Best Opera Company 2010 by The Sunday Times (London).
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Giuseppe Mulè Giuseppe Mulè (28 June 1885, Termini Imerese - 10 September 1951, Rome) was an Italian composer and conductor.Giuseppe Mulè at answers.com His output includes numerous symphonic works and chamber works, incidental music for the stage, 7 operas, 5 film scores, and an oratorio. His work is characterized by its use of Italian folk melodies, verismo, and a tritone- inflected melodic style.
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10 and then joined the Covent Garden Opera touring company, under John Barbirolli, in a wide repertory from Wagner (The Mastersingers), to Verdi (Falstaff), to verismo (Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci)."Opera in English: Covent Garden Company on Tour," The Times, 7 September 1929, p. 10 Watson was invited to sing with the international opera company at Covent Garden in the summer of 1930.
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Although De Lucia's stage career was closely tied to works by his contemporaries Mascagni and Leoncavallo, the vocal method that he exhibited in their operas was not the strenuous, declamatory mode of singing normally associated by modern listeners with the verismo movement. Because his voice was not overly powerful or extensive in range, he needed to rely on his histrionic skills to project the drama fully. When it came to his actual singing, he delivered the music at hand in a flowery and fluttery way that has no modern equivalent. De Lucia's recordings of arias and duets from Rossini's Barber of Seville ('Ecco ridente', 'Se il mio nome' and 'Numero quindici', for example) show off his vocal characteristics to an even greater extent than do his records of verismo pieces (or even lyrical Verdian parts, such as Alfredo in La traviata).
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The verismo opera style featured music that showed signs of more declamatory singing, in contrast to the traditional tenets of elegant, 19th century bel canto singing that had preceded the movement, which were purely based on markings in the written music of authors preceding this “era”. Opera singers adapted to the demands of the “new” style. The most extreme exponents of verismo vocalism sang habitually in a vociferous fashion, were focusing on the passionate aspect of music. They would 'beef up' the timbre of their voices, use greater amounts of vocal fold mass on their top notes, and often employ a conspicuous vibrato in order to accentuate the emotionalism of their ardent interpretations (this kind of proper “chiaroscuro” technique singing, which promised a great longevity of the voice, that a lot of preceding singers used up to this point in time).
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The Hamburger Archiv für Gesangskunst issued an overview of his art in a collection CD-Edition Marcel Cordes of twelve CDs in four boxes: Giuseppe Verdi, Belcanto & Verismo, Opern Streifzug of German and European Opera, and Moderne - Konzert - Lieder (Contemporary - concert, song recital). A short overview of single scenes was published on CD, titled Dokumente einer Sängerkarriere (Documents of a singer's career“ by Preiser Records.
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The Lady of the Wheel (La Ruotaia) is a 2012 historical fiction novelThe Lady of the Wheel at Amazon.com by Sicilian American author Angelo F. Coniglio. The book follows the life of a girl who was abandoned as an infant, with the major themes of the book including poverty, exploitation and family values. Coniglio's work has been compared to the verismo (realism) of Sicilian author Giovanni Verga.
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After the Unification of Italy in 1861, Milan lost its political importance; nevertheless it retained a sort of central position in cultural debates. New ideas and movements from other countries of Europe were accepted and discussed: thus Realism and Naturalism gave birth to an Italian movement, Verismo. The greatest verista novelist, Giovanni Verga, was born in Sicily but wrote his most important books in Milan.
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She made her debut in Alessandria, as Liu, in 1939. She quickly sang throughout Italy, making her debut at La Scala in 1947, as Giorgetta in Il tabarro, she sang there regularly until 1962. She was particularly admired in the verismo repertory and contemporary works. She created many roles in opera by the following composers; Lodovico Rocca, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Ermanno Wolf- Ferrari, and Renzo Rossellini.
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Joanna Parisi is an Italian-American operatic spinto soprano. She has sung many Verdi, Puccini, dramatic bel canto and verismo roles on stages in Europe, the Americas and Asia. She has also starred in operatic performances featured internationally in cinema and on television, such as Tosca and Carmen. In 2016, she was named as one of "The Next Generation of Great Opera Singers" by WQXR-FM.
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He began his writing career as a journalist for national newspapers, where he met Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana, the most prominent writers of the Verismo style. Verga introduced him into the literary circles of Milan. De Roberto authored two books of short stories: La Sorte (1887), Documenti umani (1888). His first novel, Ermanno Raeli, (1889) is largely autobiographical; deeper in psychological analysis is the second, L'illusione (1891).
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Charpentier returned to Paris, settling in Montmartre, and continued to compose, including songs on texts by Charles Baudelaire and Voltaire. He eventually completed Louise, and it was accepted for production by the Opéra-Comique. A realistic portrait of Parisian working-class life, it is sometimes considered a French example of verismo opera. The premiere of Louise on 2 February 1900 under the baton of André Messager was an immediate success.
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It also produces The Tiger, a lower-volume espresso machine with a similar modular design, distributed by Bunn in the United States, and the Black & White 2, an upgrade to the Black & White line of espresso machines, combining the main features found on the Thermoplan Verismo 801 and the Thermoplan Tiger. The B&W; 2 is also sold as part of both Starbucks and Costa Coffee licensing programs in the UK.
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Some critics have seen the piece as a forerunner of verismo opera, although one that emphasises elegance over sensationalism.Flynn, p. 13 The opera was not a great success at first; there were strong objections from some quarters that Gounod had given full tragic status to a mere farmer's daughter. After some revision it became popular in France, and remained in the regular opéra comique repertoire into the 20th century.
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It was well received by the public but was negatively reviewed by the critics for its "verismo tendencies". His later writings included several books and monographs on the history and aesthetics of Neapolitan music. After his retirement from the conservatory, D'Arienzo continued to teach privately even after ill health had made him housebound. He died at his home in Naples on 25 April 1915 at the age of 72.
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Lodovico Rocca (November 29, 1895, Turin – June 24, 1986, Turin) was an Italian composer. A pupil of Giacomo Orefice, his operas, written in late verismo style, met with some success in Italy but have been little performed elsewhere. They include; Morte di Frine, In Terra di Leggenda, Il Dibuk, his most successful work, Monte Ivnòr, and L'Uragano. He was director of the Turin Conservatory from 1940 until 1966.
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She was particularly successful in roles from the latter verismo school. On the international scene, Caniglia appeared in venues such as the Palais Garnier, Covent Garden, and the Teatro Colón. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on 21 November 1938 as Desdemona in Otello. Caniglia participated in the exhumation of a few long-forgotten operas such as Donizetti's Poliuto and Verdi's Oberto.
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Historically Basiola's voice was located in a transitional, intermediate time between late 19th-century vocalism and verismo tastes, somewhat like Carlo Galeffi (also a student of Cotogni). While he lived and worked at a time when deformative tendencies were impinging on the interpretative forms of 19th-century repertoire, Basiola nurtured the legacy of his schooling: he was a high baritone, with a voice clear and free of the defects of the dramatic baritone, with its dark, opaque timbre acquired with artificiality and encumbrances in emission. Basiola also avoided the search for any easy effects that were outside of a purely vocal technical nature. Verismo vocalism, besides being antithetical to the search for “aristocratic” phrasing, tended to place the tessitura in the lower middle voice, causing other singers to forget the technical features that would allow them to dominate the high notes with ease, instead causing them to push in order to fatten the voice, which in turn weighed down its easy emission.
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De Lucia's verismo-opera career continued apace with the first English performance (on 19 May 1893, with Enrico Bevignani conducting), of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, opposite Nellie Melba and Mario Ancona. De Lucia sang the part of Canio, which had been created a year earlier in Milan by Fiorello Giraud.Rosenthal and Warrack 1974, 297. Klein describes an audience breathless with excitement, and De Lucia's burning intensity in the role as a triumph of realism.
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Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 186712 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, Marina, was written for a competition promoted by the music publishers Casa Sonzogno for the best one-act opera, remembered today because it marked the beginning of Italian verismo. The winner was Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana.
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253 The Italian premiere, more important to Puccini than the New York world premiere, took place on 11 January 1919. Gianni Schicchi was again warmly received, more so than the first two operas of Il trittico. Among those dissatisfied by the triptych was Puccini's friend, the conductor Arturo Toscanini, who was in the audience for the Rome premiere. Toscanini was disgusted by the verismo of Il tabarro, and left the performance after the first curtain.
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Stella Roman (née Florica Viorica Alma Stela Blasu) was born in 1904 in Kolozsvár, Austria-Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania). She came from a musical background, and studied singing for eight years before making her concert début in Cluj and then in Bucharest. She then won a scholarship to continue her training in Italy with the great verismo interpreter , of whom she later said: "her style did not really suit me".Rasponi, Lanfranco.
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He was also awarded a gold medal in a painting competition in Corsico, near Milan, along with an invitation to exhibit there in May, 2006. In Italy, Ross has discovered an environment congenial to his style of painting. The age-old appreciation for painting in Italy and the Italian concept of verismo encourage him to paint in a manner that rings true. Ross's "discovery" of Italy has rewarded him as an artist.
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Antonio Magini-Coletti (17 February 1855 – 21 July 1912) was a leading Italian baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the late 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. A versatile artist, he appeared in several opera world premieres but was particularly associated with the works of Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wagner and the verismo composers. He was also an accomplished exponent of the bel canto repertoire.
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The word was used (with a hint of irony) as the title of Richard Strauss's two-act opera, Intermezzo (1924), the scale of which far exceeds the intermezzo of tradition. Many of the most celebrated intermezzi are from operas of the verismo period: Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and L'amico Fritz, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Suor Angelica, Giordano's Fedora, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, and especially that from Massenet's Thais, which became known as the Méditation.
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Cavalleria rusticana (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so- called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
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One reason for its survival in the repertoire is the lyrical-dramatic music provided by Giordano for the tenor lead, which gives a talented singer opportunities to demonstrate his histrionic skill and flaunt his voice. Giuseppe Borgatti's triumph in the title role at the first performance immediately propelled him to the front rank of Italian opera singers. He went on to become Italy's greatest Wagnerian tenor, rather than a verismo-opera specialist.
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His operatic triumphs were not confined to Verdi's compositions. He was also an exponent of the elegant but technically demanding bel canto music of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Saverio Mercadante. He sang roles from the new Italian verismo literature, the French grand opera tradition, and some Wagner. He was considered a Mozart specialist and keeper of some traditions of his works, even at a time when Mozart's works were not popular.
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Around 1890, when Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana premiered, Leoncavallo was a little- known composer. After seeing Mascagni's success, he decided to write an opera in response: one act composed in the verismo style. Leoncavallo wrote that he based the story of Pagliacci on an incident from his childhood: a murder in 1865, the victim of which was a Leoncavallo family servant, Gaetano Scavello. The murderer was Gaetano D'Alessandro, whose brother Luigi was his accomplice.
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Fiora Corradetti Contino (June 27, 1925 – March 5, 2017) was an American opera conductor and teacher. (image) She was particularly known for her interpretations of Italian verismo works of the late 19th century, and was described as one of the most important figures in opera of the 20th century. Anne Midgette of The New York Times once suggested that she "might have had a far bigger career had she been a man".
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The strangeness of its music and dramatic structure and its deliberate break with the verismo style popular at the time caused an uproar at the premiere which nearly drowned out the performance.Cooke (2005) pp. 138–139 In 1919, Malipiero started composing Orfeo, ovvero L'ottava canzone, which was to become Part III, and finished it shortly before the premiere of Sette canzoni. Part I, La morte delle maschere was the last to be composed and was completed in 1922.
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Critics such as Hugo Shirley have accused the work of being too sentimental, proposing that Saint- Saëns's deliberate desire to distance himself from the vogue of verismo opera and the dramatic sensibilities of Richard Wagner may have prevented him from any kind operatic psychoanalysis. The result, according to Shirley, is that while Saint-Saëns had intended to create a serious portrait of Helen of Troy, the music made it "sound at times like a parody of nineteenth-century sentimentality".
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Mancini worked at the forefront of the Verismo movement, an indigenous Italian response to 19th-century Realist aesthetics. His usual subjects included children of the poor, juvenile circus performers, and musicians he observed in the streets of Naples. His portrait of a young acrobat in Il Saltimbanco (1877–78) captures the fragility of the boy whose impoverished childhood is spent entertaining pedestrian crowds. While in Paris in the 1870s, Mancini met the Impressionist painters Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet.
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Made in 1964–65, the recording also features Maureen Forrester (mezzo-soprano), Richard Tucker (tenor), George London (bass), and the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy. After retiring, Amara became the artistic director of the New Jersey Association of Verismo and taught master classes in the United States, Canada and Mexico. On January 23, 2005, she performed as a special guest artist with the Musica Bella Orchestra. The Times called Amara "the greatest lyric soprano of our time".
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Beatriz Parra (2017) She earned several first places in vocal competitions in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela. In 1975 she received the award "Conchita Badía" in Santiago de Compostela. For fifteen years she was a prima donna and soloist with the Colombia Opera Theater, where her repertoire included verismo such as Verdi and Puccini, romanticists such as Donizetti and classicists such as Mozart. She performed the role of Michaela in Carmen for the Bolshoi Opera House .
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Thompson, Kristin. Film History: An Introduction. Postwar European Cinema: Neorealism and Its Context, 1945-1959. Pg. 333 At the height of neorealism, in 1948, Visconti adapted I Malavoglia, a novel by Giovanni Verga, written at the height of the 19th century realist verismo movement (in many ways the basis for neorealism, which is therefore sometimes referred to as neoverismo), bringing the story to a modern setting, which resulted in remarkably little change in either the plot or the tone.
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Reno Andreini (also spelled Remo) (c. 1875-1880 in Florence – after 1924) was an Italian operatic tenor who had an active international career from 1902–1924. A specialist in the Italian repertoire, he was frequently heard in the bel canto operas of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini, and in the verismo operas of Leoncavallo, Mascagni, and Puccini. He was notably the first singer to make a complete recording of the role of Rodolfo in Puccini's La boheme in 1917.
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201; Sansone, Matteo (1989) "The Verismo of Ruggero Leoncavallo: A Source Study of Pagliacci", Music & Letters, Vol. 70, No. 3 (August 1989), pp. 342–362. As a child, he moved with his father to the town of Montalto Uffugo in Calabria, where Leoncavallo lived during his adolescence. He later returned to Naples and was educated at the city's San Pietro a Majella Conservatory and later the University of Bologna studying literature under famed Italian poet Giosuè Carducci.
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All of Puccini's operas have at least one set piece for a lead singer that is separate enough from its surroundings that it can be treated as a distinct aria, and most of his works have several of these. At the same time, Puccini's work continued the trend away from operas constructed from a series of set pieces, and instead used a more "through-composed" or integrated construction. His works are strongly melodic. In orchestration, Puccini frequently doubled the vocal line in unison or at octaves in order to emphasize and strengthen the melodic line. Verismo is a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s."Verismo" in Stanley Sadie (ed.) The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians, London: Macmillan/New York: Grove, 1980, vol. 19, p. 670, The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes.
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Regarding Callas's acting ability, vocal coach and music critic Ira Siff remarked, "When I saw the final two Toscas she did in the old [Met], I felt like I was watching the actual story on which the opera had later been based."Ira Siff, in his interview with Walter Taussig, "The Associate", Opera News, April 2001 Callas was not, however, a realistic or verismo style actress: her physical acting was merely "subsidiary to the heavy Kunst of developing the psychology of the roles under the supervision of the music, of singing the acting... Suffering, delight, humility, hubris, despair, rhapsody—all this was musically appointed, through her use of the voice flying the text upon the notes." Seconding this opinion, verismo specialist soprano Augusta Oltrabella said, "Despite what everyone says, [Callas] was an actress in the expression of the music, and not vice versa."Schneider, Magnus Tessing, 'The Violettas of Patti, Muzio and Callas: Style, interpretation, and the question of legacy', from The Legacy of Opera: Reading Music Theatre as Experience and Performance (Dominic Symonds and Pamela Karantonis, eds.).
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This is not to say that Sly was pure verismo (for that matter, neither are many other Italian operas of the period)—far from it, it is much more than that, and has many light-hearted elements of musical comedy in it. But that is only what can be expected from Wolf-Ferrari. His early successes had (with the exception of I gioielli della Madonna) all been comedies. Not, of course, in the style of Rossini and Donizetti, but comedies nevertheless.
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Gemma Bellincioni Gemma Bellincioni as Santuzza, and her partner on stage and in private life, Roberto Stagno, as Turiddu, costumed for the 1890 Rome premiere of Cavalleria rusticana. Gemma Bellincioni (born Matilda Cesira Bellincioni) (; 18 August 1864 - 23 April 1950) was an Italian soprano and one of the best-known opera singers of the late 19th century. She had a particular affinity with the verismo repertoire and was renowned more for her charismatic acting than for the quality of her voice.
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Unfortunately for Stagno, his time in New York was to prove shorter than he would have liked: American audiences expressed reservations about his singing because of its pronounced and persistent vibrato. He resumed his career in Italy and South America where his vocal method was more appreciated. Then, in Rome, on 17 May 1890, he made operatic history when he created the role of Turiddu at the first performance of Mascagni's enduringly popular and highly influential one-act verismo work, Cavalleria rusticana.
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Most broadly, Puccini wrote in the style of the late-Romantic period of classical music (see Romantic music). Music historians also refer to Puccini as a component of the giovane scuola ("young school"), a cohort of composers who came onto the Italian operatic scene as Verdi's career came to an end, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and others mentioned below. Puccini is also frequently referred to as a verismo composer. Puccini's career extended from the end of the Romantic period into the modern period.
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Emilio Praga and Igino Ugo Tarchetti are the authors who best represent the Scapigliatura and its aesthetic programme. They were the first in Italy to open up to foreign influences, starting a process of renewal in Italian culture. Synaesthesia, the theory based upon the correspondences among music, poetry and painting, was one of their innovations. They were also the first to promote the literature of Realism, opening the door for the Italian novelists of Verismo such as Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana.
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Giovanni Prati and Aleardo Aleardi continue romantic traditions. Other classical poets are Giuseppe Chiarini, Arturo Graf, Guido Mazzoni and Giovanni Marradi, of whom the two last named may perhaps be regarded as special disciples of Carducci. Enrico Panzacchi was at heart still a romantic. Olindo Guerrini (who wrote under the pseudonym of Lorenzo Stecchetti) is the chief representative of verismo in poetry, and, though his early works obtained a succès de scandale, he is the author of many lyrics of intrinsic value.
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With the help of Daspuro, Giordano had revised the libretto in 1894 and sought to tone down the gritty verismo features of the original in the hope of making it more acceptable to Italian audiences. The setting was changed to Arenaccia, a residential area at the foot of the green hills surrounding Naples. The brothel disappeared, and Cristina was characterised not as a "fallen woman" but as a "betrayed woman" with an unspecified tragic experience in her past. The ending was also changed.
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She also had been prepared to tackle quite dramatic parts in operas like L'Africaine, Les Huguenots and even Aida. She never attempted to sing any verismo parts, however, because these became popular only in the twilight of her career, during the final decade of the 19th century. Pullman attendants ca. 1904 Many years earlier, Patti had experienced an amusing encounter in Paris with the bel canto-opera composer Gioachino Rossini, who was a staunch upholder of traditional Italian singing values.
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She was a celebrity guest on a week of Match Game in 1980. She made her debut at the New York City Opera in 1973, the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1979, the San Francisco Opera in 1982, establishing herself in verismo roles, notably as Nedda, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly. Beginning in 1981, she appeared at the New York City Opera in Verdi's La Traviata, conducted by Mario Bernardi. and widely in Europe; Zürich, Toulouse, Nice, Hamburg, Munich, Rome, Palermo, etc.
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Cascella began painting in the Verismo style. Cascella worked in painting, graphic design and illustration. He later moved to Milan where he opened a lithographic illustration factory. He exhibited some works at the National Artistic Exhibion of Turin in 1884 and at the Art Exhibition of Venice in 1887 (together with artists such as Giovanni Segantini, John Singer Sargent, Giacomo Grosso, Cesare Tallone, Antonio Mancini, and Federico Bernagozzi). He also exhibited at shows in London (1888) and in Palermo (1891).
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Manon Lescaut Cesira Ferrani (May 8, 1863 in Turin – May 4, 1943 in Pollone) was an Italian operatic soprano who is best known for debuting two of the most iconic roles in opera history, Mimì in the original 1896 production of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème and the title role in Puccini's Manon Lescaut in its 1893 world premiere. Ferrani sang a wide repertoire that encompassed not only verismo opera but the works of composers like Verdi, Gounod, Wagner, and Debussy.
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There have been various realism movements in the arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism and Italian neorealist cinema. The realism art movement in painting began in France in the 1850s, after the 1848 Revolution. The realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. Realism as a movement in literature was a post-1848 phenomenon, according to its first theorist Jules-Français Champfleury.
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In 1893 she was the first Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff to the Fenton of her husband, Edoardo Garbin, and they were later important in the popularization of Puccini's La bohème. In 1902 she went to South America before singing in Paris with the Sonzogno Company, as well as in Berlin, Vienna and Saint Petersburg. She became identified with the heavier roles of Italian verismo opera such as Adriana Lecouvreur and Fedora. When she retired from the stage she became a noted teacher.
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And the influence of these earlier operas was to come shining through in Sly. In fact, the story of Sly can almost be regarded as what started out as an elaborate practical joke (a rather mean joke, true—but still a joke) going sour. Thus, the first act is rather light hearted, and the real verismo elements do not come into play until the tragedy begins to unfold in the later acts. A few introductory comments about Italian operatic practices might be of interest at this point.
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Another of Vidal's pupils, soprano Rosina Storchio, was closely associated with verismo premieres. De Lucia, who sang in Spain in the 1880s, may have imbibed the example set by those who studied with Vidal. By referring to De Lucia as an artificial tenor, Shaw is associating him with other tenors who employed a similar vocal technique, and were inclined to color and phrase in the same sort of way as De Lucia. They include Alessandro Bonci, Giuseppe Anselmi, Fiorello Giraud, Charles Friant, Edmond Clement, and David Devries.
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De Roberto uses the literary style of Verismo (the Italian version of Naturalism). There is no privileged point of view (neither of the author nor others), but rather a plurality of voices. Mass scenes are powerful, and the description of various social backgrounds is rich and deep. The primary aim of all members of the Uzeda family is to retain power regardless of the changes that occur, even if this requires actions that the reader will undoubtedly judge to be cynical, or even absurd.
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In 1965, an amateur troupe, the Opera Theater of Westfield, NJ, asked him to take charge, and he set about turning it into a professional operation. Many singers with big reputations chose to sing with Silipigni and his modest company. Beverly Sills, Birgit Nilsson, Anna Moffo and Plácido Domingo were a few. He also brought in exciting singers based in other parts of the world for rare American appearances, Turkish soprano Leyla Gencer, the renowned verismo specialist Magda Olivero, and dramatic tenor Nicola Martinucci among others.
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He established himself in the standard Italian repertory, singing all the great baritone parts from bel canto to verismo. He also took part in several creations of contemporary works such as Rappresentazione e Festa by Gian Francesco Malipiero, Alamistakeo by Giulio Viozzi, Vivì by Franco Mannino, Suocera Rapita by Lidia Ivanova, and La regina delle nevi by Giuseppe Zanaboni. From 1991 he dedicated himself to teaching, activity that he carried out with passion until his death in 1999. Fioravanti did not record prolifically commercially.
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The latter performance came a year after his celebrated master class for Nancy Opera Passion and in advance of his 2010 masterclass in the same city. The Auditorio de Tenerife hosted Cura in November when he brought his Otello to the Atlantic Island for the fall festival. He then closed the month of November in Mannheim starring in the verismo twins. Cura sang his first Calaf in Verona in 2003; nearly six years later, he brought his dangerous and controversial prince to Covent Garden.
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He approaches such subjects without a shrill, messianic desire to foment action, but to work with the idea of expressing an abstract notion of social harmony. So, Ross's subject matter is strong, but restful, while his style and handling of paint convey a gestural energy that keeps each canvas lively. Recently, Ross's emphasis has changed somewhat, demonstrating a greater interest in figurative work. Working quickly with an economy of expression, Ross has created multi-figure Italian beach scenes in a style he calls American verismo.
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"Maestro's love affair going strong" by Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 4, 2001, Page 2 ECue. In addition to his position in Milwaukee, Rescigno remained in demand as a guest conductor, and his career often took him to Canada. He conducted several productions for the Montreal Opera, leading both of the two orchestras it routinely used: the l'Orchestre Symphonique and l'Orchestre Métropolitain. In 1995, he recorded Verismo for the Montreal Opera, with soprano Diana Soviero and an orchestra composed substantially of the musicians of l'Orchestre Métropolitain.
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Galli- Curci made her operatic debut in 1906 at Trani, as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto, and she rapidly became acclaimed throughout Italy for the sweetness and agility of her voice and her captivating musical interpretations. She was seen by many critics as an antidote to the host of squally, verismo-oriented sopranos then populating Italian opera houses. The soprano had toured widely in Europe, Russia and South America. In 1915, she sang two performances of Lucia di Lammermoor with Enrico Caruso in Buenos Aires.
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Munsky prepared her works by creating from which she then transferred to canvas with the help of a Slide projector. She was indeed not a photorealist in the usual sense, but oriented herself towards "new reality", applying a "verismo" approach that referenced the 1920s. In her pictures she rearranges the patterns and adapted the overall image by reducing it to essentials and applying a rigidly structured composition. Often her backgrounds use a monochrome presentation so that the viewer will not be distracted from the main subject matter.
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A style, which is connected to the political art in the period around 1945, as a minor transition phase between the earlier and more famous Realisms of the 1930s (New Objectivity, Verismo, Precisionism, Magical Realism, etc.) and the abstract painting of the 1950s.Matthias Boeckl: The Colors of Life – Background and context of Soshana's early work in U.S. Modernism, in: Soshana. Life and Work, Springer 2010, p.11 Already the bombings of the London Blitz, had triggered artistic reflections in the drawing of the budding artist Soshana.
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In 1902 he became professor of composition and director of the Liceo Benedetto Marcello. In 1911 Wolf-Ferrari tried his hand at full-blooded Verismo with I gioielli della Madonna; a story of passion, sacrilege and madness. It was quite popular in its day and for a period after, especially in Chicago, where the great Polish soprano Rosa Raisa made it a celebrated vehicle. Maria Jeritza (and, later, Florence Easton) triumphed in it at the Metropolitan Opera, in an all-out spectacular production in 1926.
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From a musicological standpoint, his singing is of considerable historical interest because the refined vocal method that he employed was shaped prior to the advent of passionate, slice-of-life verismo opera in the 1890s. (To perform the verismo repertoire effectively, 20th-century singers were required to adopt a less elegant and less florid style of operatic vocalism than had hitherto been the norm.) Indeed, Plançon is considered to be one of the last important figures in a long line of exceptional French basses and baritones stretching back to the birth of operatic music's romantic era in the early decades of the 19th century. His predecessors and contemporaries in this Gallic bel canto tradition included such celebrated artists as Henri- Bernard Dabadie, Nicolas Levasseur, Luigi Lablache, Prosper Dérivis, Paul Barroilhet, Jean-Baptiste Faure (see above), Victor Maurel, Jean Lassalle and Maurice Renaud. During the height of his 30-year career, he was confronted with stellar competition from a host of superlative operatic basses, including his fellow countrymen Jean-François Delmas (whose sonorous voice he particularly admired), Pedro Gailhard, Juste Nivette, Hippolyte Belhomme and Marcel Journet.
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In 1913, he appeared at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, as Scarpia and Sharpless. Giraldoni had a dark, resonant voice and a strong (if unsubtle) stage presence, according to contemporary descriptions of his performances. Apart from Scarpia, his notable roles included: Don Carlo, Amonasro, Telramund, Hamlet, Berlioz's Méphisto and Onegin. But like his direct rival, the Sicilian baritone Mario Sammarco, Giraldoni's vehement style of singing was best suited to operas by verismo composers such as Ruggero Leoncavallo, who composed Pagliacci, Umberto Giordano, who composed Andrea Chénier, and Alberto Franchetti, who composed Germania and Cristoforo Colombo.
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She sang this type of music with great passion, although her actual voice was not particularly large in size or ripe in tone, and marred by a distinct flutter. (See Scott, cited below.) On 17 May 1890, she created the role of Santuzza in Pietro Mascagni's landmark verismo work Cavalleria Rusticana when it premiered in Rome. Her common-law spouse Roberto Stagno, a prominent tenor from Sicily, sang opposite her in the role of Turiddu at that same premiere performance: they had met on a tour of Argentina in 1886.
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For a while he was considered, along with Hugo Wolf, one of the finest composers of Lieder (art songs) since Schubert. His most famous work, Der Evangelimann, best known for its aria Selig sind, die Verfolgung leiden (Blessed are the persecuted), continues to be revived occasionally. It is a folk opera which has been compared to Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, and contains elements of verismo. After Humperdinck and Siegfried Wagner, the composers of fairy-tale operas, Kienzl is the most important opera composer of the romantic post-Wagner era.
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He also provided the libretto for several operas by Alfred Bruneau, including Messidor (1897) and L'Ouragan (1901); several of Bruneau's other operas are adapted from Zola's writing. These provided a French alternative to Italian verismo. He is considered to be a significant influence on those writers that are credited with the creation of the so-called new journalism; Wolfe, Capote, Thompson, Mailer, Didion, Talese and others. Tom Wolfe wrote that his goal in writing fiction was to document contemporary society in the tradition of John Steinbeck, Charles Dickens, and Émile Zola.
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Giordano tried a more romantic topic with his next opera, Regina Diaz, with a libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci (1894), but this was a failure, taken off the stage after just two performances. Umberto Giordano, 1905 Giordano then moved to Milan and returned to verismo with his best-known work, Andrea Chénier (1896), based on the life of the French poet André Chénier. Fedora (1898), based on Victorien Sardou's play, featured a rising young tenor named Enrico Caruso. It was also a success and is still performed today.
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He is also well known for the drama Romanticismo, who's success was partly due to its patriotic content; it was later adapted in a film with the same name directed by Clemente Fracassi and starred by Amedeo Nazzari and Clara Calamai. In theatre Romanticismo and I disonesti found in Paola Pezzaglia an ideal interpreter. Close to verismo, his works represent the Lombard political and the bourgeoisie of the time, and show the disillusionment for the failure of the ideals of the Risorgimento. In 1910 Rovetta committed suicide, leaving an unfinished novel.
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220px Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini ( , , ; 22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi". Puccini's early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera. Later, he successfully developed his work in the realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. Puccini's most renowned works are La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1924), all of which are among the important operas played as standards.
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Verdi had no pupils apart from Muzio and no school of composers sought to follow his style which, however much it reflected his own musical direction, was rooted in the period of his own youth. By the time of his death, verismo was the accepted style of young Italian composers. The New York Metropolitan Opera frequently staged Rigoletto, Trovatore and Traviata during this period and featured Aida in every season from 1898 to 1945. Interest in the operas reawakened in mid-1920s Germany and this sparked a revival in England and elsewhere.
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I can imagine everything, I can see everything in front of my eye." Opera director Sandro Sequi, who witnessed many Callas performances close-up, states, "For me, she was extremely stylized and classic, yet at the same time, human—but humanity on a higher plane of existence, almost sublime. Realism was foreign to her, and that is why she was the greatest of opera singers. After all, opera is the least realistic of theater forms... She was wasted in verismo roles, even Tosca, no matter how brilliantly she could act such roles.
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This trend became even more striking in the operas of the German composers Beethoven, Weber, and Meyerbeer, while their Italian and French contemporaries Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Auber retained the number opera style. The number opera was strongly condemned by Wagner for dramatic reasons, and he replaced it with continuous music that advances the drama without interruption. The number opera became unfashionable, and the late operas of Verdi and those of Puccini and the Verismo school, cannot be described as such. Many operatic composers subsequent to Wagner adopted his approach.
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Mala vita (Wretched Life) is an opera in three acts composed by Umberto Giordano to a libretto by Nicola Daspuro adapted from Salvatore Di Giacomo and Goffredo Cognetti's verismo play of the same name. Giordano's first full- length opera, Mala vita premiered on 21 February 1892 at the Teatro Argentina. It was subsequently performed in Naples, Vienna, Berlin and Milan, and other Italian cities over the next two years. In 1897 a considerably re-worked and revised version under the title Il voto (The Vow) premiered in Milan.
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It was first screened at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival and O Estado de S. Paulo reported it received praise from critics. However, Derek Elley from Variety criticized it for its clichés, calling it "solidly conventional behind its verismo front". Elley said "Budgetary constraints hamper what little drama is happening onscreen, and only actor to make much of an impression is Leonardo Villar as the fort's gnarled, pragmatic commander." In spite of it, the film won Best Actress Award (Rigueira) and Best Score Award at the Festival de Brasília.
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Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica, and first performed on 28 March 1896 at La Scala, Milan. The story is based loosely on the life of the French poet André Chénier (1762–1794), who was executed during the French Revolution. The character Carlo Gérard is partly based on Jean-Lambert Tallien, a leading figure in the Revolution. It remains popular with audiences, though less frequently performed than in the first half of the 20th century.
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This style was practiced most characteristically by the "I Macchiaioli" a group of Tuscan painters, who were forerunners of the French Impressionists. The style and its underlying social goals related to general 19th-century artistic developments that occurred in many countries, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, which stemmed from nationalist movements and intellectuals' responses to the effects of industrialization. In Italy, the national origin of “verismo,” especially in literature and opera, was a profound sympathy for the disadvantaged working people, whose life, for the most part, consisted of hard labor, poverty, and oppression.
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He would become an audience favorite at the Met, earning acclaim for his graceful singing of Donizetti's bel canto music as well as for the touch of elegance that he brought to his more forceful Verdi and verismo interpretations. Scotti appeared at Covent Garden in London for the first time in 1899, singing Don Giovanni. He would return to London on many occasions prior to World War I. At the Met in 1901, Scotti became the first artist to sing the role of Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca in America.
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13 Tiefland played in opera houses throughout the world and has retained a place in the standard German and Austrian repertoire, with a production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, in November 2007. According to biographer Hugh Macdonald, it "provides a link between Italian verismo and German expressionist opera, although the orchestral textures recall a more Wagnerian language." Another stage success was a comic opera called Flauto solo in 1905. D'Albert's most successful orchestral works included his cello concerto (1899), a symphony, two string quartets and two piano concertos.
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Aleksandra Kurzak (born 7 August 1977) is a Polish operatic soprano. She received international attention after her debuts at the New York Metropolitan Opera and the London Royal Opera House in the 2004/05 season. She had been successful in lyric and coloratura soprano repertoire such as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Adina in L'elisir d'amore. From the early 2010s, she began taking up gradually heavier roles in bel canto and Verismo repertoire such as Violetta in La traviata, Nedda in Pagliacci, and Desdemona in Otello.
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Eugenia Burzio Eugenia Burzio (20 June 1882 – 16 May 1922) was an Italian operatic soprano known for her vibrant voice and passionate style of singing. She was particularly prominent in the verismo repertoire, creating the role of Delia Terzaghi in Ruggero Leoncavallo's Goffredo Mameli as well as singing Minnie in the Italian premiere of Giacomo Puccini's La fanciulla del West but was also admired in Verdi and other 19th century repertoire. While many music critics found her interpretations imaginative and exciting, others criticized her for the unevenness of her voice and other technical shortcomings.
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Lázaro built his career primarily on verismo roles, Verdi operas. He performed in Rigoletto, Aida, and Il trovatore, Bizet's Carmen, some bel canto roles such as La favorite, I puritani, and Les Huguenots and Spanish zarzuela (Arrieta's Marina, in particular). He created the tenor roles in Mascagni's Parisina (1913, La Scala) and Il piccolo Marat (1921, Costanzi), and Romani's Fedra (1915, Costanzi). While in Philadelphia in 1924, he received a letter from Umberto Giordano, asking him to create the tenor role in his next opera, La cena delle beffe.
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He also appeared in verismo operas such as Cavalleria rusticana, Andrea Chénier, Tosca, and La fanciulla del West. Guelfi had a large, powerful voice and yet was able to perform more classical works such as Guglielmo Tell, Lucia di Lammermoor, La favorite, L'Africaine, and Spontini's Agnes von Hohenstaufen. He sang the role of Rance in La fanciulla del West in a recording with Renata Tebaldi, conducted by Arturo Basile, and was in the 1961 Tokyo's performances of Tosca, also with Tebaldi, on DVD. He died on 8 February 2012 in Bolzano, after a week's hospitalization.
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However, like many of Mascagni's operas apart from Cavalleria rusticana, the work then fell into obscurity. One of its few revivals in modern times was on 4 August 2007 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria, using the original French libretto. (It has been released on CD and DVD.) In October 2008, Opera di Roma used the Italian libretto for a new production of Amica in collaboration with Opéra de Monte- Carlo and the in Livorno. Set in the mountains of Savoy around 1900, Amica is a classic verismo drama.
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The score had been reconstructed over a period of eight years by Italian musicologist Candida Mantica. The first complete staging of L’Ange de Nisida was subsequently given at the 2019 Donizetti Festival in Bergamo. The company has also performed and recorded works by other 19th-century composers, including Bellini, Massenet, Mayr, Mercadante, Meyerbeer, Pacini, Rossini and Ambroise Thomas. Under Artistic Director Sir Mark Elder (2011-2019), the company began to explore works by French composers of the same period including Gounod and Offenbach, as well as verismo operas from the turn of the 20th century.
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The periodical Il Conciliatore published articles by Silvio Pellico, Giovanni Berchet, Ludovico di Breme, who were both Romantic in poetry and patriotic in politics. After the Unification of Italy in 1861, Milan lost its political importance; nevertheless it retained a sort of central position in cultural debates. New ideas and movements from other countries of Europe were accepted and discussed: thus Realism and Naturalism gave birth to an Italian movement, Verismo. The greatest verista novelist, Giovanni Verga, was born in Sicily but wrote his most important books in Milan.
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Cleopatra's Night is written in an eclectic late romantic style, influenced both by the dramatic lyricism of the verismo movement and the rich orchestral approach employed by Wagner and Richard Strauss. The opera's first production was designed by Norman Bel Geddes. Frances Alda sang the title role, while tenor Orville Harrold sang the role of Meïamoun. Gennaro Papi conducted the premiere, though Hadley took the baton for the sixth and final performance of the season, becoming the first American composer to conduct his own opera at the Met.
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Maria Zamboni (25 July 1895 - 25 March 1976) was an Italian operatic soprano who had a prolific career in Italy and South America between 1921 and 1936. Admired for her vivid character portrayals and expressive singing, Zamboni was a popular and frequent performer at both La Scala and the Teatro Costanzi. Her repertoire encompassed a broad spectrum, from Verdi and Wagner heroines to French grand opera and verismo roles. She became particularly associated with the works of Giacomo Puccini and notably sang the role of Liu in the original 1926 production of Turandot.
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The aria is a favourite show piece of a spinto soprano, especially ones who specialize in the Italian idiom of verismo. In the opera, the aria is placed in the third act, after Gérard's aria "", another famous aria which showcases the baritone playing Gérard. Comprising a range between C to B, the tessitura of the aria lies in the octave between F and F, with the second section lying higher than the first section. The instrumentation of the aria is especially effective, for example the string tremolo which suggested the fires that destroyed Maddalena's home.
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Manzoni and his Times. J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1954. In the late 19th century, a realistic literary movement called Verismo played a major role in Italian literature; Giovanni Verga and Luigi Capuana were its main exponents. In the same period, Emilio Salgari, writer of action adventure swashbucklers and a pioneer of science fiction, published his Sandokan series. In 1883, Carlo Collodi also published the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, the most celebrated children's classic by an Italian author and the most translated non-religious book in the world.
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She is sometimes the lover of Harlequin, but not always. She may be a flirtatious and impudent character, indeed a soubrette. In the verismo opera Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo, the head of the troupe's wife, Nedda, playing as Colombine, cheats on her husband, Canio, playing as Pagliaccio, both onstage with Harlequin and offstage with Silvio. Although Colombine is one name associated with the female servant character archetype, other names under which the same character is played in Commedia dell'arte performances include Franceschina, Smeraldina, Oliva, Nespola, Spinetta Ricciolina, and Corallina Diamantina.
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His debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in 1931, as Calaf in Puccini's Turandot. He appeared often on the Italian opera-house circuit during the early 1930s but success at Milan's La Scala, with its entrenched roster of popular Italian-born tenors, eluded him. Cortis came to be regarded as one of the best inter-war interpreters of verismo opera. He was particularly praised for his performances of Calaf and of Dick Johnson in Puccini's La fanciulla del West, while he sang with remarkable ease the strenuous music composed for the tenor voice by Umberto Giordano and Pietro Mascagni.
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Carmen Melis Carmen Melis (15 August 1885 – 19 December 1967) was an Italian operatic soprano who had a major international career during the first four decades of the 20th century. She was known, above all, as a verismo soprano, and was one of the most interesting singing actresses of the early 20th century. She made her debut in Novara in 1905 and her career rapidly developed in her native country over the next four years. From 1909-1916 she performed with important opera companies in the United States; after which she was busy performing at many of Europe's most important opera houses.
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Silipigni, a dapper figure of old-world elegance with a pencil-thin mustache, manicured nails and ascot, was as meticulous with his productions as he was with his own appearance. Before conducting works like Leoncavallo's Zaza, Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur and Verdi's Attila, he did painstaking research. For a production of Tosca six years ago, he matched the color of choir robes used in Rome in 1800. Often, the works had not been heard in the United States for decades before Silipigni presented them, turning Newark, NJ where the company was based, into a destination for lovers of verismo and operatic obscurities.
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He became the greatest writer of Verismo, an Italian literary movement akin to Naturalism. His novels portray life among the lower levels of Sicilian society, such as fishermen and stonemasons, and were written in a mixture of both literary language and local dialect. Francesco Longo Mancini was a painter known for paintings of nudes who was born in Catania in 1880. Agatha Festival in February 1994 Festival of Saint Agatha in 1915 The city's patron saint is Saint Agatha, who is celebrated with a religious pageantry, the Festival of Saint Agatha, on 5 February every year.
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Huguet proved popular in Russia as well. Although Huguet often sang coloratura parts, such as Rosina in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, she also undertook the verismo roles of Mimì in Puccini's La Bohème and Cio-Cio- San in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, and her recordings even include excerpts from Wagner's Lohengrin (on which she is accompanied by the famous tenor Fernando De Lucia). Indeed, her complete repertoire contained a wide range of roles: from The Queen of Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute to Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Huguet's career as a recording artist was not particularly extensive.
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During the 1870s and 1880s, he premiered numerous operettas and ballets; notably The Assassins, inspired by a poem by Archduke Johann Salvator, who responded by giving Forster the Tuscan Knight's Cross for civil merit. Despite this, an application to be the Kapellmeister at the Burgtheater was not accepted. His only major success was the one-act opera, The Rose of Pontevedra (1893), for which he received a first prize from the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It is considered to be one of the few quality verismo style operas in German and was performed regularly until 1914.
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Lina Bruna Rasa as Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, her signature role Lina Bruna Rasa (24 September 1907 - October 1984) was an Italian operatic soprano. She was particularly noted for her performances in the verismo repertoire and was a favourite of Pietro Mascagni who considered her the ideal Santuzza. Bruna Rasa created the roles of Atte in Mascagni's Nerone, Cecilia Sagredo in Franco Vittadini's La Sagredo and Saint Clare in Licinio Refice's 1926 oratorio, Trittico Francescano. She also sang the role of Tsaritsa Militrisa in the Italian premiere of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tale of Tsar Saltan.
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""Diva Serena, Time, November 3, 1958 However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac", and it was a bystander who quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter attributed the latter comment to Callas. According to John Ardoin, however, these two singers should never have been compared. Tebaldi was trained by Carmen Melis, a noted verismo specialist, and she was rooted in the early 20th century Italian school of singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in 19th century bel canto. Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas Tebaldi considered herself essentially a lyric soprano.
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His broad phrasing and the sonority of his voice also allowed him to create characters that were both noble and imposing. Over time Basiola had to make some concessions to verismo vocalism, and his incessant activity did bring about some cloudiness of the voice, but his technique and style made him much in demand, especially in works from the second half of the 19th century. What he could not entirely achieve was to put an unmistakably personal stamp on his interpretations. Nevertheless, Basiola was his immense technical and artistic value during his career and to modern historians of the voice and singing.
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Company logo Teatro Grattacielo is a professional opera company based in New York City specializing in concert performances of rarely heard verismo operas. The company's past performances have included the North American premieres of Mascagni's Il piccolo Marat and Riccardo Zandonai's I cavalieri di Ekebù and La farsa amorosa. Its name means "Skyscraper Theatre" in Italian, a reference not only to the New York skyline but also to the Teatro Grattacielo in Genoa, a cinema which was the city's temporary opera house while the Teatro Carlo Felice was rebuilt after extensive damage in World War II.
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His only season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City occurred in 1932. He made his debut at the Met on March 2 of that year, as Radames in Aida; but his performances there were not deemed a success due to the effects of poor health. Thereafter, La Scala became his operatic base and his career tailed off during World War II. He was renowned for his vocal strength, penetrating tone and incisive diction. These qualities enabled him to tackle a wide operatic repertory, ranging from bel canto works through verismo roles to heroic parts such as Verdi's Otello.
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There are numerous musical centres in Tuscany. Arezzo is indelibly connected with the name of Guido d'Arezzo, the 11th-century monk who invented modern musical notation and the do-re-mi system of naming notes of the scale; Lucca hosted possibly the greatest Italian composer of Verismo, Giacomo Puccini together with Alfredo Catalani, while Pietro Mascagni was born in Livorno; and Siena is well known for the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, an organization that currently sponsors major musical activities such as the Siena Music Week and the Alfredo Casella International Composition Competition. Other important musical centres in Tuscany include Pisa and Grosseto.
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Carla Gavazzi Carla Gavazzi (February 26, 1913 in Bergamo – May 25, 2008 in Milan) was an Italian operatic soprano, largely based in Italy, and particularly associated with the verismo repertory. Carla Gavazzi was one of many talented Italian sopranos from the 1950s, who were eclipsed by the likes of Renata Tebaldi and Maria Callas. She possessed a powerful, warm and vibrant voice combined with expressive delivery and fine musicianship. She made her debut as Mimi in La bohème, in 1940, and sang throughout Italy in the standard lirico-spinto repertory, encompassing works by Mozart, Puccini and Verdi.
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The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini all creating works that are still performed. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer. The mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard Wagner in Germany. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in the early 20th century.
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These motifs never are expanded upon, and just as the audience expects a character to launch into a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing a new phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi, onward, exercising tremendous influence on his successors Giacomo Puccini, Richard Strauss, and Benjamin Britten. After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci that came to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly.
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Malipiero possessed a clear, bright, well-trained voice with a slightly husky timbre. Italian music critics and audiences of the 1930-1960 period praised his singing style, regarding it as belonging to the elegant 'old school' of pre-verismo vocalism. He can be heard as Edgardo in a complete recording of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, with the coloratura soprano Lina Pagliughi in the title role and Ugo Tansini conducting, that was made by Cetra Records at the height of the tenor's powers in 1939. This performance was remastered in 2001 and released on CD by Naxos Records.
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He was particularly effective in Verdi roles and verismo opera, bringing a rare emotional intensity to his performances. Pertile also sang at the Royal Opera House in London from 1927 to 1931, and at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires between 1918-29. His soprano colleagues included such famous divas as Gilda Dalla Rizza, dal Monte, Claudia Muzio, Raisa, Bidu Sayão, Hina Spani, and Ninon Vallin. He appeared, too, in unusual operatic works, creating for example the role of Fernando in Felipe Boero's opera Tucuman (in 1918) and the title role in Constantino Gaito's Ollantay (in 1926).
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""Diva Serena, Time, November 3, 1958 However, witnesses to the interview stated that Callas only said "champagne with cognac", and it was a bystander who quipped, "No, with Coca-Cola", but the Time reporter attributed the latter comment to Callas. According to John Ardoin, however, these two singers should never have been compared. Tebaldi was trained by Carmen Melis, a noted verismo specialist, and she was rooted in the early 20th century Italian school of singing just as firmly as Callas was rooted in 19th century bel canto. Callas was a dramatic soprano, whereas Tebaldi considered herself essentially a lyric soprano.
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190–192 Like Werther, it did not gain widespread popularity among French opera-goers until its first revival, which was four years after the premiere, by when the composer's association with Sanderson was over. In the same year he had a modest success in Paris with the one-act Le portrait de Manon at the Opéra- Comique, and a much greater one in London with La Navarraise at Covent Garden.Irvine, pp. 193–194 The Times commented that in this piece Massenet had adopted the verismo style of such works as Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana to great effect.
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Pietro Mascagni (7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer primarily known for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music. While it was often held that Mascagni, like Ruggiero Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, L'amico Fritz and Iris have remained in the repertoire in Europe (especially Italy) since their premieres. Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, and also songs and piano music.
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Most of the characters in Carmen—the soldiers, the smugglers, the Gypsy women and the secondary leads Micaëla and Escamillo—are reasonably familiar types within the opéra comique tradition, although drawing them from proletarian life was unusual. The two principals, José and Carmen, lie outside the genre. While each is presented quite differently from Mérimée's portrayals of a murderous brigand and a treacherous, amoral schemer, even in their relatively sanitised forms neither corresponds to the norms of opéra comique. They are more akin to the verismo style that would find fuller expression in the works of Puccini.
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Semeonoff, Record Collecting (Oakwood Press, Chislehurst 1949), 65: 'Fernando de Lucia, leading exponent of a vanished bel canto tradition'; H. Rosenthal and J. Warrack, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera (London, 1974 printing), 'a master of bel canto.' the situation was originally quite otherwise; De Lucia was, in fact, famous during his career not as a bel canto stylist, but as a performer of Mascagni and Ruggero Leoncavallo's earthy, melodramatic verismo characters. De Lucia capitalized on Europe's Mascagni craze of the early 1890s. Accordingly, in November 1892, he was engaged by the Florence opera house to create the tenor lead in Mascagni's third opera, I Rantzau.M. Girardi: Mascagni, Pietro (Grove Music Online).
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Giordano, the youngest contestant, was placed sixth among seventy- three entries with his Marina, a work which generated enough interest for Sonzogno to commission the staging of an opera based on it in the 1891–92 season. The result was Mala vita, a gritty verismo opera about a labourer who vows to reform a prostitute if he is cured of his tuberculosis. This work caused something of a scandal when performed at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, in February 1892. It played successfully in Vienna, Prague and Berlin and was re- written as Il Voto a few years later, in an attempt to raise interest in the work again.
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Because only three verismo works by Puccini continue to appear regularly on stage (the aforementioned Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, and Andrea Chénier), Puccini's contribution has had lasting significance to the genre. Both during his lifetime and in posterity, Puccini's success outstripped other Italian opera composers of his time, and he has been matched in this regard by only a handful of composers in the entire history of opera. Between 2004 and 2018, Puccini ranked third (behind Verdi and Mozart) in the number of performances of his operas worldwide, as surveyed by Operabase. Three of his operas (La bohème, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly) were amongst the 10 most frequently performed operas worldwide.
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Venezuela In contemporary Venezuela, there are great lyrical composers, including María Luisa Escobar, whose works include Kanaime, Orquídeas Azules, and Princesa Girasol. Other important composers include Hector Pellegatti (author of the verismo opera El Negro Miguel with lyrics by Pedro Blanco Vilariño), Alexis Rago (author of El Páramo, Miranda, and Froilán el Infausto), and Federico Ruíz (author of the famous opera buffa Los Martirios de Colón, with a libretto by Aquiles Nazoa). Today, most operatic activity in Venezuela takes place at Teatro Teresa Carreño. Here, operas such as El Páramo by Alexis Rago and Los martirios de Colón by Federico Ruiz have recently premiered.
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He followed with a concert performance in Halle, sharing the stage once more with soprano Anna Netrebko in an evening of arias and duets in front of a sold-out audience of over 8,000. Le Cid in 2008, the day his father died Cura then returned to Barcelona for a month- long run of Andrea Chénier at the Liceu. Following a gala concert in Lisbon once more in support of Associacao Portuguesa Contra a Leucemia, Cura traveled to Cologne to headline in the famous verismo double-bill of Cav/Pag. Between performances in Cologne, Cura presented two concerts in Eindhoven (the second added by popular demand).
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After Cilea created his own Adriana, however, none of those by others were performed anymore and they remain largely unknown today. The opera is based on the life of the French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur (1692-1730). While there are some actual historical figures in the opera, the episode it recounts is largely fictional; its death-by-poisoned- violets plot device is often signalled as verismo opera's least realistic. However, for the reference on how widespread in the 18th century problem of poisoning was one could read the chapter on the "Slow Poisoners" within Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (pp. 565–592).
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During the first part of his career, he showed a fixation with themes involving children. His first opera, performed in 1985 at the Genoa Opera, was a morbid, melancholic version of Pinocchio. In 1987, his second opera, Cyrano, was composed for an Opera Workshop in Alessandria (Piedmont, Italy). It was loosely based on Rostand's drama, and intended as a showcase for Laura Cherici, a soprano who would become his inspiration and long-time partner. In September 1990 he presented a new opera in Livorno, La Lupa, commissioned by Alberto Paloscia (to whom the opera was eventually dedicated) to further the cause of verismo on the 100th Anniversary of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.
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The giovane scuola ("young school") refers to a group of Italian composers (mostly operatic) who succeeded Verdi and flourished in the late 19th and early 20th century. The group all had close connections with the Milan Conservatory and included Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Cilea, Catalani and Franchetti,Phillips-Matz (2000) as well as non-operatic composers such as Lorenzo Perosi, who wrote almost exclusively sacred music.Ciampa (2006) Most of the operatic composers of the giovane scuola were also members of the verismo movement. Although they also wrote more mainstream operas, many of their works focused on "the rawness of life" and the effect of poverty on society,Fanelli (2004) p. 203.
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Despite the relative obscurity of his name today, Perosi was a prominent member of the Giovane Scuola, of which the most important Verismo composers or Veristi (Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, and Cilea) were all considered members. An entire chapter is dedicated to Perosi in Romain Rolland's Musiciens d’Aujourd’hui (1899). Perosi was deeply admired not only by Rolland and by the above-named Veristi, but also by Boito, Toscanini, and many others. Caruso sang his music, as did Sammarco, Tagliabue, Gigli, and other great singers from that era, and also quite a few in modern times, such as Fiorenza Cossotto, Mirella Freni, Renato Capecchi, and fellow Tortonese Giuseppe Campora.
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While the works can seem slow-paced today, at the time they were quite novel not only for their fusion of Renaissance polyphony, Gregorian chant, and lush, Verismo melodies and orchestrations, but also for Perosi's deep-seated faith in the words that he had set. The oratorio as a genre had been in decline in the preceding centuries, and Perosi's contributions to the canon brought him brief but significant international acclaim. In addition to the oratorios and masses for which he is best known, Perosi also wrote secular music—symphonic poems, chamber music, concertos, etc. In his youth, he also wrote pieces for organ.
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The soprano requested that he be replaced; but after he named some of his former distinguished (and uncomplaining) Tosca partners, notably Emmy Destinn, the performances proceeded to be given to critical success. His final operatic appearances were at the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples in 1919. Apart from Scarpia (his debut role at Covent Garden), he was a famous Rigoletto, Marcello, Germont, Renato, Enrico and Amleto, appearing opposite some of the finest singers of his day. No bel canto specialist, he was at his best in ardent verismo works, creating the roles of Gerard in Giordano's Andrea Chénier in 1896 and Cascart in Leoncavallo's Zazà in 1900.
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He made his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11 January 1971 as Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor, other roles included Barnaba in La Gioconda, Carlo in La forza del destino, Amonasro in Aida, Alfio in Cavalleria rusticana, Tonio in Pagliacci, and others. He also appeared at the San Francisco Opera and the Dallas Opera. Manuguerra had a rich and supple voice enabling him to excel in both belcanto and verismo repertoire, with Verdi being always at the core, which his impressive discography clearly demonstrates. Matteo Manuguerra enjoyed a long career and was still active when he died suddenly of a heart attack, in Montpellier, France.
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Explaining the Francophile bias of American expressionism, Ross builds on the ideas of art historian Albert Boime and his book The Art of the Macchia and the Risorgimento, Representing Culture and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Italy. This text had a huge effect on Ross who began incorporating the story of the I Macchialioli into his class materials. Ross’s own background in the radical politics of the 1960s and 1970s led to his identification with the Tuscan group, many of whom participated in the struggle for Italian socialism and national unification. In 2013, Ross wrote a "Manifesto of American Verismo," which summarized many of his ideas on the subject.
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Romilda Pantaleoni circa 1875 Romilda Pantaleoni (1847 - 20 May 1917) was an Italian soprano who had a prolific opera career in Italy during the 1870s and 1880s. She sang a wide repertoire that encompassed bel canto roles, Italian and French grand opera, verismo operas, and the German operas of Richard Wagner. She became particularly associated with the roles of Margherita in Boito's Mefistofele and the title role in Ponchielli's La Gioconda; two roles which she performed in opera houses throughout Italy. She is best remembered today for originating the roles of Desdemona in Giuseppe Verdi's Otello (1887) and Tigrana in Giacomo Puccini's Edgar (1889).
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Ines Maria Ferraris (also Ina Maria Ferraris) (6 May 1882 in Turin - 11 December 1971 in Milan) was an Italian operatic soprano and pianist who sang for more than two decades at La Scala in addition to appearances on the international stage. Although popular in Italy, she had a particularly devoted fanbase throughout South America. A light lyric soprano with a pure and agile voice, Ferraris sang a wide repertoire that encompassed the verismo operas of Puccini, the Italian grand opera of Verdi, and the German operas of Richard Strauss. She is particularly remembered for portraying the role of Lisette in the world première of Puccini's La rondine in 1917.
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Russ studied piano and voice at the Milan Music Conservatory with Leoni. She made her debut in Bologna, as Mimi, in 1903, at La Scala in 1905, as Aida, and in Florence in 1908, as Norma. She was quickly invited abroad, making debut in 1904 at both the Royal Opera House in London, and the Monte Carlo Opera, also appearing at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Manhattan Opera Company in New York, in 1907. Russ performed in a wide range of roles, from bel canto to verismo, her repertory included; Semiramide, Giulia, Amaltea, Paolina, Abigail, Elvira, Leonora, Amelia, Wally, Gioconda, Santuzza, etc.
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Some composers created operatic-scale zarzuelas, with a greater proportion of music and not only comical plots. Las golondrinas by José María Usandizaga, Rafael Millán's La dogaresa (1920), Amadeu Vives' Doña Francisquita (1923) or La villana (1927) are true operas with some spoken dialogues. Operetta-zarzuelas, most notably by Pablo Luna and Amadeo Vives, coexisted with revue-style farces such as Francisco Alonso's Las leandras (1931) and sentimental verismo dramas such as José Serrano's La dolorosa (1930). In the 1930s Pablo Sorozábal attempted to restore the satirical thrust of the 1890s, but after the Spanish Civil War the distinctive quality of zarzuela was lost in imitations of the Broadway musical.
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The critical success of the performance encouraged Respighi to have his other transcriptions of older works performed in Berlin and it is considered to be a milestone in the rediscovery of Monteverdi's output. The musical influence from Respighi's stay in Germany is discerned in his second operatic work, Semirâma. The opera premiered in Bologna in November 1910 to considerable success; two years later, critic Giannotto Bastianelli wrote that the piece marked a transition in Respighi's style from verismo to Decadentism and praised his use of rich polyphony. Working on the opera, however, left Respighi exhausted and he wrote each individual score by hand to save money.
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A review of her performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly in 1973, with Dorothy Kirsten, stated "[Contino] held everything together with a baton that was sharp and in clear control of a magnificently coordinated performance". Peter G. Davis wrote in 2001 of her performance of Alfano's Risurrezione, based on Leo Tolstoy's last novel, that she "may be the last conductor on earth with the music of Alfano and his generation in her bloodstream". She considered Italian verismo opera to be her most favored music to conduct, stating in The New York Times in 2001 that it was "visceral", and she "just knew how to do it".
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Freni extended her repertoire and style during the 1990s with Italian Verismo, taking on the title roles of Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur in Milan, Paris, Barcelona and New York, and Umberto Giordano's Fedora in London, Milan, New York, Torino, Barcelona and Zürich. In 1997, she performed Giordano's Madame Sans-Gêne at the Teatro Massimo Bellini. During this time she sang in Russian operas, such as Tchaikovsky's Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Lisa in The Queen of Spades, and Ioanna in The Maid of Orleans. Freni ended her professional career on stage, performing teenager Ioanna at the age of 70 at the Washington National Opera on 11 April 2005.
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But realist or naturalist works of art may, as well or instead of illusionist realism, be "realist" in their subject matter, and emphasize the mundane, ugly or sordid. This is typical of the 19th-century Realist movement that began in France in the 1850s, after the 1848 Revolution, and also social realism, regionalism, or kitchen sink realism. The Realist painters rejected Romanticism, which had come to dominate French literature and art, with roots in the late 18th century. There have been various movements invoking realism in the other arts, such as the opera style of verismo, literary realism, theatrical realism, and Italian neorealist cinema.
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Giuseppe Borgatti Giuseppe Borgatti (Cento, 17 March 1871 – Reno di Leggiuno, 18 October 1950) was an Italian dramatic tenor with an outstanding voice. (See Michael Scott, cited below, for a laudatory appraisal of his singing.) The creator of the title role in Umberto Giordano's verismo opera Andrea Chénier, he subsequently earned renown for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, becoming in 1904 the first Italian tenor to appear at the Bayreuth Festival. He sang a variety of leading roles at La Scala, Milan, from 1896 until 1914, but deteriorating eyesight caused by glaucoma put a premature end to his stage career, after which he turned successfully to teaching.
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The accusations escalated until Doria killed herself – though the autopsy revealed she died a virgin. In Turandot, Puccini lavished his attention on the familiar sufferings of Liù, as he had on his many previous suffering heroines. However, in the opinion of Father Owen Lee, Puccini was out of his element when it came to resolving the tale of his two allegorical protagonists. Finding himself completely outside his normal genre of verismo, he was incapable of completely grasping and resolving the necessary elements of the mythic, unable to "feel his way into the new, forbidding areas the myth opened up to him"Lee, Father Owen.
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Despite her fame, she never performed at America's foremost operatic venue, the New York Metropolitan Opera. Italy's leading composer, Giuseppe Verdi, admired Bellincioni's acting ability. Verdi had encountered her in 1886 when she performed Violetta in his opera La traviata at La Scala, Milan. Evidently, however, he was not so impressed by her vocal technique because he did not elect to cast her to sing the part of Desdemona at the premiere of Otello the following year. On the other hand, Bellincioni's histrionic manner, accentuated diction and arresting stage presence were to prove ideally suited to a melodramatic new style of Italian opera known as verismo, which became popular during the 1890s.
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Bellincioni was also the first soprano to perform the title role in another key verismo opera, Umberto Giordano's Fedora, on 17 November 1898. (Her tenor partner on this occasion was a promising young singer named Enrico Caruso.) Eight years later, she starred in the Italian premiere of Richard Strauss' Salome. She announced her retirement from the stage in 1911 to teach singing, but re-emerged in 1916 to play the lead female part in a silent-film version of Cavalleria Rusticana that was directed by Ugo Falena. As late as the early 1920s, she gave a few performances in The Netherlands, but her voice was said to be in a threadbare condition by this date.
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The story is a fine example of Italian Realism or Verismo, and is written in Verga's concise, impersonal and distinctly Sicilian style, manipulating the narrative voice into something more akin to the oral tradition. His subject matter and scientific style has led to comparison to Émile Zola's more widely known book, Germinal. This short story appeared for the first time on Il fanfulla, an Italian journal, in 1878, and was later published in 1880 in a collection of other works by Verga, from his 1879–1880s "Vita dei Campi". The novella is widely known and appreciated in Italy, providing an interesting quasi- historical documentation of the condition of the South following the unification of Italy.
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On January 26, 1957, she took part in the world premiere of Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, as Mère Marie, at La Scala in Milan. Beginning in 1954, she also sang outside Italy, notably in Cairo, Munich, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Zurich, Vienna, Bordeaux, Dublin, etc. She was admired in dramatic roles, especially by Verdi and Puccini and some other verismo composers such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano. She can be heard on a complete recording of Tosca, opposite Ferruccio Tagliavini and Giangiacomo Guelfi and in Jan Schmidt-Garre's film Opera Fanatic and also as Minnie in La fanciulla del West by Puccini together with Franco Corelli as Ramerrez and Tito Gobbi as Rance –Live Recording, La Scala, Milan April 4, 1956.
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Fisichella's vocal range, flexibility and incisive phrasing have led the singer to branch out beyond the bel canto repertoire into verismo, as, for example, in his 1988 performance of La Gioconda at the inauguration of the Teatro Regio di Torino.Opera Gems Reflections by Gina Sanders, par 3 He performed the role of Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca at the XXXVI Puccini Festival in the summer of 1990. Fisichella was one of the performers at the Megaconcert held in Verona Arena (Concert of Tenors) to commemorate the centenary of Beniamino Gigli's birth, (Corriere della Sera 29/8/1990). He was seen playing the role of Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala in Milan in May 1992.
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Juha, Op. 74, is an verismo opera in three acts (or six tableaux) by the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, who wrote the piece from 1931–34. The libretto, a collaboration between Madetoja and the Finnish soprano Aino Ackté, is based on Juhani Aho's novel by the same name. The story takes place around 1880 in northern Finland, and features as its central conflict a love triangle between the farmer Juha, his young wife Marja, and a Karelian merchant, Shemeikka. Disillusioned with rural life and seduced by promises of material comfort and romance, Marja runs away with Shemeikka; Juha, who maintains his wife has been abducted, eventually discovers her betrayal and kills himself.
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Von Stade dispatched it "with élan, finding just the right castrato timbre for its grave utterance of another faithful soul".The National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada "È destin" from La Bohème - Leoncavallo's little known setting of the story, not the famous Puccini version - concluded the recital with a venture into a territory peripheral to von Stade's repertoire, nineteenth-century verismo. Despite Musetta's heartbroken outpourings being very unlike her usual material, she expressed them with unqualified success. The playing of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Mario Bernardi's "alert and refined conducting" were both beyond reproach, as was CBS's audio quality, which had "more forward presence" than most of the company's output.
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Verdi's music "sought universality within national character"; that is, much of what he composed in terms of historical themes could be related to his pan-Italian vision. Verdi was the composer of the Italian Risorgimento, the movement to unify Italy in the 19th century. Later in the century is also the time of the early career of Giacomo Puccini, perhaps the greatest composer of pure melody in the history of Italian music. Frontispiece from the score of Cavalleria rusticana, a masterpiece of Italian Verismo from 1890 Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Italian musical form in the 19th century, and that which distinguishes it from musical developments elsewhere, is that it remained primarily operatic.
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Sammarco possessed a strong voice with a powerful upper register; but of all the celebrated singers preserved on early recordings, Sammarco's are regarded as the most disappointing. The technical quality of his singing disappoints and the timbre of his voice can sound rough; at best he is merely dull. On record, according to Scott and Steane, he has a singular inability to sing less than mezzo forte and has no concept of legato. He impresses most when delivering declamatory passages in verismo operas (see Scott, cited below) including an early (celebrated or notorious) recording with the soprano Emma Carelli from Tosca, complete with peals of laughter; even in these "specialist" roles, his singing is unimaginative and crude.
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'Cann drew from personal experience as a former teen, a mother, and an editor familiar with available YA literature, in developing her first book'. By the time she 'ran out of material from my diaries and memories, I realised that my daughter and son were teenagers, and started eavesdropping on them and their friends'. A prime motivator of her writing was the way 'teenage books...treated sexual relationships: they were either full of gloom and doom, or were gushy, unrealistic candyfloss'. Kate offers by contrast a certain verismo: 'I focus on the real things that don't change - like love and anger and happiness and jealousy'."A Note from the Author", Kate Cann, Text Game (Edinburgh 2004) p.
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These were the final two, and arguably the greatest, operatic masterpieces composed by Giuseppe Verdi, and it was Verdi who selected Maurel to perform in the premieres. Maurel made operatic history for a third time in 1892 when he was chosen to be the first Tonio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's enduringly popular verismo opera, Pagliacci. Like many Paris-trained singers of his day, Maurel was equally adept at performing roles in Italian and French. He appeared, too, in several German operas by Richard Wagner (on 30 March 1873 he sang in the first production in Milan of Lohengrin, to Gabrielle Krauss's Elsa), and was a famous Don Giovanni in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera of the same name.
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After the rise of verismo, it was performed infrequently. 20th century and beyond Rarely seen in the first half of the 20th century, it was revived more frequently after World War II. On 30 December 1947, the opera was performed at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, to mark that theatre's centennial (it had opened in 1847 with Anna Bolena). The cast was Sara Scuderi as Anna, Giulietta Simionato as Jane Seymour and Cesare Siepi as Henry VIII. In April 1957, the opera was revived at La Scala for Maria Callas (one of the twelve performances was recorded) in a lavish production directed by Luchino Visconti, with Giulietta Simionato as Jane Seymour.
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During Granforte's subsequent tour of Australia in J. C. Williamson's 1932 Grand Opera season, Frank Thring Sr.'s Melbourne-based Efftee Productions filmed him with the Williamson-Imperial Grand Opera Company in a selection from Rossini's The Barber of Seville. This relatively brief footage was released on VHS in 1989 by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Granforte possessed a big, rich, vibrant voice, quite similar in quality to that of Titta Ruffo, with a sinister undertone, and quickly established himself in the great baritone roles of Verdi and the verismo composers. He sang some Wagner as well, and also sang Menècrate in the first performance of Mascagni's Nerone in 1935.
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Aphrodite evokes a majestic image of the sea, and Tam O'Shanter (based on the tale by Robert Burns) is a work of musical story-telling of similar caliber as some of Richard Strauss's pieces, such as the latter's Don Quixote. Chadwick's most important stage work from this period is The Padrone, based on the realistic plight of Italian immigrants in the North End of Boston. It has a distinctive verismo style (realistic action integrated with a lyrical score). Although Chadwick considered this to be one of his finer works, it was not performed until 1995, when it was premiered by the Waterbury Symphony and conductor Leif Bjaland at the Thomaston Opera House.
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She traveled with the La Scala Opera to Moscow and Tokyo, participating in performances that have been documented in live recordings. A versatile singer and an accomplished actress, Tucci was able to tackle a wide range of operas from the bel canto of Bellini's I puritani to verismo works.. Her repertoire encompassed eighty roles in total, including in English, French, German and Russian. Tucci made only two commercial recordings, Pagliacci in 1959, opposite Mario Del Monaco, and Il trovatore in 1964, opposite Franco Corelli, but she can be heard in a number of live performances, including in Cherubini's Medea and in Donizetti's Il Furioso al Isola di Santo Domingo. Tucci also appeared in concert.
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La Navarraise is widely agreed to be Massenet's answer to Italian verismo and was very popular in its day, often being performed on a double bill with Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. Its popularity has waned since operatic tastes changed in the early part of the twentieth century, and today the opera is rarely performed. However, at the Wexford Festival in October/November 2013, La Navarraise was performed in a double bill with Massenet's Thérèse.George Hall: "Thérèse/La Navarraise; Cristina, Regina di Svezia – review" The Guardian, 27 October 2013 It has, however, been recorded a number of times, most notably in the 1970s with Marilyn Horne and Plácido Domingo, and with Lucia Popp and Alain Vanzo.
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Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus, ) is an opera in four acts and an epilogue by Alberto Franchetti to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It was written in 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' arrival in America. Commissioned by the city of Genoa, Columbus' birthplace, the opera deals with the voyage of discovery, its opposition by the Spanish authorities, Columbus' encouragement by Queen Isabella, and finally, after his difficulties and triumph, his anguish when he learns of her death.Opera at Home, Gramophone Co. Ltd, 3ed, 1925 An essentially melodic opera only tangentially influenced by the emerging verismo style, it is harmonically rich, with obvious references to the work of Richard Wagner and Meyerbeer.
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Renata Scotto in Milan in 1967 Renata Scotto (born 24 February 1934) is an Italian soprano and opera director. Recognized for her sense of style, her musicality, and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered one of the preeminent singers of her generation, specializing in the bel canto repertoire with excursions into the verismo and Verdi repertoires. Since retiring from the stage as a singer in 2002, she has turned successfully to directing opera as well as teaching in Italy and America, along with academic posts at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Juilliard School in New York. She lives in Armonk, New York with her husband Lorenzo Anselmi.
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According to the critic Michael Scott, author of The Record of Singing, Ancona's smooth, fluent and refined method of singing pre- dated the verismo movement. His style and technique were particularly well suited to the operas of Verdi, and to the bel canto works composed by Bellini and Donizetti (such as I Puritani, Lucia di Lammermoor and La favorite). Ancona's repertoire of Verdi parts included Germont, Di Luna, Rigoletto, Amonasro and Iago, as well as Don Carlos in Ernani. Ancona also undertook roles composed by Leoncavallo (Silvio and Tonio), Puccini (Lescaut and Marcello), Mascagni (Alfio and David in L'amico Fritz), Giordano (Gerard in Andrea Chénier), Mozart (Don Giovanni and Figaro) and Wagner (Wolfram, Telramund and even, on occasion, Hans Sachs).
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Yet, in his younger days, before his voice grew too robust, he was able to negotiate a role as light and graceful as that of Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor due to his accomplished mezza-voce singing. Tamagno sang in approximately 55 different operas and sacred works (including Verdi's Requiem and Gioachino Rossini's Stabat Mater) during the course of his career as a soloist, which began in Turin in 1873 and continued for another 32 years, only to be curtailed by the onset of a cardiovascular affliction that killed him in middle age. With one notable exception, Tamagno largely eschewed verismo opera, considering it to be an uncomfortable fit with his stylistic training in the bel canto tradition. That notable exception was Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier.
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She then returned to Italy where she appeared with several theaters under independent contracts for several years. She joined the roster at La Scala in 1912 and joined the Paris Opéra in 1913. In 1916 she was imprisoned for a year in Ancona as a suspected German agent. Resuming her career after the war, she sang Giorgetta in the first European performance of Il tabarro (1919, Rome), repeating the role in that year in Buenos Aires. She also portrayed Felice in La Scala's first production of Wolf-Ferrari’s I quattro rusteghi (1922), a role that became her favourite and in which she continued to appear until 1936. Her performances in verismo operas were said to be impulsive and, for their day, ‘shamelessly sensual’.
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This has limited the scope of her international reputation. However she had huge successes in South America, Egypt and Russia—at St Petersburg's Aquarium Theatre. Burzio was a magnetic actress and she became particularly associated with the music of the verismo school of composers, exemplified by Mascagni, Catalani, Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano and, to a certain extent, Puccini. She was a star performer with a fanatical following at Italy's pre- eminent opera house, La Scala, Milan, during the first two decades of the 20th century. There Burzio appeared in a wide repertoire, often under the baton of Toscanini, her roles included Gluck’s Armide, Bellini’s Norma, Alfano's Risurrezione, Franchetti's La Figlio di Jorio, Pacini's Saffo, Catalani's La Wally and Loreley, Aida, La Gioconda and Cavalleria Rusticana.
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Giuseppe Anselmi Giuseppe Anselmi Commentators often describe Anselmi (and his famous contemporary Alessandro Bonci) as being among the last exponents of the old bel canto method of Italian singing, which was largely supplanted in Italy during the early 1900s by a more forceful mode of vocalism associated with Wagner's music dramas and verismo opera. Anselmi was a good-looking man with an arresting stage presence, which made him extremely popular with many opera- goers. He was sometimes referred to as Il tenore di donne (the tenor of/for women) which apparently had a double meaning; details of his personal life have never emerged. He possessed a sweet-toned if rather throaty and fluttery lyric tenor voice, which he employed with memorable grace and elegance.
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Poli began his vocal studies when he joined the "Società Corale Pisana" in 1925, where he was a pupil of Bruno Pizzi. He made his stage debut in 1927 at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa, as Germont. He then went to Milan to further his studies with Gino Neri, and later joined the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma in 1930. He was a leading baritone at La Scala in Milan from 1937 to 1955, where he sang in a wide repertoire from Mozart to verismo, including; Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, Simon Boccanegra, L'amico Fritz, Manon Lescaut, La bohème, Tosca, Adriana Lecouvreur, as well as Italian versions of operas such as; Les pêcheurs de perles, Manon, Werther, etc.
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Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District () is an opera in four acts and nine scenes by Dmitri Shostakovich, his Opus 29. The libretto, jointly written by Alexander Preys and the composer, is based on the novella of the same name by Nikolai Leskov. (The opera is generally translated in English as Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.) Dedicated by Shostakovich to his first wife, physicist Nina Varzar, the roughly 160-minute opera was first performed on 22 January 1934 at the Leningrad Maly Operny, and on 24 January 1934 in Moscow. It incorporates elements of expressionism and verismo, telling the story of a lonely woman in 19th-century Russia who falls in love with one of her husband's workers and is driven to murder.
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Natoma Gustave Huberdeau (10 May 1874 – 31 May 1945) was a French operatic bass-baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century. He sang a wide repertoire encompassing material from French composers like Gounod and Massenet to the Italian grand operas of Verdi, the verismo operas of Mascagni, and the German operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. He sang in numerous premieres during his 30-year career, including the original production of Puccini's La rondine in 1917. Although possessing a rich and warm voice, Huberdeau had a talent for comedic portrayals which made him a favorite casting choice in secondary comedic roles as well as leading roles.
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Eighteen ninety-four saw Borgatti successfully undertake the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in a notable production in Venice of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut. Later that same year he appeared at another major venue, the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan, as Lohengrin (his first assumption of a Wagnerian part). His career was now gaining real momentum but he would not become a major opera star until 1896 when, at Milan's La Scala, he sang in the premiere performance of Andrea Chénier to great acclaim. Although Borgatti continued to appear in a number of Italian operas after 1896, earning particular renown for his performances in works by Giuseppe Verdi, Puccini and the various verismo composers, he fell strongly under the spell of Wagner's music dramas.
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On November 13, 2007 Teatro Grattacielo, a New York group dedicated to reviving neglected verismo scores, performed L'incantesimo in a concert performance at Avery Fisher Hall in Manhattan. A production (believed to be the first fully staged production of the work in America) was mounted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Hall of Sculpture at the Carnegie Museum of Art by the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh February 12, 13, and 14 of 2010, conducted by Bernard McDonald and directed by Jonathan Eaton. The cast included Daniel Teadt as Folco, Anna Singer as Giselda, Ric Furman as Rinaldo and Craig Priebe as Salomone. Despite the opera's late date of composition, its musical style is firmly rooted in the late-romantic tradition, combining Italian lyricism with the orchestral techniques of Wagner and Richard Strauss.
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Reasons for the Scapigliatura not having been allotted as much attention in the musical arts include several controversial issues. Only three operas have been identified as belonging to this movement, which was thought of as a pseudo-Wagnerian attempt in Italian opera. This has proven to be a fallacy by the operatic scholar, Dr. Mary-Lou Vetere, who has "identified that the Scapigliatura was actually an independent movement between Verdi and Verismo, born to counteract Wagner's growing presence and to protect Italian operatic supremacy." She has defined the movement with its own set of aesthetic principles and revealed that the Scapigliatura's fundamental purpose was to remain ambiguous in order to achieve its goals; that is--to promote a new and modern Italian aesthetic that might compete more readily with growing international styles.
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Later commentators have asserted that Carmen forms the bridge between the tradition of opéra comique and the realism or verismo that characterised late 19th- century Italian opera. The music of Carmen has since been widely acclaimed for brilliance of melody, harmony, atmosphere, and orchestration, and for the skill with which Bizet musically represented the emotions and suffering of his characters. After the composer's death, the score was subject to significant amendment, including the introduction of recitative in place of the original dialogue; there is no standard edition of the opera, and different views exist as to what versions best express Bizet's intentions. The opera has been recorded many times since the first acoustical recording in 1908, and the story has been the subject of many screen and stage adaptations.
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Puccini's next work after La bohème was Tosca (1900), arguably Puccini's first foray into verismo, the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play Tosca by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this Tosca the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music." Puccini photographed in 1908 The music of Tosca employs musical signatures for particular characters and emotions, which have been compared to Wagnerian leitmotivs, and some contemporaries saw Puccini as thereby adopting a new musical style influenced by Wagner. Others viewed the work differently.
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Other Metropolitan Opera performances include Mefistofele (1999–2000) and Gioconda in La Gioconda (2006). Millo has also performed several roles with the Opera Orchestra of New York: Il Lombardi of Verdi (1986) with Carlo Bergonzi, Maddalena in Andrea Chenier, the title roles of Wally in Catalani's La Wally (1990), La Battaglia di Legnano (1987) Adriana Lecouvreur (2004), La Gioconda (2005), and Minnie in La Fanciulla del West (2005). In 2005, Millo also appeared for Teatro Grattacielo in the neglected verismo opera Zazà, which had not been performed in New York since 1927. Millo has performed in the world's opera houses, including Frankfurt, Barcelona, Parma, Rome, Bologna, Torino, the Arena of Verona, The Baths of Caracalla, Cincinnati Opera, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Paris, Orange, Moscow, Seville, Bilbao, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Santiago, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and La Scala, Milan among others.
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He studied the score of Chénier with Giordano in 1898 and earned accolades for his magisterial delivery of the tenor lead's four showpiece solos at ensuing productions of the work. He was on friendly terms, too, with Giordano's rival Giacomo Puccini. In 1892, he took part in a revival of Puccini's flawed early opera Edgar which was staged in Madrid under the supervision of the composer, but even Tamagno's involvement in the enterprise was not enough to reinvigorate Edgar and it remains rarely heard. (Tamagno also ventured a few performances of Pietro Mascagni's archetypal verismo piece, Cavalleria rusticana, in New York City in 1894.) To paraphrase Tamagno's New York Times obituary of 1 September 1905, such was the extraordinary facility of the tenor's upper register, he made the hurling forth of his high A, B and C sound as easy as everyday speech.
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A 20th-century description of Flora mirabilis in Gelli's Dizionario dell'Opera points out that despite having a Greek composer trained in France and a story set in medieval Sweden, the opera adhered quite strictly to the characteristic elements of late 19th-century Italian opera—folkloric dances, large choruses, and lengthy orchestral passages used to set both the geographical and the psychological atmosphere. Flora mirabilis was Samaras's first collaboration with the Italian librettist Ferdinando Fontana who became a lifelong admirer of his music and went on to provide the libretti for Samaras's operas Medgè (1888) and Lionella (1891). George Leotsakos and other authors have compared the musical idiom and proto-verismo displayed in Flora to that of Puccini whose first two operas, Le Villi and Edgar, also had libretti by Fontana.Samson, James (2013). Music in the Balkans, p. 243. Brill.
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The unification of Italy in 1861 led to Naples losing its status as the musical center of Italy and the home of the country's leading opera house to La Scala as power and wealth moved northwards. By 1874 the fall in income from performances led to the closing of the opera house for a year. Its fortunes were able to recover due to the continued support in the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century by Giacomo Puccini and other composers of verismo operas, such as Pietro Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, and Cilea, who staged their works here. In the late nineteenth century, the house created its own in-house orchestra under Giuseppe Martucci, which helped attract a number of respected conductors including Arturo Toscanini, Pietro Mascagni and composer Richard Strauss, whose influence expanded the opera house's repertoire.
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During the second half of the 19th century, the vocal tradition of the great bel canto tenors ultimately went out of fashion, and a new, more dramatic verismo vocal ideal took hold. Musicological scholarship attributes Gilbert Louis Duprez’ interpretation of Arnold in Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, first in an 1831 performance in Luca, Italy, but more significantly in the 1837 Paris revival, as being a primary catalyst for this development. Duprez’ high C5 (ut de poitrine) was not sung in the traditional bel canto falsetto dominant vocal mechanism, as the famous tenori di grazia Adolphe Nourrit, John Braham, or Giovanni Battista Rubini had sung it, but rather in modal (chest) register, similar to contemporary tenors. Duprez’ ut de poitrine became the turning point after which the vocal ideal of the bel canto tenors, and subsequently the technique for developing voce faringea, were lost.
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Mattia Battistini was esteemed as one of the greatest of singers and even a cursory acquaintance with his many discs will make it clear why he was so celebrated by his contemporaries. Amongst the arsenal of vocal weapons that he displays on record were the perfect blending of his registers coupled with the sophisticated use of ornamentation, portamento and fil di voce, as well as an array rubato and legato effects. His art was perfected before the advent of "passion-torn-to-tatters" verismo opera in the 1890s, and together with the likes of Pol Plançon and Mario Ancona (and, to a lesser extent, Alessandro Bonci), he represented the twilight of the art of male bel canto singing on disc. Fortunately the sound of Battistini's clear, high-placed and open-throated baritone voice took well to the primitive acoustic recording process with only his very lowest notes sounding pallid.
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His histrionic skills were less developed however, and he was not considered to be an especially imaginative or exciting interpretive artist. Physically, he was said to resemble King Edward VII of England because of his pointed beard and ample waistline. The fact that Ancona was able to establish himself as a major singer in the face of intense competition from a host of other first-class baritones is a testament to his sheer quality as a vocalist. His main Italian rivals in the period between his debut in 1889 and the outbreak of World War I were: Mattia Battistini, Antonio Scotti, Giuseppe Pacini, Antonio Magini- Coletti, Giuseppe Campanari and Giuseppe Kaschmann (born Josip Kasman)—and, from a younger generation of verismo opera-influenced baritones, Titta Ruffo, Riccardo Stracciari, Pasquale Amato, Giuseppe De Luca, Eugenio Giraldoni, Mario Sammarco, Domenico Viglione-Borghesi and the promising newcomer Carlo Galeffi.
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Zachary "Zach" James (born December 7, 1981) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for creating the role of Lurch in The Addams Family on Broadway, Abraham Lincoln in the world premiere Philip Glass opera, The Perfect American, Amenhotep III in the Olivier Award-winning production of Akhnaten and for appearances on the television shows, 30 Rock and Murphy Brown. Zachary was named the Most Innovative Opera Singer of 2019 by The Classical Post, Breakout Opera Artist of 2019 by Verismo Magazine and was identified as an industry leader and invited to be an official ambassador for Opera America. He has sung with some of the world's top opera companies and orchestras including English National Opera, LA Opera, Teatro Real, The New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia and NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2019 in Akhnaten.
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" William Yeoman of The West Australian wrote, "With book by Ben Elton and lyrics by Glenn Slater and Charles Hart, Love Never Dies is a curious mixture of gothic romance, vaudeville and verismo, with Lloyd Webber's lush, romantic score spinning like a fairground ride from Puccini to Pulcinella to driving rock to delicate aria as the tragedy unfolds. Under Simon Phillips' unfailingly cogent direction, the cast too manage to transform the most unpromising material, if not into gold then at least into silver." Cameron Woodhead of The Age gave the show three and a half out of five stars and said, "Between Gabriela Tylesova's set and costumes, Nick Schlieper's lighting, and Graeme Murphy's choreography, you’re in for some spectacular stagecraft. After the Phantom pines for Christine and ascends to the gods (’Til I Hear You Sing), the scene breaks into an elaborate circus (Coney Island Waltz).
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However, there is an extremely rich reservoir of American examples that include techniques for loose brushwork alongside social commentary such as in "The Ashcan School" and the work of John Singer Sargent and the bold city and landscapes of George Bellows. The link pin between European verismo in painting and the States could be considered to be the work of John Singer Sargent, in regard to technique, but not in comments on the working classes. As mentioned above, the Ashcan School played the social critical role in regard to thinking and ideas in painting. The situation in Italy is more complex, especially during and after WWII, with in the work of partisan artists (the museum in Dormadosella) as well as the exhibits of Gutoso and Giacometti, mixing in more abstraction while retaining the social critical edge and, in the case of Giacometti, the existential element.
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Rydberg in 1876 In 1894, although Sibelius was a national figure in Finland and had completed major works like Kullervo and the Karelia Suite, he was still struggling to break free of Wagnerian models and develop a truly individual style. The origin of the tone poem remains obscure but The Wood Nymph may well have gradually evolved out of music for a verismo opera that Sibelius had planned but never realized. The libretto, as related in a letter from Sibelius dated 28 July 1894, tells the story of a young, engaged student who, while travelling abroad, meets and is attracted by an exotic dancer. Upon his return, the student describes the dance and dancer so vividly that his fiancée concludes he has been unfaithful; the opera ends with a funeral procession for the student's fiancée (the letter is unclear as to her cause of death).
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University of Alberta Art Collection' by Nancy Townsend, Visual Arts Newsletter, Issue 46 the Museum of Art in Strasbourg, France, the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal, the National Gallery of Australia, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Kyoto Museum of Art in Japan, the Guangdong Museum of Art in Shanghai, China and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England. Laing has been commissioned to create steel sculptures in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the Wilkinson Steel Company of Canada, the Pacific National Exhibition, and Wallace Neon. He has also been commissioned to design prints for Steel Case Canada, a wine label for J. Webb Wine Store,Alberta Art Work Decks Wine Label', Calgary Herald, April 1988 a one dollar stamp for Canada Post illustrating Canada's National Parks, a mural for the Arts 17 Society in Calgary, Alberta, and a C.D. cover for the "Verismo" Jazz Group.
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The Ostrobothnians (in Finnish: '''''; occasionally translated to English as The Bothnians), Op. 45, is a verismo opera in three acts by the Finnish composer Leevi Madetoja, who wrote the piece from 1917–24. The story, variously comedic and tragic, takes place around 1850 in the historical Finnish province of Ostrobothnia, and features as its central conflict the deteriorating relationship between the farm community and its oppressive sheriff. On 25 October 1924, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the opera at the Finnish National Opera under the baton of Tauno Hannikainen; the enthusiasm of critics and the public quickly elevated the work to the (informal) status of the country's "national opera". Working in its favor was Madetoja's use of well-known folk melodies and the libretto's focus on freedom from oppression and self-determination, the allegorical qualities of which were particularly salient to a country that had won recently its independence from Russia.
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The dawn of the 20th century opened up more opportunities for baritones than ever before as a taste for strenuously exciting vocalism and lurid, "slice-of-life" operatic plots took hold in Italy and spread elsewhere. The most prominent verismo baritones included such major singers in Europe and America as the polished Giuseppe De Luca (the first Sharpless in Madama Butterfly), Mario Sammarco (the first Gerard in Andrea Chénier), Eugenio Giraldoni (the first Scarpia in Tosca), Pasquale Amato (the first Rance in La fanciulla del West), Riccardo Stracciari (noted for his richly attractive timbre) and Domenico Viglione Borghese, whose voice was exceeded in size only by that of the lion-voiced Titta Ruffo. Ruffo was the most commanding Italian baritone of his era or, arguably, any other era. He was at his prime from the early 1900s to the early 1920s and enjoyed success in Italy, England and America (in Chicago and later at the Met).
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He studied with Cotogni from June 1915 to the latter's death in 1918, becoming one of his favorite students. His study with Cotogni was crucial for his acquiring a technique and style that allowed him to portray the situations in the verismo literature without compromising his “vocal organization.” Basiola at times denounced the era in which he worked (especially in certain interpretive tastes), and did not display the tendency toward sensational and boisterous vocalism as much as some of his contemporaries. Instead he maintained the capacity to deal with singing (especially in the Verdi literature) with correctness and measure, malleable timbre and fluent sureness in the upper voice that made him “one of the few baritones of his generation capable of representing the true traditional Italian school.” This early training period was very profitable for him but also very difficult: when he was expelled from the Conservatory for “insufficient voice” caused by a bout of "physical wasting," Cotogni came to his aid again.
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1933 is the last year that Raisa performed a reasonably full schedule. Since January 1931 when she left the stage to prepare for the arrival of her daughter, having had six unsuccessful pregnancies, many things happened: the demise of the Chicago Opera, the world-wide deteriorating economic situation and a general contraction of operatic activity in the United States. But Raisa sang a run of Tosca in Genoa, created Manuela in Zandonai's one-act opera "Una Partita" at La Scala, sang Alice Ford in Falstaff with Rimini at the first Florence May Festival (Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), Tosca in the presence of Queen Mary at Covent Garden, recorded four verismo arias for Voce del Padrone in Milan, and sang five performances of Gli Ugonotti at the Arena in Verona with Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and a stellar cast. She can be seen, but not heard, in an edited version of the Act IV Love Duet with Lauri-Volpi who is thrilling as Raoul.
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Emma Carelli in Lorenza Emma Carelli (12 May 1877 in Naples – 17 August 1928 near Rome) was an Italian operatic soprano who was particularly associated with the dramatic soprano roles of the verismo repertoire and the works of Richard Wagner. After a singing career which lasted almost two decades, she managed the Teatro Costanzi in Rome for almost fifteen years. After studying with her father, Beniamino Carelli, at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Majella, she made her professional debut in 1895 in the title role of Mercadante's La vestale during the centenary celebrations at Altamura and went on to appear in the opera houses of many Italian cities. In 1898 she married the left-wing politician, self-made millionaire, and later impresario, Walter Mocchi.Steane, Grove Music Online She sang in several world premieres including: Pietro Floridia's La Colonia libera (1899); Meryem in Cesare Galeotti's Anton (1900) and Rosaura in Mascagni's Le maschere at La Scala in 1901.
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Carmen sings the "Habanera", act 1 Hervé Lacombe, in his survey of 19th-century French opera, contends that Carmen is one of the few works from that large repertory to have stood the test of time. While he places the opera firmly within the long opéra comique tradition, Macdonald considers that it transcends the genre and that its immortality is assured by "the combination in abundance of striking melody, deft harmony and perfectly judged orchestration". Dean sees Bizet's principal achievement in the demonstration of the main actions of the opera in the music, rather than in the dialogue, writing that "Few artists have expressed so vividly the torments inflicted by sexual passions and jealousy". Dean places Bizet's realism in a different category from the verismo of Puccini and others; he likens the composer to Mozart and Verdi in his ability to engage his audiences with the emotions and sufferings of his characters.
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Sonzogno also then commissioned from Cilea La Tilda, a verismo opera in three short acts along the lines of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana. With a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, La Tilda had a successful first performance in April 1892 at the Teatro Pagliano in Florence, and after performances in a number of Italian theatres, it arrived at the Vienna Exhibition on 24 September 1892, alongside other works from the firm of Sonzogno. The composer never showed much sympathy for this work, the subject of which he reluctantly agreed to set to music in order to please Sonzogno and to avoid throwing away a rare professional opportunity. The loss of the orchestral score has prevented the modern revival of this work, whose fresh and catchy melodies can nevertheless be discovered in the transcription for voice and piano. In 1897 (27 November), the Teatro Lirico in Milan saw the première of Cilea's third opera L'Arlesiana, based on the play by Alphonse Daudet, with a libretto by Leopoldo Marenco.
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Tagliavini was born in Cavazzoli, Reggio Emilia and studied in Parma with Italo Brancucci and in Florence and with Amedeo Bassi, a well-known dramatic verismo and Wagnerian Italian tenor of the pre-World War I era whose voice (as recorded) could not be more unlike Tagliavini's (see M.Scott, The Record of Singing, 1978). It was also in Florence that he made his professional debut in 1938 as Rodolfo in La bohème. He swiftly gained recognition as one of the leading tenori di grazia of his time in operas such as The Barber of Seville, L'elisir d'amore, Don Pasquale, La sonnambula, Lucia di Lammermoor, Rigoletto, La traviata, Manon, Werther, L'amico Fritz and L'arlesiana. Debuts at many of the world's major opera houses ensued. They included: La Scala, Milan, in 1942; the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, in 1946; the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, in 1947 (as Rodolfo in La bohème); the San Francisco Opera in 1948; the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in 1950; and, finally, the Paris Opéra in 1951.
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In his opera The Dusk (1925), Hristić integrates some experiences of the Verismo musical drama and elements of impressionistic musical language. The work was almost entirely composed upon the integral text of the second (symbolist) drama from A trilogy of Dubrovnik by Ivo Vojnović and depicts the atmosphere in the home of old and reputable Benesh family during the downfall of Dubrovnik nobility following the abolishment of the Ragusa Republic at the beginning of the 19th century. At the center of the plot are two young people whose love for each other is rather unfeasible due to the difference in their social classes, while all other characters are only roughly drafted. Underscoring the chamber nature of the work and operating consistently within the realm of the dramatic lyrical psychology, the composer intentionally avoids genre-scenes. Alongside Vojnović's text, the lyrics of the poem “The Dreams” (“Snovi”) by Jovan Dučić (for Luyo's arioso “Oh, how it hearts” (“Vaj, kako to boli”)) are incorporated in the libretto, thus fitting by its overall mood into the drama's emotional ambience.
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Rossini's final resting place, in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence; sculpture by Giuseppe Cassioli (1900) The popularity of Rossini's melodies led many contemporary virtuosi to create piano transcriptions or fantasies based on them. Examples include Sigismond Thalberg's fantasy on themes from Moïse, the sets of variations on "Non più mesta" from La Cenerentola by Henri Herz, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Hünten, Anton Diabelli and Friedrich Burgmüller, and Liszt's transcriptions of the William Tell overture (1838) and the Soirées musicales. The continuing popularity of his comic operas (and the decline in staging his opere serie), the overthrow of the singing and staging styles of his period, and the emerging concept of the composer as "creative artist" rather than craftsman, diminished and distorted Rossini's place in music history even though the forms of Italian opera continued up to the period of verismo to be indebted to his innovations. Rossini's status amongst his contemporary Italian composers is indicated by the Messa per Rossini, a project initiated by Verdi within a few days of Rossini's death, which he and a dozen other composers created in collaboration.
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Although the company performed works from a variety of composers and musical periods, for the most part the company concentrated on Italian grand opera and verismo opera; particularly operas by Giuseppe Verdi and Puccini. The company notably presented the United States premiere of Renzo Rossellini's Uno sguardo dal ponte on October 17, 1967 with Nicola Rossi- Lemeni as Eddie Carbone and Gloria Lane as Beatrice. Many notable singers performed leading roles with the company including Luigi Alva, Carlo Bergonzi, Grace Bumbry, Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras, Elisabeth Carron, Richard Cassilly, Franco Corelli, Phyllis Curtin, Plácido Domingo, Simon Estes, Eileen Farrell, Mirella Freni, Nicolai Gedda, Peter Glossop, Marilyn Horne, Alfredo Kraus, James King, Albert Lance, Leon Lishner, Catherine Malfitano, Robert Merrill, Sherrill Milnes, Anna Moffo, Birgit Nilsson, Luciano Pavarotti, Roberta Peters, Leontyne Price, Louis Quilico, Samuel Ramey, Judith Raskin, Regina Resnik, Seymour Schwartzman, Renata Scotto, Cesare Siepi, Beverly Sills, Eleanor Steber, John Stewart, Joan Sutherland, Renata Tebaldi, Richard Tucker, Theodor Uppman, Cesare Valletti, Shirley Verrett, Camilla Williams, and Frances Yeend to name just a few. The final opera performance by the company was held on November 22, 1974.
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With this success and now with enough accumulated money Leoncavallo and Rambaud would return to Milan to begin his career as a composer of opera. Back in Italy, Leoncavallo spent some years teaching and attempting ineffectively to obtain the production of more than one opera, notably Chatterton. In 1890 he saw the enormous success of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and wasted no time in producing his own verismo work, Pagliacci. (According to Leoncavallo, the plot of this work had a real-life origin: he claimed it derived from a murder trial, in Montalto Uffugo, over which his father had presided.) Pagliacci was performed in Milan in 1892 with immediate success; today it is the only work by Leoncavallo in the standard operatic repertory.Stanley Sadie and Christina Bashford (eds.), 1992, p. 1148 Its most famous aria "Vesti la giubba" ("Put on the costume" or, in the better-known older translation, "On with the motley") was recorded by Enrico Caruso and laid claim to being the world's first record to sell a million copies (although this is probably a total of Caruso's various versions of it made in 1902, 1904 and 1907).
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