1732–99, French Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, best known for two plays on the theme of ‘Figaro’, was an amateur musician as well as a playwright. His first Figaro play, Le barbier de Séville (‘The Barber of Seville’, 1775), was produced at the Comédie-Française and his second, La folle journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro (‘The Mad ...
Aureliano in Palmira (1813) and Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra (‘Elizabeth, Queen of England’, 1815). Composed: 1816 Premiered: 1816, Rome Libretto by Cesare Sterbini, after Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais Act I The beautiful Rosina, ward of Dr Bartolo, is confined in the doctor’s house. Count Almaviva, disguised as a poor student, Lindoro, stands below ...
‘The Barber of Seville’ Composed: 1782 Premiered: 1782, St Petersburg Libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini, after Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais Act I Count Almaviva stands below the window of Rosina, ward of Dr Bartolo, serenading her. Figaro, a self-important barber, arrives. Rosina appears at the window and drops a note for the Count, asking him ...
as in the ‘recognition’ sextet in Act III, the composer’s own favourite number. Composed: 1786 Premiered: 1786, Vienna Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, after Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais Act I Figaro, the Count’s valet, and Susanna, the Countess’s maid, prepare for their wedding. Susanna reveals that the Count has designs on her; Figaro angrily ...
(Jo-ak-ke’-no Ros-se’-ne) 1792–1868 Italian composer Rossini dominated Italian opera during the first half of the nineteenth century, writing nearly 40 operas in less than 20 years. He established new conventions in the genre, and was the first Italian composer to abandon unaccompanied recitative in an attempt to create a more continuous flow in the music. He also developed rhythm and ...
prodigy Mozart, and his influence was later evident in Mozart’s own operas Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito. Introduction | Classical Era | Opera Personalities | Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais | Classical Era | Opera ...
1756–91, Austrian Alone of the great Viennese classical ‘trinity’ – Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven – Mozart (1756–91) was a born theatre animal. From boyhood, opera was his greatest passion and he built on existing conventions to enrich and deepen three distinct types of opera: opera seria, opera buffa and German Singspiel. The Child Prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ...
even though Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838) had foreseen the problems and removed the inflammatory politics contained in the original play by the French dramatist Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99). However, neutering the libretto in this way did not quieten fears that it encouraged social upheaval. For the reactionary powers-that-be, Figaro was alarming because a servant was ...
opera. In 1783 he had met Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838), who had become court poet in Vienna. Two years later Da Ponte supplied him with an operatic version of the Beaumarchais play Le mariage de Figaro, its subversive political content somewhat watered down: the opera, Le nozze di Figaro, was finally given on 1 May 1786. This brilliant ...
in several operas written by composers from Mozart to Verdi, among many others. Commedia dell’arte was popular all over Europe and influenced such playwrights as Shakespeare, Molière and Beaumarchais, all of whom wrote plays with plots that lent themselves easily to operatic treatment and were later turned into operas. The commedia characters and type of plot were directly ...
European culture lay in ruins after the end of World War II. There were many who, in company with the philosopher Theodor Adorno, felt that Nazi atrocities such as Auschwitz rendered art impossible, at least temporarily. Others, though, felt that humanity could only establish itself anew by rediscovering the potency of art, including opera. On ...
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