SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Carlo Bergonzi
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1924–2014 Italian tenor Bergonzi studied as a baritone, singing Rossini’s Figaro in Lecce in 1948 before retraining as a tenor. His second debut was as Giordano’s Andrea Chénier in 1951. He sang regularly at the Metropolitan Opera 1956–88. At Covent Garden, where he made his debut in 1962, he sang many roles including Verdi’s Alvaro and Manrico (conducted ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1924–2014, Italian Known as ‘the tenor of all tenors’, Bergonzi had a lyrical voice that was both refined and intense. Vocal lessons were interrupted when he was interred in a prisoner-of-war camp, but resumed upon his release and in 1947 he began to make a series of debuts as a baritone. Retraining his voice, he emerged four years ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Kär’-lo Ja-zoo-al’-do) c. 1561–1613 Italian composer Gesualdo may be more famous than he deserves to be. Everyone loves a good story and Gesualdo, who brutally murdered his wife and her lover, provides one of the most colourful and scandalous in all music history. A nobleman of minor rank, he found, strangely, that his marital history did not ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Spanish guitar legend Carlos Montoya (1903–93) helped propel the flamenco style of music from accompaniment for gypsy folk dances and songs to a serious and internationally popular form of guitar music. Montoya was born into a gypsy family in Spain. He studied guitar with his mother and a local barber, eventually learning from professionals and becoming an expert on the ...

Source: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

Multitalented guitarist Carlos Santana was born the son of a mariachi musician in the Mexican town of Autlan de Navarro in 1947. The family moved to Tijuana when he was nine, and Carlos, who first played violin before changing to guitar, became interested in rock’n’roll and blues. At 13, he was earning money playing in cantinas and ...

Source: Rock Guitar Heroes, consultant editor Rusty Cutchin

(Kar-loos Go’-mas) 1836–96 Brazilian composer Gomes was the son of a bandmaster, and after studies at the Imperial Conservatory of Music in Rio de Janeiro, he settled in Italy. His comedies Se sa minga and Nella Luna (1867–68) were successful, but international recognition really arrived with the composition of Il Guarany (La Scala, 1870), whose exotic score includes ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Composer, piano, guitar, 1927–94) Jobim was the best known of the Brazilian composers who made an impact on jazz. His international reputation blossomed due to his songs in the film Black Orpheus (1959) and with João Gilberto he sparked a bossa nova craze, boosted by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s Jazz Samba (1962). He led his own ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz & Blues, founding editor Howard Mandel

1707–93, Italian By profession a lawyer in Pisa, Carlo Goldoni became resident poet at several Venetian opera houses. There he devised and specialized in the opera buffa libretto and wrote over 100, using pseudonyms for some of them. Goldoni left Venice for Paris in 1762 and for some years became well known and much admired for his work ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Verdi’s five-act opera Don Carlos was taken from a drama written in 1787 by the German playwright Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805). Written for the Paris Opéra, Don Carlos was first performed there on 11 March 1867. Schiller’s play was translated and the libretto written by Joseph Méry, who unfortunately died before it was completed, and Camille du Locle ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1911–2007, Italian One of the most important opera composers during the 1950s, Menotti had already written two operas by the time he entered the Milan Conservatory aged 13, and he would go on to write 23 more. He later moved to America and studied at the Curtis Institute, where he met his lifelong companion and inspiration, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Composed: 1949 Premiered: 1950, Philadelphia Libretto by the composer Act I John Sorel has been shot by the secret police at a political meeting. His wife Magda and his mother hide him in their apartment. A secret police agent threatens Magda. John decides to escape abroad. Magda will need a visa to join him. If the window is broken they ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Jan Kär’-lo Me-nôt’-te) 1911–2007 Italian-American composer The best of Menotti’s stage works combine something of the melodic appeal of Puccini and his successors with a dramatic punch that is Menotti’s own, but owes something to the American musical. His macabre The Medium (1946) and the chilling The Consul (1950), about refugees attempting to escape an unnamed country, have both ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1914–2005 Italian conductor Giulini first conducted at La Scala, Milan in 1952, and was principal conductor 1953–56. He conducted Verdi’s Falstaff at the Edinburgh Festival in 1955 and Don Carlos at Covent Garden in 1958. He returned to Covent Garden for Il barbiere di Siviglia (1960), Il trovatore (1964) and La traviata (1967), but shortly after abandoned opera until ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1930–2004 Austrian conductor Son of Erich Kleiber, he gained conducting appointments in Düsseldorf 1958–64, Zürich 1964–66 and Stuttgart 1966–68, his last full-time position. His debuts at Covent Garden, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera brought almost unanimous critical acclaim, as did his few studio recordings, such as Beethoven’s Fifth with the Vienna Philharmonic (1974). Though ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

b. 1935 Spanish mezzo-soprano Berganza made her debut as Mozart’s Dorabella at Aix-en-Provence, and sang Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) at Glyndebourne the next year. Her roles included Sesto (La clemenza di Tito, ‘Titus’ Clemency’), Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and, later, Carmen, but she was most sought after for Rossini heroines. Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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