AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1953–56 Premiered: 1957, Milan Libretto by the composer after Georges Bernanos’ play Act I It is April 1789 and revolution is stirring. Blanche de la Force, timid and highly strung, announces her intention to become a nun. The prioress of the Carmelite convent at Compiègne warns Blanche that this is not a refuge. She wishes to be ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Fran-ses Poo-lank’) 1899–1963 French composer Poulenc was the youngest member of the group of composers known as ‘Les Six’; his urbanity and humour and his many masterly songs have given him a reputation as a light-hearted miniaturist. His range, however, is better indicated by his three operas: Les mamelles de Tirésias (‘Tiresias’ Breasts’, 1947), a joyously Gallic and absurd ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1899–1963, French Born into social privilege, Poulenc was introduced to the Parisian art scene by his piano teacher and mentor, Ricardo Viñes, and struck out in a new direction when becoming part of a non-conformist group known as Les Six. Hardly members of the avant-garde, these young composers instead liked to combine popular music styles with ...

• Personalities
• Blues Rock
• Guitar Heroes
• Hard Rock
• Psychedelic Rock
• Rock’n’Roll

The twin-guitar partnership of Francis Rossi (b. 1949) and Rick Parfitt (b. 1948) has been at the heart of Status Quo since 1967. Francis Rossi (originally known as Mike) was born in Forest Hill, London. He formed the band that evolved into Status Quo with bassist Alan Lancaster while at school in 1962. Rick Parfitt, born Richard Harrison in ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

(Fri-drikh Fran’-zhek [Fra-da-rek’ Fran-swa’] Sho-pan) 1810–49 Polish composer Chopin was unique among composers of the highest achievement and influence in that he wrote all his works, with the merest handful of exceptions, for the solo piano. Leaving Warsaw, which at the time offered only restricted musical possibilities, and living most of his adult life in Paris, ...

• Personalities
• Fifties
• Jazz & Blues

(Drums, 1918–2001) David Albert Francis was born in Miami, Florida. He worked around Florida with saxophonist George Kelly before going to New York in 1938. The following year he made his recording debut with Roy Eldridge, who named him after his choice of hats. Francis worked with Lucky Millinder from 1940–46 and Cab Calloway from 1947–52 but his ...

• Personalities
• Fifties
• Fifties Pop
• Rock
• Rock’n’Roll

(Vocals, b. 1938) New Jersey-born Concetta Franconero appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s TV talent show, and while still at university, signed to MGM Records. 1958’s UK chart topper, ‘Who’s Sorry Now’ was the first of eight mainly sentimental million-selling US hits, including 1959’s ‘Among My Souvenirs’, and 1960’s ‘Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool’, the first of three US No. ...

• Instruments
• Stringed

The guitar is a plucked stringed instrument played resting on the lap. Although it has a long history – thought by many to reach as far back as the ancient Greek lyre known as the kithara – it is best-known today in the design of the Spanish guitar-maker Antonio de Torres Jurado (1817–92). The modern or classical guitar developed from the ...

• Instruments
• Keyboards

In one form or another, the harpsichord ruled the domestic keyboard roost throughout Europe – and later in America – from the late-sixteenth to the early-nineteenth centuries. Apart from the organ, it was the grandest and most versatile of all keyboard instruments until the advent of the mature fortepiano in the mid- to late-eighteenth century. Rise and Fall of ...

• Instruments
• Percussion

Timpani are bowl drums or kettledrums, constructed by stretching a skin across a round metal, wooden or pottery bowl. They are beaten with sticks or leather thongs. Timpani originated in Islamic countries in Africa and the Middle East, where they were used to accompany hunting and for ceremonial and military music. Tuning Tuning a large kettledrum or timpani ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(El-da-bran’-do Pid-zet’-te) 1880–1968 Italian composer Like many Italian composers of his generation, Pizzetti was more influenced by older music than by the recent Italian past; he was little affected by trends post-Debussy. He wrote in most musical forms, but is best known for his operas. With dignified solo writing rooted in Monteverdi and sonorously effective choral scenes, they ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1897–1981, American Soprano Ponselle’s auspicious debut took place in 1918 at the Met, as Leonore in La forza del destino with Enrico Caruso. That season, she sang 23 times, mainly in leading roles, and often with Caruso. Ponselle was soon the Met’s leading Italian dramatic soprano, with a dark, ringing, sonorous sound not ...

• Classical
• Modern Era

The Modern Age was characterized by rapid and radical change and political turmoil. By 1918 the Russian tsar, the Habsburg emperor and the German kaiser had lost their thrones. The two Russian revolutions of 1917 resulted in a Communist government led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was fragmented to allow self-determination to the newly formed countries of Czechoslovakia ...

• Opera
• Modern Era

The opera house and, more specifically, opera audiences, were among the last to be receptive to the new musical language that developed during the twentieth century. Slow, as well as reluctant to vary their traditional musical tastes, perceptions and expectations, many viewed the opera house with nostalgia; as a symbol of the establishment, holding ...

• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

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 ...