AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

Madama Butterfly is the last opera to be written by the trio of Puccini, Illica and Giacosa. It was, as usual, beset by difficulties in the preparation and approval of the libretto. Puccini was as opposed to one particular scene as Giacosa was for it. Puccini, of course, won, but Giacosa remained so convinced that ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

Puccini visited the Metropolitan Opera in New York during 1907 to see the US premieres of Manon Lescaut and Madama Butterfly. While there he saw David Belasco’s play The Girl of the Golden West and his next opera began to take shape. La fanciulla del West is notable particularly for the vital part the vast orchestra plays in depicting the characters’ ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1882–1967, American Farrar made her debut in Faust at the Berlin Königliches Opernhaus. She rapidly acquired a strongly devoted audience who were as enamoured with her looks and stage presence as with her voice. She remained in Berlin until 1906, when she made a successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Farrar retired from the operatic stage ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Ja’-ko’mo Poot-che’-ne) 1858–1924 Italian composer Puccini wrote 12 operas, three of which rank among the most popular in the world: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The composer came from a long line of musicians. His great-great-grandfather, the first Giacomo Puccini (1712–81), was organist and choirmaster at the cathedral of S Martino in the Tuscan town of Lucca. His ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1858–1924, Italian Puccini’s unerring instinct for strong melody and evocative harmony, coupled with his ability to bring to life passionate and sensual relationships, has made him one the most popular of opera composers. Puccini brought Italian opera into the twentieth century, synthesizing music and drama in a symphonic idiom, but retaining the voice as the focal ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1847–1906, Italian Under Arrigo Boito’s influence, Giacosa developed into the leading Italian playwright of the time. His most striking operatic work was made in conjunction with Puccini. Initially brought in by Giulio Ricordi to smooth the troubled relationship between Puccini and Luigi Illica, Giacosa soon became indispensable. It was Giacosa’s responsibility to take the detailed scenario worked out ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Conductor
• Late Romantic

(Goos’-taf Ma’-ler) 1860–1911 Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler bestrode the world of music at the end of the nineteenth century. ‘My time will come’, he remarked about his often misunderstood compositions. For Mahler the conductor, due recognition did come during his lifetime, but another half-century had to pass before a fully sympathetic appreciation of his creative achievement was possible ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1969 German tenor Kaufmann trained in Munich and was engaged at various German opera houses before making his international debut at the Chicago Lyric (2001), followed quickly by appearances at the Paris Opéra and La Scala, Milan. He has sung not only the major Italian tenor roles – such as Verdi’s Don Carlo, Alfredo (La traviata), Cavaradossi (Puccini’s ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1857–1919, Italian At the beginning of the 1890s, librettist Illica began an association with the Ricordi publishing house that resulted in collaborations with the most prominent Italian opera composers over the next 20 years. Most significant was his work with Puccini. Although they had a tempestuous relationship, it resulted in Manon Lescaut and, in collaboration with Giuseppe ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1941 Spanish tenor Domingo was brought up in Mexico, where he made his debut as a baritone in 1957. He appeared as a tenor in Dallas in 1961, and was a member of the Israeli National Opera 1962–65. He sang Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) at the New York City Opera in 1965, Maurizio in Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur at ...

• Styles & Forms
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

Richard Wagner (1813–83) and Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) were the dominant figures as opera moved from the nineteenth into the twentieth century, and it was the great German whose influence was most pervasive. His particular use of mythical subjects, symphonic conceptions, compositional techniques, philosophy and psychology left an indelible mark on all composers who came after him. On ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Modern Era
• Singer

1892–1990 English soprano Turner’s early career was spent with the Carl Rosa company, with which she appeared at Covent Garden in 1920. As Madam Butterfly she was spotted by Toscanini’s assistant at La Scala; her subsequent Italian career included her first Turandot, at Brescia in 1926. At Covent Garden, 1928–39 and 1947–48, she sang not only Turandot ...

• Personalities
• Seventies
• Seventies Rock

As is the case with pretty much all stars, before the beautiful butterfly came the unremarkable caterpillar. Bowie was born not on Mars but in Brixton, South London. He started life as David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947. His father was a promotions officer for the children’s charity Barnardo’s and his mother a cinema usherette. He had one ...

• Personalities
• Country
• Mainstream Country

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on 19 January 1946, in Locust Ridge, Tennessee. Immediately after graduation in the summer of 1964, she travelled from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Nashville, taking with her dreams of country stardom and little else. Ever since, she has thrilled audiences worldwide. An entertainer extraordinaire, Dolly has also become an ...

• Personalities
• Blues Rock
• Folk Rock
• Hard Rock
• Heavy Metal
• Rock
• Seventies
• Seventies Rock

January The Yardbirds’ US Tour With Jeff Beck gone and Peter Grant now in the picture, Page had another ‘more professional’ ally with an active interest in The Yardbirds. It wouldn’t be long before the group disbanded. Before that, however, Grant organized another tour of the US, this time hiring a young tour manager, Richard Cole. ...