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c. 1620–c. 1660, Italian Singer Anna Renzi created the part of Ottavia, the neglected wife of Emperor Nero in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, in 1642, and she sang many other operatic roles in Venice. Renzi was one of the first female opera singers and also one of the first, if not the first, singers to ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

written to celebrate the marriage of Ferdinando Gonzaga. The music has been lost, but Rasi’s text has survived. Introduction | Early & Middle Baroque | Opera Personalities | Anna Renzi | Early & Middle Baroque | Opera ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Rossini’s two-act version of the Cinderella story, his twentieth opera and last Italian comic opera, received its first performance at the Teatro Valle in Rome on 25 January 1817. This was followed by performances in London (1820), Vienna (1822) and New York (1826). The Teatro Valle, which had commissioned Rossini to write the opera for the carnival in ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘Fidelity Rewarded’ Composed: 1780 Premiered: 1781, Eszterháza Libretto by Giambattista Lorenzi Act I Amaranta reads an inscription in the Temple of Diana describing how two lovers are to be offered to a sea monster every year until a hero sacrifices himself. Melibeo, the High Priest, chooses the victims and everyone has to be careful not to cross him. ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The full title of this opera in three acts is Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (‘Tannhäuser and the Song Contest on the Wartburg’). Wagner, who took nearly three years to write the opera, conducted the first performance at the Dresden Hofoper on 19 October 1845. This was the first of two Wagner operas in which a song contest ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(An-ton’-yo Kal-da’-ra) 1670–1736 Italian composer Caldara was a Venetian composer whose career was divided almost equally between Italy and Austria. He sang under Giovanni Legrenzi (1626–90) at St Mark’s and in 1699 was appointed maestro di cappella at the Mantuan court. In 1708 he left Mantua for Rome, where his oratorio Il martirio di San Caterina (‘The Martyrdom of St Catherine’) ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

c. 1670–1736, Italian Caldara was probably taught by Giovanni Legrenzi (1626–90) and was a choirboy at St Mark’s in Venice. His earliest operas were composed for Venice, while he was working as a cellist at St Mark’s. He was appointed maestro di cappella at Mantua to the last Gonzaga duke until about 1707, and then worked at Rome ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Klod Le Zhön) c. 1530–1600 French composer Le Jeune mixed in French humanist circles, participating in the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, a circle of poets and musicians dedicated to reviving the ideals of classical sung verse. He was the principal composer to experiment with musique mesurée, the attempt to set text according to the principles of ancient ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Fer-ra-bos’-ko) Italian musical family This family produced four generations of musicians. Domenico (1513–74), of Bologna, was a composer of early madrigals in the style of Arcadelt. His son Alfonso (1543–88) moved to England as a young man and spent most of his life at the court of Elizabeth I. Morley praised him for his ‘deep skill’ and placed him alongside ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1810–76, Italian Although Francesco Maria Piave’s fame rests on his libretti written for Verdi, he produced texts for several other composers of the Romantic era. These included Michael Balfe, Antonio Cagnoni (1828–96), Saverio Mercadante (1795–1870) and Giovanni Pacini (1796–1867): Piave supplied Pacini with the libretto for his Lorenzino de’ Medici (1845), which was first performed in Venice. By ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1626–90, Italian Giovanni Legrenzi composed his first operas at Ferrara, where he became maestro di cappella at the Accademia dello Spirito Santo in 1656. He began with Nino il giusto (‘Nino the Just’, 1662) and in the next three years produced Achille in Sciro (1663) and Zenobia e Radamisto (1665). Subsequently, Legrenzi led a nomadic life, travelling ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

If Jerry Lee Lewis had never existed, it seems unlikely that anyone would have had a sufficiently vivid imagination to have invented him. Through a 50-year career, this massively talented, yet infuriatingly self-destructive genius has scaled the heights and plumbed the depths, never for one moment compromising his music or his life. Most people mellow with age. ...

Source: The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Country Music, consultant editor Bob Allen

Alternative-rock guitarist Joey Santiago (b. 1965) was born in Manila, Philippines, to a wealthy family, who emigrated to the United States when President Marcos declared martial law. The family eventually settled in Massachusetts. Joey first played guitar at the age of nine, becoming a fan of Seventies punk and David Bowie. At the University of Massachusetts, ...

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

(Loo’-ka Ma-rents’yo) c. 1553–99 Italian composer Marenzio spent most of his adult life in Rome, in the service of various cardinals and other patrons. Although he composed Masses and motets, his fame rests on his madrigals. In the 1580s he developed the canzonetta style of madrigal, borrowing the clear textures and lively rhythms of the canzonetta but applying them ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

c. 1586–1639, Italian Stefano Landi, who was born and gained his musical training in Rome, became maestro di cappella to the bishop of Padua in around 1618. The next year, Landi’s La morte d’Orfeo (‘The Death of Orpheus’, 1619) was performed in Rome, where the composer returned in 1620. Four years later, Landi was appointed ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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