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the German composer Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783), in Dresden and Venice. Musical Nuns While working on the stage was not regarded as a reputable female occupation, retiring to a convent remained an option that allowed women to devote themselves to music while retaining their respectability. The sixteenth-century decrees of the Council of Trent, banning nuns from performing polyphonic music ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

, Octavian draws his sword. Ochs is slightly wounded and screams for a doctor. Faninal frantically apologizes. If she refuses to marry Ochs, she will be sent to a convent for life. Annina brings Ochs a letter from ‘Mariandel’ asking for a rendezvous. He sings his favourite song in anticipation of tomorrow evening. Act III ‘Mariandel’ is approving the unpleasant ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

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 known as Soeur Blanche de l’Agonie du Christ Blanche rebukes Soeur Constance for chattering when the ...

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

by taking a bride himself and disinheriting his nephew. His friend Dr Malatesta arrives to announce that he has found a suitable bride – his sister Sofronia, a shy convent girl. Don Pasquale is delighted. Don Pasquale offers Ernesto one more chance to agree to the match, but Ernesto, declaring his love for Norina, refuses. His uncle ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Secret Marriage’ Composed: 1792 Premiered: 1792, Vienna Libretto by Giovanni Bertati, after George Colman and David Garrick Act I Carolina, Geronimo’s daughter, is secretly married to Paolino, her father’s clerk. The couple are trying to find a way to tell Geronimo of their marriage; he would not approve of such a lowly match. Paolino comes ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Triptych’ In constructing an operatic triple-bill, Puccini followed no precedent. He had nursed the idea for some time, to the despair of Giulio Ricordi, who felt it would be a box-office disaster. With the publisher’s death in 1912, Puccini soon felt able to work on the project. His librettist for La rondine, Giuseppe Adami, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

news that Leonora, thinking Manrico dead, is entering a convent. Ignoring Azucena’s pleas, Manrico leaves. Under the count’s orders, Ferrando and his men wait by the convent to abduct Leonora. When she appears, Manrico arrives and a fight breaks out. Leonora and Manrico escape together. Act III In the count’s camp, near where Manrico has ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Paris. Both Manon, at the beginning of the opera, and Des Grieux, who fell in love with her and provided her with an escape route from the convent, at times turn to the church. But physical love, it seems, is more powerful than the love of God. It is in the church that the lovers ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

With Manon Lescaut, Puccini took his place at the head of the Italian operatic table. Ricordi worked hard to persuade Puccini of the dangers inherent in setting a story that had already received successful treatment by Massenet, but the young composer was not to be swayed. Puccini’s determination proved well-founded, for the opera received an ecstatic reception after ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Hil-de-gart of Bin’-gen) 1098–1179 German Abbess and Composer Hildegard of Bingen was abbess of a convent at Rupertsberg near Bingen in Germany. When she was in her forties, Hildegard started to produce remarkable works of theology, science, healing, drama, history and music. She advised religious and secular rulers as well as undertaking preaching tours. She presented ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

who sailed twice with the French fleet to the Orient, and who put into verse Biblical texts that were sung to music by Lully and Campra at the royal convent at St Cyr. Pellegrin provided libretti for many composers, including Campra and Desmarets, but his best-known works are Jephté, set to music by Montéclair in 1732, and ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The most famous female musician and poet of ancient Greece was Sappho (b. c. 612 bc) from the island of Lesbos. Her music has not survived, but she is known to have accompanied her poetry on a variety of harp-like instruments. Sappho’s work includes love songs to other women and epithalamia (choral wedding songs). Elsewhere in ancient Greece women worked ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

In the medieval period the convent was one of the few places where women could gain a musical education and find a valued forum for their music-making. Liturgical music, organized by the cantrix of the convent, was performed several times a day and formed a central element of the nuns’ spiritual and artistic lives. Herrad of Landsberg (fl. 1167–95), ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

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 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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