The Grove Book of Opera Singers
The Grove Book of Opera Singers

Author: Laura Williams Macy

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 649

ISBN-13: 0195337654

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Covering over 1500 singers from the birth of opera to the present day, this marvelous volume will be an essential resource for all serious opera lovers and an indispensable companion to the enormously successful Grove Book of Operas. The most comprehensive guide to opera singers ever produced, this volume offers an alphabetically arranged collection of authoritative biographies that range from Marion Anderson (the first African American to perform at the Met) to Benedict Zak (the classical tenor and close friend and colleague of Mozart). Readers will find fascinating articles on such opera stars as Maria Callas and Enrico Caruso, Ezio Pinza and Fyodor Chaliapin, Lotte Lehmann and Jenny Lind, Lily Pons and Luciano Pavarotti. The profiles offer basic information such as birth date, vocal style, first debut, most memorable roles, and much more. But these articles often go well beyond basic biographical information to offer colorful portraits of the singer's personality and vocal style, plus astute evaluations of their place in operatic history and many other intriguing observations. Many entries also include suggestions for further reading, so that anyone interested in a particular performer can explore their life and career in more depth. In addition, there are indexes of singers by voice type and by opera role premiers. The articles are mostly drawn from the acclaimed Grove Music Online and have been fully revised, and the book is further supplemented by more than 40 specially commissioned articles on contemporary singers. A superb new guide from the first name in opera reference, The Grove Book of Opera Singers is a lively and authoritative work, beautifully illustrated with color and black-and-white pictures. It is an essential volume--and the perfect gift--for opera lovers everywhere.

Faith and Fascism
Faith and Fascism

Author: Jorge Dagnino

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 1137448946

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This is a study of the Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI) between 1925 and 1943, the organisation of Catholic Action for the university sector. The FUCI is highly significant to the study of Catholic politics and intellectual ideas, as a large proportion of the future Christian Democrats who ruled the country after World War II were formed within the ranks of the federation. In broader terms, this is a contribution to the historiography of Fascist Italy and of Catholic politics and mentalities in Europe in the mid- twentieth century. It sets out to prove the fundamental ideological, political, social and cultural influences of Catholicism on the making of modern Italy and how it was inextricably linked to more secular forces in the shaping of the nation and the challenges faced by an emerging mass society. Furthermore, the book explores the influence exercised by Catholicism on European attitudes towards modernisation and modernity, and how Catholicism has often led the way in the search for a religious alternative modernity that could countervail the perceived deleterious effects of the Western liberal version of modernity.

Bravo!
Bravo!

Author: Guy Graybill

Publisher: Branden Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780937832493

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The Italians were so busy creating and performing superb music that they neglected to tell the great epic story of their wondrous achievement. With BRAVO! we hope to tell that story. The 1,000-year-old story begins, basically, with the work of a humble monk from the city of Arezzo. And this story has no ending. If, on one hand, we will never know the music of the Egyptians, of the Greeks, and of the Romans, on the other, we have come to know and to enjoy the music of every composer from the 12th Century to the Present day thanks to Guido's invention of the musical scale. As the story unfolds, we are rewarded with the many convincing superlatives forever tied to Italian musical endeavors. The first ten chapters deal with the Italian musical geniuses who theorized, made superb instruments, composed, performed, orchestrated, conducted and sang for the enjoyment of listeners worldwide, and the closing chapter gives a comprehensive look at the beautiful things that have happened in the Italian and American world of music. While each page of BRAVO! is full of surprising and fascinating details, the title reminds us that the term, BRAVO! is reserved only for topnotch performances. Book jacket.

Trent and All That
Trent and All That

Author: John W. O'Malley

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780674041684

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Counter Reformation, Catholic Reformation, the Baroque Age, the Tridentine Age, the Confessional Age: why does Catholicism in the early modern era go by so many names? And what political situations, what religious and cultural prejudices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave rise to this confusion? Taking up these questions, John O'Malley works out a remarkable guide to the intellectual and historical developments behind the concepts of Catholic reform, the Counter Reformation, and, in his felicitous term, Early Modern Catholicism. The result is the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe, delivered in a pithy, lucid, and entertaining style. Although its subject is fundamental to virtually all other issues relating to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, there is no other book like this in any language. More than a historiographical review, Trent and All That makes a compelling case for subsuming the present confusion of terminology under the concept of Early Modern Catholicism. The term indicates clearly what this book so eloquently demonstrates: that Early Modern Catholicism was an aspect of early modern history, which it strongly influenced and by which it was itself in large measure determined. As a reviewer commented, O'Malley's discussion of terminology opens up a different way of conceiving of the whole history of Catholicism between the Reformation and the French Revolution.

His Master's Voice/La Voix de Son Maitre
His Master's Voice/La Voix de Son Maitre

Author: Alan Kelly

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 1990-09-27

Total Pages: 734

ISBN-13: 0313387745

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This is a companion volume to the Italian catalogue, La Voce del Padrone, already published by Greenwood Press. This new volume provides a complete catalogue of French gramophone recordings made by the Gramophone Company Ltd. between 1898 and 1929. During this period the Compagnie Francaise du Gramophone was the continental European, African, and Asian end of a powerful partnership between the Victor Talking Machine Company and the Gramophone Company Ltd. The volume includes details of Victor recordings issued outside the Americas and hence is a useful adjunct to the series The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings, also published by Greenwood Press. The first three sections conform to the previously established pattern of listing Gramophone black and celebrity labels followed by the Zonophone green labels and the Gramophone green labels. In 1920, it was decided to issue records specifically for the Belgian/Flemish market; these are detailed in the fourth section. The contents of each section are listed in numerical order following the pattern of the early printed catalogues, that is, bands followed by orchestras followed by talking, etc. A list of the series actually used precedes each section and acts as a table of contents for the section. Each catalogue entry comprises as much as possible of the following information: the original numerical catalogue number; the matrix (serial) number; the date of the recording; the name of the artist(s) involved; the title of the piece; alternative issue numbers; and occasional notes. The introduction provides an overview of the company's recording practices and cataloging systems. This volume provides much-needed guidance for the serious collector and will be a valuable resource for the music historian.

A People's Church
A People's Church

Author: Agostino Paravicini Bagliani

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2023-06-15

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 1501716794

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A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a "people's church." At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to diverse forms of religious devotion and institutions. Contributors: Maria Pia Alberzoni on heresy; Frances Andrews on urban religion; Cécile Caby on monasticism; Giovanna Casagrande on mendicants; George Dameron on Florence; Antonella Degl'Innocenti on saints; Marina Gazzini on lay confraternities; Maureen C. Miller on bishops; Agostino Paravicini Bagliani and Pietro Silanos on the papacy and Italian politics; Antonio Rigon on clerical confraternities; Neslihan Şenocak on the pievi and care of souls; Giovanni Vitolo on Naples.