Giovanna Sestini
Giovanna Sestini

Author: Audrey T Carpenter

Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd

Published: 2017-11-14

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1788038800

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first-ever biography of this almost forgotten eighteenth century star. How a girl from Italy became London’s “most enchanting comic actress.” Giovanna Sestini’s important contribution to opera has been revived in this carefully researched biography. This book describes her Italian and Portuguese background, while providing considerable insight into the contemporary opera scene and social history of 18th century London. In her private family life she was Joanna Stocqueler, mother of eight children, while as Giovanna Sestini she was a renowned and attractive opera singer. Her talents were publicised until her retirement in 1792, when both her voice and the London theatres were in decline. The book offers a full description of her life, including her early performances in Italy and Portugal, her marriage to Portuguese aristocrat José Christiano Stocqueler, and the fate of her children. After her move to London she was acclaimed both in Italian comic opera at the King’s Theatre and in English opera at Covent Garden. This book will appeal to readers with an interest in the arts, opera and eighteenth-century history. It includes 18 illustrations and a full bibliography and index.

The Lure of Perfection
The Lure of Perfection

Author: Judith Chazin-Bennahum

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780415970372

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney
The Journals and Letters of Susan Burney

Author: Philip Olleson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1317026659

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Susan Burney (1755-1800) was the third daughter of the music historian Charles Burney and the younger sister of the novelist Frances (Fanny) Burney. She grew up in London, where she was able to observe at close quarters the musical life of the capital and to meet the many musicians, men of letters, and artists who visited the family home. After her marriage in 1782 to Molesworth Phillips, a Royal Marines officer who served with Captain Cook on his last voyage, she lived in Surrey and later in rural Ireland. Burney was a knowledgeable enthusiast for music, and particularly for opera, with discriminating tastes and the ability to capture vividly musical life and the personalities involved in it. Her extensive journals and letters, a selection from which is presented here, provide a striking portrait of social, domestic and cultural life in London, the Home Counties and in Ireland in the late eighteenth century. They are of the greatest importance and interest to music and theatre historians, and also contain much that will be of significance and interest for Burney scholars, social historians of England and Ireland, women's historians and historians of the family.

London Opera Observed 1711-1844
London Opera Observed 1711-1844

Author: Michael Burden

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-31

Total Pages: 1819

ISBN-13: 1040156118

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The thrust of these five volumes is contained in their title, London Opera Observ’d. It takes its cue from the numerous texts and volumes which — during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — used the concept of ‘spying’ or ‘observing’ by a narrator, or rambler, as a means of establishing a discourse on aspects of London life. The material in this five-volume reset edition examines opera not simply as a genre of performance, but as a wider topic of comment and debate. The stories that surrounded the Italian opera singers illuminate contemporary British attitudes towards performance, sexuality and national identity. The collection includes only complete, published material organised chronologically so as to accurately retain the contexts in which the original readers encountered them — placing an emphasis on rare texts that have not been reproduced in modern editions. The aim of this collection is not to provide a history of opera in England but to facilitate the writing of them or to assist those wishing to study topics within the field. Headnotes and footnotes establish the publication information and provide an introduction to the piece, its author, and the events surrounding it or which caused its publication. The notes concentrate on attempting to identify those figures mentioned within the texts. The approach is one of presentation, not interpretation, ensuring that the collection occupies a position that is neutral rather than polemical.

Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century
Opera in Portugal in the Eighteenth Century

Author: Manuel Carlos de Brito

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-05-31

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521036436

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A history of opera in Portugal from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the inauguration of the Teatro de S. Carlos in 1793.

Lives of the Sonnet, 1787–1895
Lives of the Sonnet, 1787–1895

Author: Marianne Van Remoortel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-06

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1317104013

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In a series of representative case studies, Marianne Van Remoortel traces the development of the sonnet during intense moments of change and stability, continuity and conflict, from the early Romantic period to the end of the nineteenth century. Paying particular attention to the role of the popular press, which served as a venue of innovation and as a site of recruitment for aspiring authors, Van Remoortel redefines the scope of the genre, including the ways in which its development is intricately related to issues of gender. Among her subjects are the Della Cruscans and their primary critic William Gifford, the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his circle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, George Meredith's Modern Love, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's House of Life and Augusta Webster's Mother and Daughter. As women became a force to be reckoned with among the reading public and the writing community, the term 'sonnet' often operated as a satirical label that was not restricted to poetry adhering to the strict formalities of the genre. Van Remoortel's study, in its attentiveness to the sonnet's feminization during the late eighteenth century, offers important insights into the ways in which changing attitudes about gender and genre shaped critics' interpretations of the reception histories of nineteenth-century sonnet sequences.

Music and Theatre in Handel's World
Music and Theatre in Handel's World

Author: Donald Burrows

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 1268

ISBN-13: 9780198166542

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

James Harris (1709-80) was an author of philosophical treatises and an enthusiastic amateur musician who directed the concerts and music festivals at Salisbury for nearly fifty years. His family and social circle had close connections with London's music-making: his brother was a witness toHandel's will, and his correspondents sent him lively reports on all aspects of musical life in the capital-opera, oratorio, concerts, but also about the leading performers, music copyists, and instrument makers. In 1761 Harris became a member of Parliament and thereafter divided his time betweenLondon and Salisbury. His letters and diaries provide an unrivalled record of concert- and theatre-going in London, including exchanges of letters with David Garrick about a production at Drury Lane. As his children grew up an engaging family correspondence emerged. We learn of his daughters'involvement in concerts and amateur theatrical productions; his son, who pursued a diplomatic career, reported on operas, concerts, and plays in the court of Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great. Now, for the first time, it is possible to enjoy in full the lively first-hand descriptions fromHarris's family papers, which contribute fascinating insights into contemporary eighteenth-century musical and theatrical life.

Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume 2
Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney, Volume 2

Author: Lars E. Troide

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 1991-02-01

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0773585109

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The years 1774-77 saw Fanny Burney's increasing occupation with Evelina, which she finally completed and presented to the publisher Thomas Lowndes. Like her novel, the journals and letters of this period reveal her artistic powers, as she continues to sketch characters with economy and precision and create convincing narratives out of the events of her life. Among the more memorable figures she meets at her father's London house are the "noble savage" Omai, the first Tahitian brought back to England; the famed explorer James "Abyssinian" Bruce, who returned from Africa with tales of natives who ate raw flesh; and Prince Aleksei Orlov of Russia, who had Czar Peter III murdered in order to permit Peter's wife, Catherine "the Great," to ascend the throne. Other notable figures include Dr Samuel Johnson and the great singer Lucrezia Agujari, admired by Mozart. Also in these pages, the usually diffident Miss Burney takes charge of her destiny by rebuffing her suitor Thomas Barlow, who has wealth, education, good looks, and the vehement approval of most of her family, but whom she finds a total bore. The journals and letters of Fanny Burney are an invaluable source for anyone interested in the social and literary history of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England. Lars Troide has supported the texts with thorough and detailed annotations.

The Italian Opera Singers in Mozart's Vienna
The Italian Opera Singers in Mozart's Vienna

Author: Dorothea Link

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2022-11-22

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 0252053656

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Dorothea Link examines singers’ voices and casting practices in late eighteenth-century Italian opera as exemplified in Vienna’s court opera from 1783 to 1791. The investigation into the singers’ voices proceeds on two levels: understanding the performers in terms of the vocal-dramatic categories employed in opera at the time; and creating vocal profiles for the principal singers from the music composed expressly for them. In addition, Link contextualizes the singers within the company in order to expose the court opera's casting practices. Authoritative and insightful, The Italian Opera Singers in Mozart's Vienna offers a singular look at a musical milieu and a key to addressing the performance-practice problem of how to cast the Mozart roles today.