The Great Lablache
The Great Lablache

Author: Clarissa Lablache Cheer

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2009-07-29

Total Pages: 723

ISBN-13: 1450003044

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During the Golden Age of Italian opera, Luigi Lablache triumphed as one of the most admired and accomplished international superstars. Born in Naples in 1795, his unprecedented forty-five year singing career dominated the glorious bel canto period when opera flourished as the principal form of entertainment. Now his direct descendant, Clarissa Lablache Cheer, puts forth this remarkable and long overdue biography of Lablache – the first ever to be written in English. Page by page, Lablache’s extraordinary story unfolds as the author guides the reader through the hectic and glamorous era of Italian opera and European high society. We follow Lablache as he conquers the dazzling nineteenth century opera world, singing Rossini roles from Napoleon’s time, through the Romantic Age, to become the special favorite of the Victorians in hundreds of Donizetti and Bellini’s bel canto productions. A vocal Hercules, everything about him is larger-than-life: his huge size, powerful voice, good looks, dramatic flare, and irresistible humor and charm. The foremost bass of his time, he rules the stage from London to Vienna, from Paris to St. Petersburg. Notably, Britain’s Queen Victoria singles out Lablache to be her beloved singing teacher for 20 years. Garnered from rare unpublished family memorabilia as well as primary source material across Europe and America, this fascinating family saga does not end with Lablache. Herein the author also recounts how Lablache’s well-known descendents of opera singers and actors carve out their brilliant careers on the stages of Europe, New York and Hollywood.

26 Italian Songs and Arias
26 Italian Songs and Arias

Author: John Glenn Paton

Publisher: Alfred Music

Published: 2005-05-03

Total Pages: 158

ISBN-13: 9781457435614

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This authoritative, new edition of the world's most loved songs and arias draws on original manuscripts, historical first editions and recent research by prominent musicologists to meet a high standard of accuracy and authenticity. Includes fascinating background information about the arias and their composers as well as a singable rhymed translation, a readable prose translation and a literal translation of each single Italian word.

Performing Operas for Mozart
Performing Operas for Mozart

Author: Ian Woodfield

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1107014298

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A study of the Prague Italian opera company and its role in performing Mozart's works in the late eighteenth-century.

Opera in the Tropics
Opera in the Tropics

Author: Rogério Budasz

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-03-22

Total Pages: 485

ISBN-13: 0190050039

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Opera in the Tropics is an engaging exploration of theater with music in Brazil from the mid 1500s to the early 1820s. Author Rogério Budasz delves into the practices of the actors, singers, poets, and composers who created and performed Jesuit moral plays, Spanish comedias, and Portuguese vernacular operas and entremezes during the colonial period, as well as the Italian operas that celebrated the new independent nation in 1822. A Brazilian producer claimed in 1825 that the goal of music-theater was to instruct, entertain, and distract the population. Budasz argues that this threefold goal had in fact been present throughout the colonial period, in different combinations and with different purposes, at the hands of missionaries, intellectuals, bureaucrats, political leaders, and cultural producers. While Budasz demonstrates a continuity from Portuguese theatrical practices, primarily through the circulation of artists and repertory, he also examines a number of localized departures from the metropolitan model, particularly in the ethnic and gender profile of theatrical workers, in the modifications determined by local tastes, priorities, and materials, and in the political use of theater as an ideological and civilizing tool within the paradoxical context of a slave society. An eye-opening narrative of the transformations and uses of a colonial art form, Opera in the Tropics will be essential reading for all interested in the music and theater in Iberian and Latin American culture.

Life of Rossini
Life of Rossini

Author: Stendhal

Publisher: Alma Books

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 0714545635

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Rossini's success in Italy in the early 1820s was certainly not echoed in France, where he was regarded as "e;an ill-bred parvenu, whose cheap popularity was an insult to a great musical tradition"e;. Stendhal was the first of his contemporaries to recognize the genius of this important Italian composer.Besides being a fascinating and penetrating account of the Italian composer's most creative years, and of contemporary musical events and opinions, this work is one of the finest items in the Stendhalian literary canon. Details of Rossini's early life are followed by penetrating discussions of the operas, libretti, personalities of the period and Rossini's own character.

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.

Complete variations for solo piano
Complete variations for solo piano

Author: Ludwig van Beethoven

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1986-01-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0486251888

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The piano music of Beethoven is an indispensable part of the repertoire of any serious pianist. Especially appealing are the variations, magnificent compositions second only to the sonatas and concertos in importance, and among the most recorded and performed music in the piano literature. This volume contains all 21 sets of Beethoven's solo piano variations, including the extremely popular "Diabelli Variations," Op. 120, which, in the view of many critics, accomplished for the piano what Bach's "Goldberg Variations" did for the harpsichord. Also included are the perennially admired Thirty-two Variations in C Minor, the Eroica Variations, Op. 35, and a treasury of variations on themes by Dressler, Salieri, Sussmayr, Righini, and other composers. Reprinted from the authoritative Breitkopf & Hartel edition, this music manifests the prodigious invention and imagination the master brought to the variation form. Now the complete corpus of variations is available in this inexpensive reliable edition, ready to inspire and challenge pianists and music lovers."