The Bel Canto Opera Performance

This is where the smells of cooked tomatoes, garlic, cheese, fresh focaccia bread, and pasta can be found in infinite bounds. Despite not having personally traveled to Italy, my connecting link to Italian cuisine can be found through this restaurant and their pasta. As Brombert (2013) explains in Italian Identity in the Kitchen, or Food and the Nation, Italians abroad are referred to as “macaroni-eaters,” for dried pasta, or maccheroni, particularly those from the southern regions. The experience that one encounters in Pagliacci’s is very much how I would imagine restaurants in Italy to be, packed with tables close together to encourage the social environment that is so crucial to Italian culture. An essential component upon entering is of course bread, an endless supply of freshly made focaccia bread to be exact. This is in line with the Italian custom to always eat bread with a meal, for it is very much an essential component. Similar to the history of bread, in which it was used as the last stand against hunger, when eaten to excess this mouth-watering bread can come close to being a meal in it of itself. The dish that I fall back on most frequently here provides me with an intimate knowledge of the flavors of the Italian world for it involves many classic ingredients. Fresh tomatoes soaked in red wine, mushrooms, basil, and olive combined with the linguine noodle and topped with

In any musical drama, be it opera, oratorio, or even musical theatre, it is possible for a composer to convey the personality of their characters through compositional and musical techniques. Doing so heightens the audience’s understanding of the characters, their motivations, and the relationships between them. Monteverdi, as a pioneer of opera, was one of the first to capitalize on this opportunity to heighten the audience’s understanding of the characters. This is highly apparent in his last opera, L’Incoronazione di Poppea. The music for two of the characters, Poppea and Nerone, is especially well composed to demonstrate personality, and this is no more apparent than in the dialogue which introduces the audience to them, Signor, deh

The Original Three Tenors Concert in 1990 was recorded live and originated as a fund raiser for the José Carreras International Leukemia Foundation. This concert was held on July 7th, 1990 at Baths of Caracalla in Rome, Italy. The key performers were José Carreras, who had been diagnosed with Leukemia, Luciano Pavarotti, and Plácido Domingo. The voices of these three Spaniard men along with, Zubin Mehta, who conducted orchestras of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, recorded what author Stephen Eddins writes in his article on the website called “All Music” as, “the Guinness Book of World Records (in 2010) for the best-selling classical album of all time” (Eddins, All Music). This was the beginning of “The Three

The low-front vowel æ only appears before alveolar stops and voiceless bilabial stops. [eʌ] only occurs before voiced bilabial and alveolar nasals.

Bel Canto was a form of singing that was pretty much defined by three Italian composers: Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. These three composers had huge success in Italy and their operas are still being performed to this day. These captivating operas like Il barbiere di Sivilglia, Lucia di lammermoor, and Norma are three of the most popular and challenging operas that singers can be involved in. These three composers really set the stage for the rise of Italian opera.

Along with the beauty and rich gastronomy across all regions of Italy, Wei has also fallen in love with the people, attitudes, and cultural richness that this European gem has to offer. Other than the delicious varieties of wine, pizza and pasta throughout the country, Wei’s favorite dish is Neapolitan pizza which is made from San Marzano tomatoes (grown from the volcanic plains rich with fertile soil) and mozzarella di bufala di campana just south of the Lazio

Turandot is a dramatic opera that was performed in the Metropolitan Opera in 2009. Turandot was written by Giacomo Puccini. This rendition of Turandot was produced by Franco Zeffirelli, and directed by Andris Nelsons. In this beautiful performance of Turandot, we see Maria Guleghina as Princess Turandot, Mariana Poplavskaya as Lui and Calaf as play by Marcello Giodani. With all of these talented actors and show personnel, this production remains one of the best-known film adaptations of Turandot.

The first objective is to gain generous contributions. The amount per donator, ration between new donators and new contacts (collection rate) and the total amount of the donators and contributions are ways to measure how this aspect is doing. Incentives for the staff should also be incorporated into these objectives, especially ones that steer the process towards multi-year support programs.

B. Main-Point #2: Italian architecture has many styles including Roman, Renaissance, Baroque, and Neoclassical. It is home to many of the most famous buildings in the world, including churches, theatres and museums.

On Friday November 3rd I had the pleasure of attending an evening of Opera titled Love Through the Ages with Maria Fortuna and Nancy Townsend at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. Having never been to an Opera performance I had no idea of what to expect and was looking forward to this new experience. Fortuna was accompanied by multi-faceted pianist Nancy Townsend. These two musicians showed tremendous expertise and were able to keep my attention through the extent of the program.

Italy is an European country. Italian is its official language, and 93% of the population is native Italian speakers. Its ethnic background includes small clusters of German-Italians, French-Italians, Slovene-Italians, Albanian-Italians, and Greek-Italians. With various clusters of people come various beliefs in religion. Religion has influenced the culture, artists, and national treasures of Italy in various ways.

The beginning of the seventeenth century marked the start of opera in Italy. The earliest opera manuscripts to survive are the two settings of Euridici by Peri and Caccini (Grout 43). Although Euridici is the first known opera, Peri and Caccini were both not considered the founder of opera, that honor was instead given to Monteverdi (Grout 51). The reason for this may be because Euridici is said to contain many imperfections including: “weakness of characterization, the limited range of emotions expressed, the lack of clear, consistent musical organization, and above all the monotony of the solo style” (Grout 49). Grout explains that Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo “represents the first attempt to apply the full resources of the art of music to opera” (53). La morte d’Orfeo was the first secular opera performed in Rome in 1619 (Grout 62). This marked the beginning of serious secular opera. Opera continued to

Prague State Opera’s March 12th performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto was one of great power and emotion. Though the opera was sung in Italian and subtitles were only available in Czech, the language barrier did not hinder enjoyment of the performance in any way. Throughout the entire opera, the emotions were portrayed brilliantly and could be felt by the audience. The opera begins with a short prelude that continues as a main theme throughout the entire opera.

The first roots of modern opera first appeared in Italy in the 17th century from the Camerata (an academy of Florentine poets, musicians, and scholars). The Camerata, inspired by ancient Greek drama, sung dialogues and choruses which were accompanied by musical instruments. The Camerata developed the “stile recitative,” in order to integrate drama, action, dialogue and narration. In this “sung speech,” a singer delivered a recitative melody with an actor’s dramatic and oratorical skills, achieving the goal of providing

Italy has been shaped by its history of constant warring and many rulers, which in turn has made Italians doubtful toward authority as well as giving them a strong ability to survive difficult situations (Welcome to Italy).