Giacomo Puccini was born on the 22nd of December in 1858. His family lived in the town of Lucca which was situated in the Tuscany region of Italy. He was part of a very musically talented family who for several generations had controlled the music at the San Martino cathedral. It was understood that one day he too would hold the coveted position and when his father passed away when he was just 8 years old, the position of choirmaster was held for him to reach adulthood. He spent many years training with former students of his father and eventually attended a local university where he studied the works of Verdi and other great composers. He completed his studies at the Milan Conservatory and the started writing his very first opera. …show more content…
He set pen to paper and wrote his operatic version of the tale the same year. Initially the play was met with such disdain that Puccini pulled the play immediately and did not let it go on the second night. After several reworking’s, a final piece was released to standing ovations around the world in 1906 (Schickling & Vilain, 1998). Riding on the wave of his success, he wrote another piece based on a work by David Belasco entitled La faniculla del West which was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in 1910 but it was met with harsh criticism as it did not conform to traditional American standards of the time. It was at this time that his life once again started to take a downward turn as his marriage was failing and filled with distrust that often ended in bitter fights and his works were not as well received by the masses as he had hoped they would be. He did have a small success with Giana Schicchi but his next work, Turandot, would remain unfinished. In the spring of 1924, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent radiation treatments. The treatments seemed to be successful but on November 29th of the same year he suffered a fatal heart attack. His final incomplete work, Turandot, was conducted by his good friend, Arturo Toscanini in April of 1926 at the La Scala in Milan, the place that had been so critical of Puccini’s previous works. When Toscanini reached the end of the work that was written by
Also he had composed keyboard pieces, oratorios, symphonies, and operas. He performed his first major opera when he was fourteen it was staged in Milan in 1770 the style of the opera was opera seria, Mitriade.
The piece from my final recital programme that I chose to evaluate in this essay is ‘Verdi Prati’ from Handel’s opera Alcina. Alcina was inspired by a story from an epic poem called “Orlando Furioso”, however, Handel's libretto is a very free adaption. This particular aria is of great importance in the opera as we see the character Ruggerio predicting what is to come for Alcina and her magical island.
Giorgio Vasari is known for being the first Art Historian. He wrote the seminal work The Lives of the Artists. But why did he write it? Of course every book is written for a purpose but I don’t think Vasari was writing just to inform people of art and artists. At the beginning of the 14th Century the value of artists and their craft began to rise. They had been a member of the guild system along with other valued members of the medieval economic system certainly but suddenly wealthy people not just the clergy saw buying art and dedicating it to God as a way to pay for past sins and show their esteemed colleagues that they were actually doing something to ensure passage to heaven. This rise of humanism is continuing theme into the next two centuries when it reaches Vasari. If Art has reached its zenith in realism and can go no higher. How then can Vasari increase his worth and that of his fellow artists in the world’s estimation? Write a book detailing the lives of great artists and explain how they received their genius from God and made startling contributions to the many great religious and civic efforts of Italy and Florence in particular. This was going to help him increase his own power if he could connect his talent to the greatness of God and those who needed God’s Grace more than most; the rich and powerful.
It was in this position that he started to compose. He began by composing some minor overtures, quartets, and one large symphony. In 1866 that he suffered from his first nervous breakdown brought on the stress of overwork on his First Symphony. His early works were to include two other symphonies, the violin concerto, and the Piano Concerto in B flat Minor.
On the way to honing his own style, he experienced some failures, such as his second opera ‘Edgar’. After Edgar, his works were more naturally blended and the vocal lines became much more flexible and flowing between each dialogue.
Antonio Vivaldi was born on March 4, 1678 in Venice, Italy. When he was childhood was probably playing the violin around venice and going to mass every Sunday. His religion was being a catholic and singing during mass every sunday. Antonio had eight siblings, four brothers and four sisters. They were Francesco Gaetano Vivaldi, Zanetta Anna Vivaldi, Cecilia Maria Vivaldi, Bonaventura Tomaso Vivaldi, Margarita Gabriela Vivaldi, Gerolama Michela Vivaldi, Iseppo Gaetano Vivaldi, and Iseppo Santo Vivaldi. When he was 25 he became a priest. He got a nickname called “The Red Priest,” because of his red hair. He retired after 3 years because of illness. After priesthood he work for an Italian prince.
On March 6th, 1475 Leonardo di Buonarrota and Francesca Neri had their second out of five sons in the small village of Caprese, Italy. They named him Michelangelo di Lodovivo Buonarroti Simoni. But soon after being birthed Michelangelo moved to Florence, Italy with his family.
His many works include the “Palazzo di Parte Guelfa,” the “Rotonda degli Angeli,” and the “Ponte a Mare at Pisa.” There is however some debate to whether Brunelleschi was responsible for the original designs for the Pitti Palace. After his death he was buried in Santa Maria del Fiore. However, his tomb was not discovered until 1972 (Lombroso 5).
He remained a clerk for three years. He hated his job but he worked feverishly at it for he worked hard at every task he was given. He continued to be drawn into the music world and he took piano and theory lessons. Finally, in 1862, he quit his job and devoted the rest of his life to music which he began by entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He graduated with a silver medal in 1865. After graduation he was unsure of what to do until 1866 when Nicholas Rubenstein offered him the job of professor of harmony at the newly formed Moscow Conservatory. It was here that he wrote his first serious works which included AA Festival Overture on the Danish National Hymn,@ his First Symphony in G AWinter Daydreams,@ and his first opera AThe Voyevode.@ Showing his desire for perfection he tore up the opera because he was dissatisfied with it and it wasn=t until 1949 that it was revived.5
Giacomo Puccini has written a number of operas, including Turandot, Gianni Schicchi, and Madama Butterfly. La Bohème is said to be “one of the most successful and enchanting operas ever written.” Written in the romantic period, the text and score interrelations play an important role in an overall aesthetically and historically pleasing opera. In a story of love found and love lost, Puccini uses text and score to create empathy for the characters of La Boheme. Puccini does so particularly in the aria Donde lieta uscì, sung by Mimi towards the end of Act III.
Not even a year later Tchaikovsky wrote his first opera the Voyevada. He later used this piece in his next opera the Oprichnik, which won some success at St. Petersburg in 1874. It was then that a critic named Balakirev requested that he write a work on Romeo and Juliet, which would later be known as the Fantasy Overture. This specific work was rewritten many times until it met the requirements of Balakirev. This romantic piece is a symphony where each theme stood for a character in the drama. It is these expressive themes that make his first works well defined.
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
Although Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! Is Fo’s most recognised play, it is his piece L’operaio that expresses the basis of Fo’s aims in reviving popular theatre, saying: “The worker is knowledgeable because he’s the vanguard of the
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer born in 1554 and wrote many works in the ‘in between’ stage of Renaissance and Baroque. He was a composer and
Known as one of if not they best artists of his time Francesco Guardi is quite the artist. he is known for his later works, one of his bests know as the doges feasts which was a 12 canvas set of pure beauty. The painting was pictures of the election that took place in 1763 with the election of Dodge Alvise IV Mocenigo. Guardi captured this amazing moment for the future to witness, the election is a massive thing in italy. Its compared to the election in America but almost 2 times more bigger, its no joke to italy and he was there to capture and give the future a vivid