Performing in a country rife with racism and segregation, the tenor Roland Hayes was the first African American man to reach international fame as a concert performer and one of the few artists who could sell out Town Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Hall, and Covent Garden. His trailblazing career carved the way for a host of African American artists, including Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson. Performing the African American spirituals he was raised on, Hayes's voice was marked with a unique sonority which easily navigated French, German, and Italian art songs. A multiculturalist both on and off the stage, he counted among his friends George Washington Carver, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ezra Pound, Pearl Buck, Dwight Eisenhower, and Langston Hughes. This engaging biography spans the history of Hayes's life and career and the legacy he left behind as a musician and a champion of African American rights. It is an authentic, panoramic portrait of a man who was as complex as the music he performed.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ La Favorita: Melodrama En 4 Actos Gaetano Donizetti D. Gorchs, 1855

A riveting history of the early male and female sopranos for whom many of the greatest roles in opera were written During its first two centuries, opera was dominated by sopranos. There were male sopranos, or castrati, whose supercharged voices (female vocal cords powered by male lungs) were capable of feats of vocalism that are hard to imagine today. And there were female sopranos, or prima donnas, whose long battle for social acceptance and top billing was crowned in the early nineteenth century when the castrati disappeared from the opera stage and left them supreme. Whether they were male or female, these singers were amazing virtuosi, perhaps the greatest singers there have ever been-"angels." Unfortunately, some of them (and often the most famous) were also capable of behaving extremely badly, both on and off stage-"monsters." This book tells their colorful stories. Besides providing fascinating anecdotes about some of those who graced and disgraced the operatic stage, Richard Somerset-Ward tells the story of their greatest glory-the singing tradition they founded and perfected, which we know as bel canto and which is still the backbone of operatic singing today. Rich in musical, social, and cultural lore, Angels and Monsters illuminates a unique and vanished tradition and will be irresistible to opera lovers everywhere.

David W. Barber has delighted readers all around the world with the quirky definitions of Accidentals on Purpose: A Musician's Dictionary, the irreverent history of Bach, Beethoven and the Boys, a hilariously offbeat history of dance and ballet in Tutus, Tights and Tiptoes and a host of other internationally bestselling books of musical humor. With When the Fat Lady Sings, the popular author and musical humorist turns his attention to what Dr. Johnson called that "exotick and irrational entertainment," the world of opera. Here are stories of love and lust, jealousy, intrigue, murder and tragic death - and that's just the stuff happening off stage, in the composers' personal lives. Wait till you read about the opera plots. Informal yet informative, witty yet wise, this book will both enlighten and entertain you. As always, Dave Donald has provided witty and clever cartoons that perfectly complement the text. This completely revised and expanded edition includes new material and an index, to make it easier for readers to find all their favorite references. "This is a very humorous book, but at the same time it tells it like it is, or was. David's not really fabricating anything, he just manages to give you the gist of the history while leaving out all the boring bits." - Maureen Forrester

Title: Admeto, HWV 22 Composer: George Frideric Handel Original Publisher: Deutsche Handelgesellschaft The complete orchestral score to Handel's Admeto, HWV 22, as edited by Friedrich Chrysander and published as part of the Deutsche Handelgesellschaft, Band 73, in 1877. Performer's Reprints are produced in conjunction with the International Music Score Library Project. These are out of print or historical editions, which we clean, straighten, touch up, and digitally reprint. Due to the age of original documents, you may find occasional blemishes, damage, or skewing of print. While we do extensive cleaning and editing to improve the image quality, some items are not able to be repaired. A portion of each book sold is donated to small performing arts organizations to create jobs for performers and to encourage audience growth."

Created by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward and sung by generations of black performers, Porgy and Bess has been both embraced and reviled since its debut in 1935. In this comprehensive account, Ellen Noonan examines the opera's long history of invention and reinvention as a barometer of twentieth-century American expectations about race, culture, and the struggle for equality. In its surprising endurance lies a myriad of local, national, and international stories. For black performers and commentators, Porgy and Bess was a nexus for debates about cultural representation and racial uplift. White producers, critics, and even audiences spun revealing racial narratives around the show, initially in an attempt to demonstrate its authenticity and later to keep it from becoming discredited or irrelevant. Expertly weaving together the wide-ranging debates over the original novel, Porgy, and its adaptations on stage and film with a history of its intimate ties to Charleston, The Strange Career of "Porgy and Bess" uncovers the complexities behind one of our nation's most long-lived cultural touchstones.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1911 Edition.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1906 Edition.

For a long time opera was dominated by larger-than-life characters: kings and queens, gods and goddesses, mythic figures with power over life and death. However, as opera became a more and more popular form of entertainment, the perspective changed. The challenge for composers and librettists was to give these legendary characters common feelings - to put little sorrow in great souls - so that ordinary people could easily identify with on stage dramas. Composers turned to stories about simpler, more realistic characters, creating a whole new set of challenges in the process. Nobody knew that better than Giacomo Puccini whose operas tell us that at some point in their lives, people everywhere, in all walks of life, endure the same trials: love and envy, loss and heartbreak. This is especially true in La Boheme, a drama of everyday events and common people, a story set among struggling artists in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Certain critics have analyzed his music and his stories and concluded that his operas are too easily enjoyable, and maybe not intellectual enough, to justify Puccini's great success. It would be easy to argue that other composers produced operas far more complex and innovative than Puccini's, but that conclusion may also be too simple. Regardless of his methods, Puccini mastered the unique and mystifying synthesis of music, drama and stagecraft that only opera can deliver, and with powerful results. His enduring, popular dramas are graced by appealing and believable characters whose feelings are portrayed so deeply and so vividly that, as we look on, their emotions soon become ours as well, and their heartbreaks seem as wrenching as our own. Luca Andrea Giordano lives in Italy. He holds doctorate degrees in Foreign Languages, Modern Philology, Vocal Performance (Opera and Chamber music) and Oboe. He dedicates his time equally as a linguist and interpreter assisting professional departments at various Italian Music Conservatories in English and French, and as author of extensive analytical works in musicology, linguistics and composition for important publishing houses. He has been associated with the Opera House "Giuseppe Verdi" in Salerno, as chorus member, since 1999. He also performs frequently as classical singer and oboist at national and international levels."

Grand palaces of culture, opera theaters marked the center of European cities like the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. As opera cast its spell, almost every European city and society aspired to have its own opera house, and dozens of new theaters were constructed in the course of the "long" nineteenth century. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789, only a few, mostly royal, opera theaters, existed in Europe. However, by the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries nearly every large town possessed a theater in which operas were performed, especially in Central Europe, the region upon which this book concentrates.
This volume, a revised and extended version of two well-reviewed books published in German and Czech, explores the social and political background to this "opera mania" in nineteenth century Central Europe. After tracing the major trends in the opera history of the period, including the emergence of national genres of opera and its various social functions and cultural meanings, the author contrasts the histories of the major houses in Dresden (a court theater), Lemberg (a theater built and sponsored by aristocrats), and Prague (a civic institution). Beyond the operatic institutions and their key stage productions, composers such as Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Bedrich Smetana, Stanislaw Moniuszko, Antonin Dvorak, and Richard Strauss are put in their social and political contexts. The concluding chapter, bringing together the different leitmotifs of social and cultural history explored in the rest of the book, explains the specificities of opera life in Central Europe within a wider European and global framework.

This is a new release of the original 1943 edition.

The inspirational memoir by international classical music star Paul Potts, winner of Britain's Got Talent.

One Chance is the remarkable true story of Paul Potts, cell phone salesman by day, amateur singer by night, who stepped onto the stage in the premiere season of Britain's Got Talent, and changed his life. When he opened his mouth to sing Puccini's "Nessun Dorma," judge Simon Cowell and millions of viewers were stunned. Paul went on to win the show's competition and become a YouTube sensation and multiplatinum artist virtually overnight.

Filled with personal recollections not featured in the upcoming film, this is the wonderful story of the shy, bullied Welsh store manager who seized his biggest dreams and won audiences around the world.

This is the first book by an experienced conductor to explore the orchestra's contribution to Mozart's greatest operatic works: Idomeneo, Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Die Schauspieldirektor, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, Cosi fan tutte, La clemenza di Tito, and Die Zauberfloete. It is written for the concert and opera going public who are interested in enlarging their knowledge and appreciation of these masterpieces, but also contains many practical suggestions for aspiring conductors.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Belisario: Tragedia Lirica In Tre Parti: Da Rappresentarsi Nell'I. R. Teatro Alla Scala Il Carnevale 1840 Gaetano Donizetti, Giovanni Galzerani, Salvatore Cammarano Truffi, 1840 Music; Genres & Styles; Ballet; Music / Genres & Styles / Ballet; Music / Genres & Styles / Classical; Performing Arts / Dance / Classical

Benjamin Britten's works for the stage developed from the traditional late nineteenth-century romantic opera structure of Peter Grimes to the experimental format of the church parables and of Death in Venice, his last opera. At the core of this development seems to have been Britten's intention to use the stage as a pulpit to express his philosophical views. This book explores an assessment of how these influenced his creative choices, mainly examining the composer's own writings, from his early involvement with left wing activism during the Thirties through to his more spiritually oriented objectives after the war, and offers alternative readings of two of Britten's most controversial works for the stage, The Rape of Lucretia and Death in Venice.

In the fall of 1938, following Kristallnacht, the symphonic orchestra in Palestine cancelled the performance of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. No one could foresee that this would be the beginning of a never-ending boycott. The boycott began in a society struggling for its existence and collective identity; it continues in a well-established culture that maintains close ties with Germany and German culture, when numerous Israeli institutions are involved in commemorating the Holocaust. At present Wagner is known in Israel mainly as a symbol of the Holocaust. From the late twentieth-century Wagner is the only composer who aroused strong opposition when attempts were made to publicly play his music. Analysis of this controversy sheds light on the changes that have taken place in Israel -- from a pioneering to a traditional society, and from a socialist to a capitalistic one. In the Wagner Year "The Ring of Myths" appears in a revised edition, including interpretations from new perspectives on the place of the Holocaust in Israeli society and the processes of change until 2012.

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Race, politics, and opera production during apartheid South Africa intersect in this historiographic work on the Eoan Group, a "coloured" cultural organization that performed opera in the Cape. The La Traviata Affair charts Eoan's opera activities from the group's inception in 1933 until the cessation of their productions by 1980. It explores larger questions of complicity, compromise, and compliance; of assimilation, appropriation, and race; and of "European art music" in situations of "non-European" dispossession and disenfranchisement. Performing under the auspices of apartheid, the group's unquestioned acceptance of and commitment to the art of opera could not redeem it from the entanglements that came with the political compromises it made. Uncovering a rich trove of primary source materials, Hilde Roos presents here for the first time the story of one of the premier cultural agencies of apartheid South Africa.

A Humorous Synopsis of the Great Operas. Stranded Stories from the Operas is aimed at the serious opera lover who, in addition to possessing a good knowledge of the subject, has a sense of humour. No author, until now, has dared challenge the esoteric world of opera by relating these stories in a humorous way: opera is far too serious a subject to be made fun of Times have changed. In this collection you will find the plots of both The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro told by Figaro himself in his own inimitable style; Samson and Dalilah and Salome retold in appropriate biblical prose; Shakespearian opera is represented by Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet while Wagner lovers, after reading Die Meistersinger, Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal, may want to check their Kobbe. What really happened at the Polka saloon that night is told by Nick the barman in Minnie get your gun while Turandot's baffling riddles have been updated to reflect the advances made in education since those ancient times. Finally, if the reader gets as much pleasure from these stories as the author had in writing them and the illustrator in designing them, then the time and trouble spent were well worth the effort.

"The Legacy of Opera: Reading Music Theatre as Experience and Performance" is the first volume in a series of books compiled by the Music Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. The series explores the widening of the meaning of the term "music theatre" to reflect new ways of thinking about this creative practice beyond the genres circumscribed by discourses of theatre studies and musicology. Specifically it interrogates the experience of music theatre and its performance energies for contemporary audiences who engage with the emergence of new expressive idioms, new performative paradigms, new technologies and new ways of thinking. "The Legacy of Opera "considers some of the ways in which opera's influence has informed our understanding of and approach to the musical stage, from the multiple perspectives of the ideological, historical, corporeal and artistic. With contributions from international scholars in music theatre, its chapters explore both canonic and experimental examples of music theatre, spanning a period from the seventeenth century to the present day.

THIS 48 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Mysteries of the Great Operas, by Max Heindel. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0766104192.

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Lakme is the daughter of Nilakantha, a fanatical Brahmin priest, who has withdrawn to a ruined temple deep in an Indian forest. In his retreat the old man nurses his wrath against the British invader, prays assiduously to Brahma (thus contributing a fascinating Oriental mood to the opening of the opera), and waits for the time to come when he shall be able to wreak his revenge on the despoilers of his country. Lakme sings Oriental duets with her slave, Mallika.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.