the fighting. Nevers is dead and they are free to marry. Saint-Bris and Catholics shoot at the Huguenots, realizing too late that they have killed Valentine. Personalities | Giacomo Meyerbeer | Early Romantic | Opera ...
(Ja’-ko-mo Mi’-er-bâr) 1791–1864 German composer Meyerbeer (like Mendelssohn) came from a wealthy German-Jewish family. He studied composition with Carl Friedrich Zelter and later with the renowned music theorist Georg Joseph Vogler. In 1831 he had a phenomenal success at the Paris Opéra with Robert le diable (‘Robert the Devil’), which within three years was performed in 77 theatres in 10 countries, ...
his Singspiel Das Brandenburger Tor (1814) came too late to achieve its purpose – to celebrate the return home of the victorious Prussian army. It was a poor start for Meyerbeer but his fortunes changed dramatically after he left his native Germany for Italy, where he wrote six operas. These were so successful that Meyerbeer was touted as the new ...
saxhorn. It soon made its way into wind bands and was occasionally used in the orchestra, first of all by Louis-Hector Berlioz (1803–69) and the operatic composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864). Woodwind instruments were further developed and refined. The clarinet was improved and championed by composers such as Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826), who in his Clarinet Concerto and orchestral ...
Unusually among musical instruments, a specific date has been posited for the invention of the clarinet. Johann Christoph Denner of Nuremberg has been claimed as the man who, in 1700, devised and built the first of these instruments. Like all the best stories, however, the history of the clarinet is shrouded in mystery. The instrument attributed ...
Gongs and tam tams are suspended bronze discs played with a beater. In the West, the two names are often confused as the instruments can look similar and both produce a deep, rich sound. However, the tam tam is untuned, and the gong is tuned. Gongs have been used as melodic instruments throughout Southeast Asia, especially in ...
1820s, the first valve trumpets appeared and were soon taken up by composers: by 1830 valve trumpets were present in works by Berlioz, Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) and Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864). Initially, the valve trumpet was pitched in F. The length of this instrument meant that works requiring agility were incredibly demanding technically. Alongside the trumpet had developed the ...
‘The Troubadour’ Of all Verdi’s operas, Il trovatore (‘The Troubadour’) provides the fullest panorama of melodies, each of them memorable in its own right. Il trovatore did not have the subtle characterization of Rigoletto, and suffered from an all but impenetrable plot, but nonetheless became as frequently played. The Miserere (meaning ‘Have Mercy’) sung by a chorus ...
audiences with his subtle, expressive voice and riveting them with his acting talent. Berlioz, for one, found Nourrit ‘electrifying’. In addition, Nourrit was a gifted writer; Meyerbeer found his help invaluable while composing Les Huguenots, calling him the ‘second father’ of the opera. After leaving the Paris Opéra in 1837, Nourrit successfully toured Belgium and ...
1890–1957 Italian tenor Gigli made his debut in Italy in 1914, and sang Faust in Boito’s Mefistofele at Bologna and Naples the following year. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in Mefistofele in 1920. The operas in which he appeared at the ‘Met’, where he sang for 12 seasons, included La bohème, Ponchielli’s La gioconda and Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine. ...
1814–97, French Cornélie Falcon’s singing career was brief. At 18 she made her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1832, singing the role of Alice in Giacomo Meyerbeer’s (1791–1864) Robert le diable. However, Falcon was a mezzo-soprano who wanted to be a soprano and ruined her full, resonant voice by forcing it too high. By 1838 her ...
biblical theme for his last successful opera Joseph (1807), which contained the graceful melody and realistic atmosphere that were his trademarks. Introduction | Early Romantic | Opera Personalities | Giacomo Meyerbeer | Early Romantic | Opera ...
Scribe formed a partnership with Auber, who set no less than 38 of his libretti to music. The central figures of French grand opéra, such as Halévy and Meyerbeer also recognized in Scribe an artist whose verse was capable of equalling the ‘size’ of their music. A situation in which composer and librettist ‘thought big’ was essential in grand ...
composer Flotow was a prolific composer of operas. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire (1828–30) and was influenced by the major opera composers of the day, including Rossini, Meyerbeer and Donizetti, and later by his friendships with Charles Gounod (1818–93) and Jacques Offenbach (1819–80). His early operas are in the French lyric style, but his most successful ...
concentrated on writing serious opera. Otello (1816), a highly reductive and free adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, despite a mediocre libretto, was much admired by other composers, including Meyerbeer and Verdi. It combined suggestions of Venetian local colour with forceful and dramatic vocal writing, notably in Desdemona’s ‘Willow Song’ which precedes her murder in the final act. The ...
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