1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
2.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
Paris
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In the 1860s Paris streets and monuments were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, making it literally "The City of Light."
Paris
Paris
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Gold coins minted by the Parisii (1st century BC)
Paris
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The
Palais de la Cité and
Sainte-Chapelle, viewed from the Left Bank, from the
Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (month of June) (1410)
3.
2nd arrondissement of Paris
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The 2nd arrondissement is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. The arrondissement contains the former Paris Bourse and a number of banking headquarters, as well as a textile district, known as the Sentier. The 2nd arrondissement is also the home of most of Pariss surviving 19th-century glazed commercial arcades, at the beginning of the 19th century most of the streets of Paris were dark and muddy and lacked sidewalks. A few entrepreneurs copied the success of the Passage des Panoramas and its well-lit, dry, ¹The peak of population actually occurred before 1861, but the arrondissement was created in 1860, so we do not have figures before 1861. The French newspaper LObs has its office in the arrondissement. Bourbon has its office in the arrondissement. All Nippon Airways has its Paris Office in the arrondissement, china Airlines also has its France office in the arrondissement. Aigle Azurs registered office is in the arrondissement, in terms of state-operated schools, the second arrondissement has three nursery schools, five primary schools, and one high school. The nursery schools are École Maternelle Dussoubs, École Maternelle Saint Denis, the primary schools are École Élémentaire Beauregard, École Élémentaire Dussoubs, École Élémentaire Etienne Marcel, École Élémentaire Jussienne, and École Élémentaire Louvois. Collège César Franck is the sole state-operated high school in the arrondissement, École Élémentaire Privée Saint-Sauveur is the sole private primary school institution in the second arrondissement. 2nd arrondissement travel guide from Wikivoyage
2nd arrondissement of Paris
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The former
Paris Bourse, located in the 2nd arrondissement.
2nd arrondissement of Paris
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Lycée Jean-Baptiste Lulli
2nd arrondissement of Paris
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Rotunda of the Galerie Colbert, built in 1826 as a rival to the next and then very popular "Galerie Vivienne" covered passageway
2nd arrondissement of Paris
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Mairie, 8 rue de la Banque
4.
Palais Garnier
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The Palais Garnier is a 1, 979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet, the Palais Garnier has been called probably the most famous opera house in the world, a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica. This opinion is far from unanimous however, the 20th-century French architect Le Corbusier once described it as a lying art, the Palais Garnier is a building of exceptional opulence. The style is monumental and considered Second-Empire Beaux-Arts style with axial symmetry in plan and these include very elaborate multicolored marble friezes, columns, and lavish statuary, many of which portray deities of Greek mythology. The principal facade is on the side of the building, overlooking the Place de lOpéra. Fourteen painters, mosaicists and seventy-three sculptors participated in the creation of its ornamentation, the two gilded figural groups, Charles Gumerys LHarmonie and La Poésie, crown the apexes of the principal facades left and right avant-corps. They are both made of gilt copper electrotype, the facade also incorporates other work by Gumery, Alexandre Falguière, and others. On the left and right lateral returns of the front facade are busts of the librettists Eugène Scribe and Philippe Quinault, when the Empire fell, work stopped, leaving unfinished dressed stonework. It is covered by a 13.5 metre diameter dome, two pairs of obelisks marking the entrances of the Rotunda to the north and the south. The interior consists of interweaving corridors, stairwells, alcoves and landings allowing the movement of large numbers of people, rich with velvet, gold leaf, and cherubim and nymphs, the interior is characteristic of Baroque sumptuousness. The building features a ceremonial staircase of white marble with a balustrade of red and green marble. Its design was inspired by Victor Louiss grand staircase for the Théâtre de Bordeaux, the pedestals of the staircase are decorated with female torchères, created by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse. When they were first fixed in two months before the opening of the building it was obvious to Garnier that they were too dark for the space. With the help of two of his students, Pils had to rework the canvases while they were in place overhead on the ceiling and, at the age of 61, he fell ill. His students had to finish the work, which was completed the day before the opening and this hall 18 meters high,154 meters long and 13 meters wide was designed to act as a drawing room for Paris society. Its ceiling was painted by Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry and represents various moments in the history of music, the foyer opens into an outside loggia at each end of which are the Salon de la Lune and Salon du Soleil. The auditorium has a traditional Italian horseshoe shape and can seat 1,979, the stage is the largest in Europe and can accommodate as many as 450 artists. The canvas house curtain was painted to represent a draped curtain, complete with tassels, the ceiling area, which surrounds the chandelier, was originally painted by Jules Eugène Lenepveu
Palais Garnier
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The façade of the Palais Garnier opera house
Palais Garnier
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Plan of the Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
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Gumery 's L'Harmonie (1869), atop the left
avant-corps of the façade, is 7.5 metres (25 ft) of gilt copper electrotype
Palais Garnier
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Facade of the Palais Garnier with labels indicating the locations of various sculptures
5.
Cavalleria Rusticana
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Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play and short story written by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced an open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera, which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics, the best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzognos expense. Targioni-Tozzetti chose Cavalleria rusticana, a short story by Giovanni Verga. He and his colleague Guido Menasci set about composing the libretto, sending it to Mascagni in fragments, the opera was finally submitted on the last day that entries would be accepted. In all,73 operas were submitted, and on 5 March 1890, there have been two other operas based on Vergas story. The first, Mala Pasqua. by Stanislao Gastaldon, was entered in the competition as Mascagnis. However, Gastaldon withdrew it when he received an opportunity to have it performed at the Teatro Costanzi, in the 1907 Sonzogno competition, Domenico Monleone submitted an opera based on the story, and likewise called Cavalleria rusticana. The opera was not successful in the competition, but premiered later that year in Amsterdam and went on to a tour throughout Europe. Sonzogno, wishing to protect the property which Mascagnis version had become, took legal action. Monleone changed the opera ‘beyond recognition’, setting the music to a new libretto, in this form it was presented as La giostra dei falchi in 1914. Cavalleria rusticana opened on the evening of 19 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome to an empty house. However, the audience included not only the most authoritative music critics in the country but also Queen Margherita and it was a success from its opening notes. Following Stagnos rendition of the Siciliana behind the curtain the audience leaped to their feet with a thunderous applause not heard for many years, the number was encored as were a number of other numbers in the opera. It was a sensation, with Mascagni taking 40 curtain calls, although Mascagni had started writing two other operas earlier, Cavalleria rusticana was his first opera to be completed and performed. It remains the best known of his fifteen operas and one operetta, apart from Cavalleria rusticana, only Iris and Lamico Fritz have remained in the standard repertory, with Isabeau and Il piccolo Marat on the fringes of the Italian repertoire. Its success has been ever since its first performance
Cavalleria Rusticana
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Scene from the world premiere of the opera
Cavalleria Rusticana
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Mascagni (center) with his librettists, Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti (left) and Guido Menasci
Cavalleria Rusticana
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Gemma Bellincioni as Santuzza, and her husband, Roberto Stagno, as Turiddu, in the 1890 premiere of Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria Rusticana
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Illustration from an early edition of Giovanni Verga's short story Cavalleria rusticana, on which the opera is based.
6.
Le chalet
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Le chalet is an opéra comique in one act by Adolphe Adam to a French libretto by Eugène Scribe and Mélesville after the singspiel Jery und Bätely by Goethe. The score re-uses material from Adams Prix de Rome cantata Ariane a Naxos, the opera was premiered on 25 September 1834 by the Paris Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse. The work had a long and successful career at the Opéra-Comique, it reached its 500th performance in 1851, its 1, 000th in 1873 and 1, 500th in 1922 with Miguel Villabella as Daniel. The scene is the inside of a chalet, open at the rear with a view of the countryside, after a chorus of young villagers, a young farmer, Daniel, the handsomest young man of Appenzell enters and sings of his love for Bettly. The villagers sing of his love, but in his joy he invites all to a wedding supper that evening. Daniel reads a letter from Bettly which she has written to him, returning his love, Bettly enters and it soon becomes clear that Bettly did not write the letter to Daniel and she mocks him for being taken in by a joke of her friends. Daniel is furious, having all the preparations for a marriage including a contract. In his letter to Bettly, Max urges her to marry –, Daniel hears troops approaching and asks them into the chalet, Max sings of his happiness of being back in his valley Vallons de lHelvétie. Daniel tells Max of his woes and asks to enlist in the army, Bettly enters and Max and his men demand food and wine. Max conceals his identity from his sister, and leads her to believe that she will be at the mercy of the regiment for two weeks. Max comes in pretending to be a bit drunk and Bettly cries for help, Daniel wakes and after an argument Max challenges him to a duel. This list of numbers is based on the Tallandier piano-vocal score. An earlier piano-vocal score published by Schonenberger omits No.1, a conductors orchestral score is held at the Bibliothèque-Musée de lOpéra National de Paris. Overture Introduction et Chorus Déjà dans la plaine Air Elle est à moi, cest ma compagne Couplets Dans ce modeste et simple asile Air Arrêtons-nous ici. Released on LP by Unique Opera Records Corporation UORC314, November – December,1976, also, Malibran CD694 and Hamburg, Line Music,2 CDs,2008. Joseph Peyron, Stanislas Staskiewicz, Denise Boursin, ORTF Lyric Orchestra, recorded 20 November 1965,33 minutes 18 seconds, musical excerpts without chorus and dialogue. Also includes music from Adams Le farfadet with Janine Capderou, Lina Dachary, Joseph Peyron, Bernard Plantey, Bernard Demigny, recorded 4 September 1970,37 minutes 35 seconds. Also, Gaieté lyrique CD,1992, Michel Parouty, OCLC29940067, Scribe et Mélesville, musique de Ad
Le chalet
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Adolphe Adam
Le chalet
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Costume designs for Daniel, Bettly, and Max in the original production
Le chalet
Le chalet
7.
La dame blanche
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La dame blanche is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. The opera has elements of the Romantic in its Gothic mode, including an exotic Scottish locale, a lost heir, a mysterious castle, a hidden fortune. The work was one of the first attempts to introduce the fantastic into opera and is a model for such as Giacomo Meyerbeers Robert le diable. The operas musical style also influenced later operas like Lucia di Lammermoor, I puritani. La dame blanche was first performed on 10 December 1825 by the Opéra-Comique at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris and it was a major success and became a standby of the 19th century operatic repertory in France and Germany. By 1862, the Opéra-Comique had given more than 1,000 performances of La dame blanche. It was first performed in England in English as The White Lady at the Drury Lane Theatre on 9 October 1826, the operas popularity began to diminish towards the very end of the 19th century and performances since have been rare. The opera was revived in Paris in 1996 by the conductor Marc Minkowski, various recordings of the opera have been made. The overture was put together from Boieldieus themes by his student Adolphe Adam, Boieldieus score is highly expressive and full of striking numbers. Of particular note are Jennys ballad, Browns entrance aria and the music sung by Anna, the aria from the opera that is most often performed today in recital is the tenor aria, Viens, gentille dame. The opera also makes use of Scottish folk tunes, place, Scotland Time,1753 The Count and Countess Avenel have both died in exile, leaving the fate of their castle and estate to their wicked and dishonest steward, Gaveston. The property is supposed to go to the Avenels son, Julien, Dickson, a tenant farmer on the land of the late Count, and his spouse Jenny are about to celebrate the baptism of their infant son when they realize that they do not have a godfather. A youthful officer in the English army, Georges Brown, offers to assume this role, Dickson informs Brown that the castle is going to be auctioned by Gaveston, who hopes to buy it and the title for himself. Jenny sings the Ballad of The White Lady, the White Lady being the spirit of the Avenels. Dickson receives correspondence from the White Lady, beckoning him to the castle, as he is too frightened to obey, Brown goes in his place. Meanwhile, Anna, an orphan raised by the Avenels, tells the elderly housekeeper Marguerite how she cared for a soldier who reminded her of Julien. Gaveston proclaims his plans for the auction the next morning, Brown appears, seeking shelter for the night. Left alone, he sings the cavatina, Viens, gentille dame, Anna enters, disguised as The White Lady, in a white veil
La dame blanche
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Operas by
François-Adrien Boieldieu
8.
Le domino noir
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Le domino noir is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed on 2 December 1837 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris. The libretto to the piece is by Aubers usual collaborator. It was one of Aubers most successful works, clocking up 1,207 performances by 1909 and it received its UK premiere in 1838 and appeared in the USA the following year. Some of Aubers music has a Spanish flavour to reflect its setting, in 1869, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky provided recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue for a proposed production of Le domino noir by an Italian opera company visiting Russia. No performances are believed to have taken place, but four of Tchaikovskys recitatives were included in Richard Bonynges recording of the opera, there was a production of the opera by Pierre Jourdan at the Théâtre Imperial at Compiègne in 1995. In 2007, the St. Petersburg Conservatory Theatre in Russia included Tchaikovskys recitatives in its production, time, c.1780 Place, Madrid The action concerns a young novice nun, Angèle de Olivarès. Enjoying her last freedom before taking vows, Angèle slips out of the Ursuline convent along with her companion Brigitte to attend a ball in honour of the Queen of Spains birthday. To conceal her identity, she wears a black half-mask, a year previously, at the same ball, Angèle had met a young man, Horace de Masserena. Horace has fallen in love with her and returns to the ball in the hope of seeing her again, instead he meets the unknown woman in the black mask and dances with her. Angèle runs off and tries to shelter for the night in a house she finds on the way. Unfortunately, it out to belong to Count Juliano who is holding a late-night party for his friends. Angèle persuades the housekeeper to disguise her as her niece from the country and she manages to fool everyone except, of course, Horace who recognises her from the ball a year ago. He does not tell anyone else but locks Angèle in a room where he hopes to keep her until she gives him an explanation. But Angèle is inadvertently freed by the lover, the drunken Gil Perez. Angèle manages to slip undiscovered into the convent, where on the same day she is to be installed as an abbess. Copies 1 and 2 at Internet Archive, Le domino noir Sumi Jo, Bruce Ford, Isabelle Vernet, Jules Bastin, London Voices, English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Richard Bonynge Notes Sources Booklet to the Bonynge recording. Holden, Amanda, The New Penguin Opera Guide, New York, Théâtre de lOpéra-Comique Paris, répertoire 1762-1972. Le domino noir, Scores at the International Music Score Library Project Libretto of Le domino noir
Le domino noir
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Daniel Auber
9.
Manon
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It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 19 January 1884, with sets designed by Eugène Carpezat, Auguste-Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon, and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre. Prior to Massenets work, Halévy and Auber had used the subject for musical stage works, Massenet also wrote a one-act sequel to Manon, Le portrait de Manon, involving the Chevalier des Grieux as an older man. The composer worked at the score of Manon at his home outside Paris. Manon is Massenets most popular and enduring opera and, having conquered the worlds stages. It is the example of the charm and vitality of the music. The opera was a mainstay of the Opéra-Comique in Paris, reaching its 1, 000th performance there in 1919, its 1, 500th in 1931 and 2, due to its heavy vocal demands, the role of Manon was described by Sills as the French Isolde. At the Royal Opera House in London it was first presented 19 May 1891, the Metropolitan Opera gave its first staging on 16 January 1895, and Manon has subsequently been performed there on 266 occasions. Anna Netrebko recently starred in a new production directed by Laurent Pelly, a co-production with the Royal Opera House, the San Francisco Opera gave the opera many stagings beginning on 29 September 1924, the most recent being November 1998. Operabase shows 19 countries presenting a total of 425 performances of 81 productions in 61 cities, the ballet Lhistoire de Manon by Kenneth MacMillan, although using music entirely written by Massenet, does not include any from Manon. While the innkeeper is serving dinner to the party, the townspeople collect to witness the arrival of the coach from Arras, among them is Lescaut, a guardsman, who tells his comrades that he plans to meet a kinswoman. Manon is accosted by the opportunistic Guillot, who tells her that he has a carriage waiting and his heavy-handed seduction is undermined by the return of Lescaut, who then lectures the young woman on proper behavior. He leaves her once more and she admires the three fashionably-dressed actresses, but reproaches herself, unconvincingly vowing to rid herself of all worldly visions. Des Grieux, traveling home to see his father, catches sight of Manon, when he approaches, she is charmed by his chivalrous address, and their exchange rapidly becomes a mutual avowal of love. Both their planned journeys, hers to the convent and des Grieuxs to his home, are swiftly abandoned, but there are hints of incompatible aspirations, while he returns, over and again, to tous les deux, the phrase she fondly repeats is, à Paris. Making good use of the carriage provided by the disappointed Guillot, Manon and des Grieuxs apartment in Paris With little hope, des Grieux writes to his father, imploring permission to marry Manon. Lescaut enters intent on creating a scene and accompanied by de Brétigny, but his concern for offended family honor is only camouflage for his alliance with his friend. Trying to prove his honorable intentions, des Grieux shows Lescaut the letter to his father, after the two visitors depart, Manon appears to vacillate between accepting de Brétignys offer and warning des Grieux. When her lover out to post his letter, her farewell to the humble domesticity she has shared makes clear she has decided to go with de Brétigny
Manon
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Jules Massenet
Manon
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"Gathering around a score" by Charles Baude (1853–1935) shows Massenet rehearsing Manon with Sibyl Sanderson in Pierre Loti's drawing room. It was used as the cover of Le Théâtre in July 1889.
Manon
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Dmitri Smirnov as Le Chevalier des Grieux (1909, by
Aleksandr Golovin)
Manon
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Geraldine Farrar as Manon
10.
Mignon
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Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, the Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyces The Dead and Willa Cathers The Professors House, thomass goddaughter Mignon Nevada was named after the main character. The first performance was at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 17 November 1866, the piece proved popular, more than 100 performances took place by the following July, the 1, 000th was given there on 13 May 1894, and the 1, 500th on 25 May 1919. The opera was adapted and translated into German for performance in Berlin with Madame Lucca as Mignon. This ending was an attempt to make the story of the somewhat more similar in tone to the tragic outcome of Goethes. Unsurprisingly, this Version allemande still failed to satisfy the German critics, as Henry Edward Krehbiel describes it, the Mignon of Carré and Barbier bears little more than an external resemblance to the Mignon of Goethe, and to kill her is wanton cruelty. Despite his success in Paris with the French version, Thomas was asked to revise the work for the first performance at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on 5 July 1870 and this version was given in Italian with recitatives. The role of Mignon, originally for mezzo-soprano, was sung by a soprano, the finale was also much shortened. Philines extra aria appears to have never been orchestrated, or the orchestration was lost or destroyed. The recording also includes an appendix with the original, longer version of the finale. The United States premiere was given on 9 May 1871 at the French Opera House in New Orleans and this was followed by a Maurice Strakosch production in Italian at the New York Academy of Music on 22 November 1871 with Christine Nilsson as Mignon, Mlle. Léon Duval as Philine, Victor Capoul as Wilhelm, and Mlle, the substantial success of the opera in London and New York has been attributed to the presence of Christine Nilsson in both productions. Nilsson also performed the role at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1883, more recently, in 1986, the original opéra comique version with soprano Cynthia Clarey as Mignon was revived for a production at the Wexford Festival Opera. Lily Pons was famous for singing Philine, time, End of the 18th century. In the courtyard of an inn in a small German town, the wandering minstrel Lothario sings, jarno threatens Mignon with a stick when she refuses to dance, but Lothario and Wilhelm Meister come to her aid. She thanks them and divides her bouquet of flowers between them. Wilhelm and Laerte have a drink together, Philine and Laerte leave, after he gives her his flowers from Mignon
Mignon
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Ambroise Thomas
Mignon
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Poster created by
Jules Chéret for the 1866 premiere of Mignon.
Mignon
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Célestine Galli-Marié created the role of Mignon at the première.
Mignon
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Marie Cabel as Philine
11.
Tosca
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Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900 and it contains depictions of torture, murder and suicide, as well as some of Puccinis best-known lyrical arias. Puccini saw Sardous play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. Tosca premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed for a day for fear of disturbances, despite indifferent reviews from the critics, the opera was an immediate success with the public. Musically, Tosca is structured as a work, with arias, recitative, choruses. Puccini used Wagnerian leitmotifs to identify characters, objects and ideas, the dramatic force of Tosca and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas. Many recordings of the work have been issued, both of studio and live performances, the French playwright Victorien Sardou wrote more than 70 plays, almost all of them successful, and none of them performed today. In the early 1880s Sardou began a collaboration with actress Sarah Bernhardt, Puccini had seen La Tosca at least twice, in Milan and Turin. Ricordi sent his agent in Paris, Emanuele Muzio, to negotiate with Sardou and he complained about the reception La Tosca had received in Italy, particularly in Milan, and warned that other composers were interested in the piece. Nonetheless, Ricordi reached terms with Sardou and assigned the librettist Luigi Illica to write a scenario for an adaptation, in 1891, Illica advised Puccini against the project, most likely because he felt the play could not be successfully adapted to a musical form. When Sardou expressed his unease at entrusting his most successful work to a new composer whose music he did not like. He withdrew from the agreement, which Ricordi then assigned to Alberto Franchetti, Illica wrote a libretto for Franchetti, who was never at ease with the assignment. There are several versions of how Ricordi got Franchetti to surrender the rights so he could recommission Puccini, by some accounts, Ricordi convinced Franchetti that the work was too violent to be successfully staged. Franchetti family tradition holds that Franchetti gave the work back as a gesture, saying. American scholar Deborah Burton contends that Franchetti gave it up simply because he saw merit in it. Franchetti surrendered the rights in May 1895, and in August Puccini signed a contract to control of the project. According to the libretto, the action of Tosca occurs in Rome in June 1800, Sardou, in his play, dates it more precisely, La Tosca takes place in the afternoon, evening, and early morning of 17 and 18 June 1800. Italy had long divided into a number of small states
Tosca
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Giacomo Puccini
Tosca
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Punch cartoon depicting the end of Sardou's La Tosca, 1888
Tosca
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The Battle of Marengo, as painted by
Louis-François Lejeune
Tosca
–
The Te Deum scene which concludes act 1; Scarpia stands to left. Photograph of a pre-1914 production at the old
Metropolitan Opera House, New York
12.
Werther
–
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann. It is loosely based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer and Pucitta. Massenet started composing Werther in 1885, completing it in 1887 and he submitted it to Leon Carvalho, the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique, that year, but Carvalho declined to accept it on the grounds that the scenario was too serious. Werther received its premiere on 16 February 1892 at the Imperial Theatre Hofoper in Vienna, the French-language premiere followed in Geneva on 27 December 1892. The United States premiere with the Metropolitan Opera took place in Chicago on 29 March 1894 and then in the companys main house in New York City three weeks later. The UK premiere was a performance at Covent Garden, London, on 11 June 1894 with Emma Eames as Charlotte, Sigrid Arnoldson as Sophie. Werther is still performed around the world and has been recorded many times. Although the role of Werther was written for a tenor, Massenet adjusted it for a baritone and it is very occasionally performed in this version, in which the changes affect only the vocal line for the title character. There are no changes to the words, to the lines for other characters. 2 flutes,2 Oboes,2 Clarinets in B-flat and A, Alto Saxophone,2 Bassoons,4 Horns in F,2 Trumpets,3 Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Harp, Strings. Time, Within the period July to December, in an year in the 1780s. In July, the widowed Bailiff, is teaching his six youngest children a Christmas carol and his drinking companions, Johann and Schmidt, arrive as Charlotte, the eldest daughter, dresses for a ball. Since her fiancé Albert is away, she is to be escorted by Werther, Werther arrives, and watches as Charlotte prepares her young siblings supper, just as her mother had before she died. He greets her and they leave for the ball, Albert returns unexpectedly after a six-month trip. He is unsure of Charlottes intentions and disappointed not to find her at home and he leaves after promising to return in the morning. After an orchestral interlude, Werther and Charlotte return very late and his declaration of love is interrupted by the announcement of Alberts return. Charlotte recalls how she promised her mother she would marry Albert. It is three months later, and Charlotte and Albert are now married and they walk happily to church to celebrate the ministers 50th wedding anniversary, followed by the disconsolate Werther
Werther
–
Jules Massenet
Werther
–
Grasset poster for 1893 French premiere of Werther
Werther
–
Ernest Van Dyck as Werther
Werther
–
Claire Croiza as Charlotte in 1907
13.
Carmen
–
Carmen is an opera in four acts by French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. The opera is written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue and it is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. José abandons his sweetheart and deserts from his military duties, yet loses Carmens love to the glamorous toreador Escamillo. The depictions of life, immorality, and lawlessness. After the premiere, most reviews were critical, and the French public was generally indifferent, Carmen initially gained its reputation through a series of productions outside France, and was not revived in Paris until 1883, thereafter it rapidly acquired popularity at home and abroad. Later commentators have asserted that Carmen forms the bridge between the tradition of opéra comique and the realism or verismo that characterised late 19th-century Italian opera. The opera has been recorded many times since the first acoustical recording in 1908, in the Paris of the 1860s, despite being a Prix de Rome laureate, Bizet struggled to get his stage works performed. The capitals two main state-funded opera houses—the Opéra and the Opéra-Comique—followed conservative repertoires that restricted opportunities for young native talent, Bizet was delighted with the Opéra-Comique commission, and expressed to his friend Edmund Galabert his satisfaction in the absolute certainty of having found my path. It was Bizet who first proposed an adaptation of Prosper Mérimées novella Carmen, Bizet may first have encountered the story during his Rome sojourn of 1858–60, since his journals record Mérimée as one of the writers whose works he absorbed in those years. Cast details are as provided by Mina Curtiss from the original piano, the stage designs are credited to Charles Ponchard. Place, Seville, Spain, and surrounding hills Time, Around 1820 Act 1 A square, on the right, a door to the tobacco factory. A group of soldiers relax in the square, waiting for the changing of the guard, moralès tells her that José is not yet on duty and invites her to wait with them. She declines, saying she will return later, José arrives with the new guard, which is greeted and imitated by a crowd of urchins. As the factory bell rings, the cigarette girls emerge and exchange banter with young men in the crowd, Carmen enters and sings her provocative habanera on the untameable nature of love. The men plead with her to choose a lover, and after some teasing she throws a flower to Don José, as the women go back to the factory, Micaëla returns and gives José a letter and a kiss from his mother. He reads that his mother wants him to home and marry Micaëla
Carmen
–
Cartoon from
Journal amusant, 1911
Carmen
–
Galli-Marié as Carmen
Carmen
–
A lithograph of act 1 in the premiere performance, by Pierre-Auguste Lamy, 1875
Carmen
–
Magdalena Kožená and
Jonas Kaufmann at the
Salzburg Festival 2012
14.
Middle Ages
–
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
Middle Ages
–
The
Cross of Mathilde, a
crux gemmata made for
Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (973–1011), who is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the
enamel plaque. The body of Christ is slightly later. Probably made in
Cologne or
Essen, the cross demonstrates several medieval techniques:
cast figurative sculpture,
filigree, enamelling, gem polishing and setting, and the reuse of Classical
cameos and
engraved gems.
Middle Ages
–
A late Roman statue
depicting the four Tetrarchs, now in
Venice
Middle Ages
–
Coin of
Theodoric
Middle Ages
–
Mosaic showing
Justinian with
the bishop of
Ravenna, bodyguards, and courtiers
15.
King Louis XIV
–
Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
King Louis XIV
–
Louis XIV by
Hyacinthe Rigaud (1701)
King Louis XIV
–
Louis-Dieudonné,
Dauphin of France, in 1643 by
Claude Deruet
King Louis XIV
–
Louis XIV as a child, unknown painter
King Louis XIV
–
1655 portrait of Louis, the Victor of the Fronde, portrayed as the god
Jupiter
16.
Jean-Baptiste Lully
–
Jean-Baptiste Lully was an Italian-born French composer, instrumentalist, and dancer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered a master of the French baroque style, Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in 1661, Lully was born on November 28,1632 in Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, to a family of millers. His general education and his training during his youth in Florence remain uncertain. He used to say that a Franciscan friar gave him his first music lessons and he also learned to play the violin. Guise took the boy to Paris, where the fourteen-year-old entered Mademoiselles service and he probably honed his musical skills by working with Mademoiselles household musicians and with composers Nicolas Métru, François Roberday and Nicolas Gigault. The teenagers talents as a guitarist, violinist, and dancer quickly won him the nicknames Baptiste, when Mademoiselle was exiled to the provinces in 1652 after the rebellion known as the Fronde, Lully begged his leave. Because he did not want to live in the country, by February 1653 Lully had attracted the attention of young Louis XIV, dancing with him in the Ballet royal de la nuit. By March 16,1653, Lully had been made royal composer for instrumental music and his vocal and instrumental music for court ballets gradually made him indispensable. In 1660 and 1662 he collaborated on performances of Francesco Cavallis Xerse. When Louis XIV took over the reins of government in 1661, in December 1661 the Florentine was granted letters of naturalization. The latter assertion was an untruth, from 1661 on, the trios and dances he wrote for the court were promptly published. When he became surintendant de la de la chambre du roi in 1661. He relied mainly on the Little Violins for court ballets and their collaboration began in earnest in 1664 with Le Mariage forcé. In 1672 Lully broke with Molière, who turned to Marc-Antoine Charpentier, having acquired Pierre Perrins opera privilege, Lully became the director of the Académie Royale de Musique, that is, the royal opera, which performed in the Palais-Royal. Between 1673 and 1687 he produced a new opera almost yearly and fiercely protected his monopoly over that new genre, after Queen Marie-Thérèses death in 1683 and the kings secret marriage to Mme de Maintenon, devotion came to the fore at court. The kings enthusiasm for opera dissipated, he was revolted by Lullys dissolute life, in 1686, to show his displeasure, Louis XIV made a point of not inviting Lully to perform Armide at Versailles. Lully died from gangrene, having struck his foot with his conducting staff during a performance of his Te Deum to celebrate Louis XIVs recovery from surgery
Jean-Baptiste Lully
–
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
–
Jean-Baptiste Lully, around 1670
Jean-Baptiste Lully
–
Garnier's engraving of Titon du Tillet's "French Parnassus", 1732
Jean-Baptiste Lully
–
Portrait of Several Musicians and Artists by François Puget [fr]. Traditionally the two main figures have been identified as the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the librettist Philippe Quinault. (
Musée du Louvre)
17.
Madame de Maintenon
–
Françoise dAubigné, Marquise de Maintenon was the second wife of King Louis XIV of France. She was known during her first marriage as Madame Scarron, and her marriage to the king was never officially announced or admitted, though she was very influential at court. She founded the Maison royale de Saint-Louis, a school for girls from noble families. Françoise dAubigné was born on 27 November 1635, but her place of birth is under speculation, a plaque suggests her birthplace was at the Hotel du Chaumont in Niort, in western France. Her mother, Jeanne de Cardilhac, was the daughter of Constants jailer and her grandfather was Agrippa dAubigné, a well-known Protestant General, a former intimate servant of Henry IV, and an epic poet. Suzanne would later go to serve Anne of Austria and Maria Theresa, in 1639 Françoises father was released from prison and went with his family to the island of Martinique in the West Indies. Jeanne was a mother, allowed her children few liberties. Constant returned to France, leaving his wife and children behind in Martinique, Jeanne was forever trying to be mother and father to her children, and eventually she made it back to France, to join her husband in 1647. Within months of her return to France Jeannes husband died and Françoise returned to the care of her aunt, Madame de Villette. The Villettes house, Mursay, became a memory for Françoise. The de Villettes were wealthy and took care of the child. When this became known to her godmothers family, an order was issued that Françoise had to be educated in a convent, Françoise disliked the convent life, but she grew to love one of the nuns there, Sister Céleste, who persuaded Françoise to take her First Communion. I loved her more than I could possibly say, I wanted to sacrifice myself for her service. Madame de Neuillant, the mother of Françoises godmother Suzanne, brought her to Paris and introduced her to sophisticated women and men, in her excursion with Madame de Neuillant, Françoise met Paul Scarron, who was 25 years older than she, and began to correspond with him. Scarron was a poet and novelist, who counted Marie de Hautefort. He offered her marriage, or to pay her dowry so that she enter a convent. Although Scarron suffered from acute and crippling rheumatoid arthritis, she accepted his proposal, the match permitted her to gain access to the highest levels of Paris society, something that would have otherwise been impossible for a girl from an impoverished background. For nine years, she was Scarrons wife and nurse, and a fixture in his social circle
Madame de Maintenon
–
The Marquise de Maintenon
Madame de Maintenon
–
Mme de Maintenon
18.
Alexis Piron
–
Alexis Piron was a French epigrammatist and dramatist. He was born at Dijon, where his father, Aimé Piron, was an apothecary, Piron senior wrote verse in the Burgundian language. Alexis began life as clerk and secretary to a banker, in 1719, when nearly thirty years old, he went to Paris, where an accident brought him money and notoriety. The jealousy of the regular actors produced an edict restricting the Théâtre de la Foire, or licensed booths at fair times, in 1728 he produced Les Fils ingrats at the Comédie-Française. His most intimate associates at this time were Mademoiselle Quinault, the actress and this lady was slightly older than Piron and not beautiful, but after twenty years acquaintance he married her in 1741. He was elected in 1753 to the Académie française, but his enemies raked up a certain Ode à Priape, dating from his early days, Piron was nevertheless given a pension, and during the last fifty years of his life was never in want. His best title to remembrance lies in his epigrams, friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm called him a machine a saillies. He was later elected to membership in the Académie des Sciences, Piron published his own theatrical works in 1758, and after his death his friend and literary executor, Rigoley de Juvigny, published his Œuvres completes. M. Bonhomme produced an edition in 1859, completed by Poésies choisies et pièces inédites in 1879. Piron is compared to the Elder in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Pavlovich as a compliment of wit and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Piron, Alexis
Alexis Piron
–
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the
talk page.
Alexis Piron
–
Alexis Piron, by
Jacques Caffieri.
19.
Charles-Simon Favart
–
Charles Simon Favart was a French playwright. Born in Paris, the son of a pastry-cook, he was educated at the college of Louis-le-Grand and his first success in literature was La France delivrée par la Pucelle dOrléans, a poem about Joan of Arc which obtained a prize of the Académie des Jeux Floraux. After the production of his first vaudeville, Les Deux Jumelles, circumstances enabled him to relinquish business and he provided many pieces anonymously for the lesser theatres, and first put his name to La Chercheuse desprit, which was produced in 1741. Among his most successful works were Annette et Lubin, Le Coq du milage, Ninette à la cour, Les Trois Sultanes and LAnglais de Bordeaux. By their united talents and labours, the Opéra-Comique rose to such a height of success that it aroused the jealousy of the rival Comédie-Française and was suppressed. Favart, left thus without resources, accepted the proposal of Maurice, comte de Saxe and it was part of his duty to compose from time to time impromptu verses on the events of the campaign, amusing and stimulating the spirits of the men. The marshal, an admirer of Mme Favart, began to pay her unwanted attentions, to escape him she went to Paris, and the wrath of Saxe fell upon the husband. A lettre de cachet was issued against him, but he fled to Strasbourg, Favart survived his wife by twenty years. After the marshals death in 1750 he returned to Paris and resumed his pursuits as a dramatist and it was at this time that he became friendly with the abbé de Voisenon, who helped him with his work, to what extent is uncertain. He had grown nearly blind in his last days, and died in Paris and his plays have been republished in various editions and selections. His correspondence with Count Durazzo, director of theatres at Vienna, was published in 1808 as Mémoires et correspondance littéraire and it furnishes valuable information on the state of the literary and theatrical worlds in the 18th century. Some 60 of the c.150 plays that he composed were published in his lifetime, in 10 volumes, under the title Théâtre de M. Favart, Paris, Duchesne, reprint in fac-simile, Geneva, Slatkine,1971,10 t. Favart also left Mémoires, published in 1808 by his grandson, Favart and his wife appeared in fictionalised form in Offenbachs 1878 opéra comique, Madame Favart, their second son, Charles Nicolas Favart was an actor and dramatist. Favart reworked Rinaldo di Capuas La Zingara as La Bohemienne, favarts Hippolyte et Aricie is a parody of the opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau bearing the same name. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
Charles-Simon Favart
–
Charles Simon Favart
20.
Jean Monnet (director)
–
Jean Monnet was a French theatre impresario and writer. A bakers son, he was orphaned at age 8 and taken in by his uncle before moving into the service of the duchesse de Berry at age 15 and he was the director of the Opéra-Comique at the Foire Saint-Laurent from 1743 to 1745 and from 1751 to 1757. These were his memoirs, which are very instructive on 18th century theatre life and it was republished by Henri dAlméras with an introduction and notes in 1908. Mémoires de Jean Monnet, Directeur du Théâtre de la Foire, copies 1 and 2 at the Internet Archive
Jean Monnet (director)
–
Jean Monnet in 1756 by
Maurice Quentin de La Tour
21.
Jean-Georges Noverre
–
Jean-Georges Noverre was a French dancer and balletmaster, and is generally considered the creator of ballet daction, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century. His birthday is now observed as International Dance Day, in 1747 he moved to Strasbourg, where he remained until 1750 before moving to Lyon. In 1751, he composed his first great work, Les Fêtes Chinoises for Marseilles, the work was revived in Paris in 1754 to great acclaim. In 1755, he was invited by Garrick to London, where he remained for two years, between 1758 and 1760 he produced several ballets at Lyon, and published his Lettres sur la danse et les ballets. It is from this period that the revolution in the art of the ballet for which Noverre was responsible can be dated, prior to Noverre Ballets were large spectacles that focused mainly on elaborate costumes and scenery and not on the physical and emotional expression of the dancers. He was next engaged by Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg, and later Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, in 1776, he was appointed maître des ballets of the Paris Opera at the request of Queen Marie Antoinette. He returned to Vienna in Spring of 1776 to stage ballets there and he regained this post until the French Revolution reduced him to poverty. He died on 19 October 1810 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, noverres friends included Voltaire, Mozart, Frederick the Great and David Garrick. The ballets of which he was most proud were his La Toilette de Venus, Les Jalousies du sérail, La dour corsaire and Le Jaloux sans rival. Besides the letters, Noverre wrote Observations sur la construction dune nouvelle salle de lOpéra, Lettres sur Garrick écrites a Voltaire, Noverre was born in Paris on 29 April 1727 to Marie Anne de la Grange and Jean Louys, a Swiss soldier. The couple expected their son to pursue a career but the boy chose dance, studying with M. Marcel. Noverres first professional experience probably occurred at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 8 June 1743 in Le Coq du village, in his middle and late teenage years, Noverre performed at Fontainebleau, and in Berlin before Frederick II and his brother Prince Henry of Prussia. Appearances in Dresden and Strasbourg followed before his return to the Opéra-Comique, in 1747, Noverre became ballet master in Strasbourg and created his first great success, the exotic Les Fêtes Chinoises. In 1748 in Strasbourg he married the actress Marie-Louise Sauveur, in 1750, he became principal dancer in Lyon and created his first ballet-pantomime, Le Jugement de Parisin 1751. Noverre traveled to Vienna, where he worked under Queen Marie- Theresa and became Maître de danse for her twelve-year-old daughter, Noverre and Marie Antoinette’s relationship grew and they became very close. Marie- Antoinette became a protégé to Noverre, in early 1754 Noverre produced a frightening and moving scene that disturbed the conservative queen and he lost his job. He moved to Strasbourg for one year in 1754, and returned to the Opéra-Comique, in 1755, he went to London with his wife, his sister and brother, and his company. There, he worked with David Garrick of the Drury Lane Theatre, learning new concepts of theatre, when the London production of Les Fêtes Chinoises was completely destroyed by rioters on the eve of the Seven Years War, Noverre and his family were forced to go into hiding
Jean-Georges Noverre
–
Jean-Georges Noverre (
Perronneau, 1764,
Louvre)
Jean-Georges Noverre
–
Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (fr),
Lyon 1760
22.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie, caused a stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lullys style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Rameaus music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent. The details of Rameaus life are obscure, especially concerning his first forty years. He was a man, and even his wife knew nothing of his early life. Rameaus early years are particularly obscure and he was born on 25 September 1683 in Dijon, and baptised the same day. His father, Jean, worked as an organist in churches around Dijon. The couple had children, of whom Jean-Philippe was the seventh. Rameau was taught music before he could read or write and he was educated at the Jesuit college at Godrans, but he was not a good pupil and disrupted classes with his singing, later claiming that his passion for opera had begun at the age of twelve. Initially intended for the law, Rameau decided he wanted to be a musician, and his father sent him to Italy, on his return, he worked as a violinist in travelling companies and then as an organist in provincial cathedrals before moving to Paris for the first time. Here, in 1706, he published his earliest known compositions, the works that make up his first book of Pièces de clavecin. In 1709, he moved back to Dijon to take over his fathers job as organist in the main church, the contract was for six years, but Rameau left before then and took up similar posts in Lyon and Clermont. During this period, he composed motets for church performance as well as secular cantatas, in 1722, he returned to Paris for good, and here he published his most important work of music theory, Traité de lharmonie. This soon won him a reputation, and it was followed in 1726 by his Nouveau système de musique théorique. In 1724 and 1729, he published two more collections of harpsichord pieces. Rameau took his first tentative steps into composing music when the writer Alexis Piron asked him to provide songs for his popular comic plays written for the Paris Fairs
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Jean-Philippe Rameau, by
Jacques Aved, 1728
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
The Cathedral of Saint-Bénigne, Dijon
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Bust of Rameau by Caffieri, 1760
Jean-Philippe Rameau
–
Portrait of Rameau by
Carmontelle, 1760
23.
Paris Conservatory
–
The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music, dance, and drama, today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. On 3 December 1783 Papillon de la Ferté, intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, the school was instituted by a decree of 3 January 1784 and opened on 1 April with the composer François-Joseph Gossec as the provisional director. Piccinni refused the directorship, but did join the faculty as a professor of singing, the new school was located in buildings adjacent to the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at the junction of the rue Bergère and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. In June, a class in dramatic declamation was added, in 1792, Bernard Sarrette created the École gratuite de la garde nationale, which in the following year became the Institut national de musique. On 3 August 1795, the government combined the École royale with the Institut national de musique, the combined organization remained in the facilities on the rue Bergère. The first 351 pupils commenced their studies in October 1796, a concert hall, designed by the architect François-Jacques Delannoy, was inaugurated on 7 July 1811. The hall, which exists today, was in the shape of a U. It held an audience of 1055, the acoustics were generally regarded as superb. The French composer and conductor Antoine Elwart described it as the Stradivarius of concert halls, in 1828 François Habeneck, a professor of violin and head of the Conservatorys orchestra, founded the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. The Society held concerts in the hall almost continuously until 1945, the French composer Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie fantastique in the conservatorys hall on 5 December 1830 with an orchestra of more than a hundred players. The original library was created by Sarrette in 1801, after the construction of the concert hall, the library moved to a large room above the entrance vestibule. In the 1830s, Berlioz became a curator in the Conservatory library and was the librarian from 1852 until his death in 1869. He was succeeded as librarian by Félicien David, Sarrette was dismissed on 28 December 1814, after the Bourbon Restoration, but was reinstated on 26 May 1815, after Napoleons return to power during the Hundred Days. However, after Napoleons fall, Sarrette was finally compelled to retire on 17 November, in 1819, François Benoist was appointed professor of organ. Probably the best known director in the 19th century was Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini maintained high standards and his staff included teachers such as François-Joseph Fétis, Habeneck, Fromental Halévy, Le Sueur, Ferdinando Paer, and Anton Reicha. Cherubini was succeeded by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber in 1842, in 1852, Camille Urso, who studied with Lambert Massart, became the first female student to win a prize on violin. The Conservatory Instrument Museum, founded in 1861, was formed from the instrument collection of Louis Clapisson, the French music historian Gustave Chouquet became the curator of the museum in 1871 and did much to expand and upgrade the collection
Paris Conservatory
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Entrance to the
CNSAD (48°52′21″N 2°20′49″E / 48.872559°N 2.34690°E / 48.872559; 2.34690)
Paris Conservatory
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Former Conservatoire building (until 1911) in the
9th arrondissement of Paris, which now houses the
CNSAD (48°52′23″N 2°20′49″E / 48.873074°N 2.347001°E / 48.873074; 2.347001)
Paris Conservatory
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Site plan (1836) of the
Menus-Plaisirs, the Concert Hall, and the Conservatoire
Paris Conservatory
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A concert in March 1843
24.
Egidio Duni
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Egidio Romualdo Duni was an Italian composer who studied in Naples and worked in Italy, France and London, writing both Italian and French operas. Born in Matera, Duni was taught music by his father, Francesco Duni, at the age of nine, he was accepted at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, near Naples. There he worked with Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giovanni Paisiello, and his first success was with the opera Nerone presented at the Rome Carnival in 1735. Thereafter he was in London, returning to Italy where he became maestro di cappella in Parma in 1749. He died in Paris. it biography Sassi Web biography Free scores by Egidio Duni at the International Music Score Library Project
Egidio Duni
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Egidio Duni at his piano, circa 1760
25.
Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny
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Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. Paul Dukas is quoted as saying, Of all the composers of our country, he may be the first who had the gift of true, human emotion, of communicative expression and he was educated at the Walloon Collége des Jésuites in Saint-Omer. It was here that he first discovered his aptitude for music and he entered into the service of the connoisseur of art and the theater, Louis Guillaume Baillet de Saint-Julien, in the bureau of the Comptabilité du Clergé de France. In 1752, after watching a performance of La serva padrona by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi at the Paris Opera and he then became Pietro Gianottis student, and a contra-bassist at the Paris Opéra. Secretly, with a text by La Ribardière, he wrote Les aveux indiscrets, his first comic opera and this work was well received, and that encouraged him to compose a second opera, in two acts, on a libretto by Pierre-René Lemonnier. Le maître en droit, the year, received the same positive public response. Michel-Jean Sedaine, a well-liked librettist, proposed to Monsigny a collaboration and their common production was excellent, On ne savise jamais de tout, Le roi et le fermier and Rose et Colas. On 15 April 1766, at the Académie royale de Musique, the critics were harsher two years later, with Lîle sonnante. The music, it is true, preserves its usual grace of Monsignys touch, however, Charles Collés libretto happened to be ill-adapted to the stage and justified the works lack of success. It is during this year of 1768 that the composer purchased the post of maître dhôtel in the service of the great courtier Louis Philippe I. A place in the entourage of this patron proved favorable to Monsignys inspiration, michel-Jean Sedaine submitted his libretto, Le déserteur, for which he composed his most successful score. Yet Le faucon, created in 1771 was a failure, on 17 August 1775, La belle Arsène caused controversy among critics. In 1777, following the success of Félix, ou Lenfant trouvé, at the beginning of 1784, he married Amélie de Villemagne, with whom he lived peacefully until 1789. The French Revolution and The Terror deprived them of all their material existence, the musician and his family sank into deep misery and oblivion for a few years. Hearing of the state of poverty, the members of the Opéra-Comique gave him a pension of 2400 pounds. The years of adversity came to an end and Monsigny reached once again his deserved success and he became inspector of teaching at the Conservatoire de Musique de Paris. In 1804, he received the title of Chevalier de la Légion dhonneur, in 1813, he succeeded Grétry at the Institute. Total blindness afflicted his last years, see List of operas by Monsigny
Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny
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Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny
26.
Michel-Jean Sedaine
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His father, an architect, died when Sedaine was quite young and left no fortune to inherit, the young Sedaine therefore began life as a masons labourer. He was at last taken as pupil by an architect whose kindness he eventually repaid, by the help he was able to give to his benefactors grandson, the painter David. Meanwhile he had done his best to repair his deficiencies of education, and in 1750 he published a Recueil de pièces fugitives, sedaines especial talent was, however, for light opera. He wrote Le diable à quatre, set mainly to vaudevilles with additional music by Philidor, Laruette, sedaines work in opéra comique attracted the attention of Diderot, and two plays of his were accepted and performed at the Théâtre Français. The first and longest, the Philosophe sans le savoir, was acted in 1765, the second and these two at once took their place as stock pieces and are still ranked among the best French plays, each of its class. Except these two pieces little or nothing of his has kept the stage and he wrote two historical dramas, Raymond V, comte de Toulouse ou Lépreuve inutile, and Maillard, ou Paris sauvé. Sedaine became a member of the Academy, and secretary for architecture of the arts division. Sedaine may be regarded as the ancestor of Scribe and Dumas. He had the knowledge of the theatre, which enabled him to carry out the ideas of Diderot. His Œuvres contain a notice of his life by Ducis, Sedaine, Michel-Jean in Sadie 1992, vol. The new Grove dictionary of opera, quotations related to Michel-Jean Sedaine at Wikiquote
Michel-Jean Sedaine
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Michel-Jean Sedaine, engraving by Pierre-Charles Lévesque after the portrait by
David.
Michel-Jean Sedaine
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A scene from Le diable à quatre
27.
Baldassare Galuppi
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Baldassare Galuppi was an Italian composer, born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Republic. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base remained Venice, to the succeeding generation of composers he was known as the father of comic opera. Some of his mature opere serie, for which his librettists included the poet, in these various capacities he composed a large amount of sacred music. He was also regarded as a virtuoso performer on and composer for keyboard instruments. Galuppis name persists in the English poet Robert Brownings 1855 poem A Toccata of Galuppis and his father was a barber, who also played the violin in theatre orchestras, and is believed to have been his sons first music teacher. From 1726 to 1728, Galuppi was harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the collaborators followed it with an opera seria, Dorinda, the next year. This, too, was successful, and Galuppi began to receive commissions for operas. In 1740, Galuppi was appointed director of music at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, in his first year of service at the Mendicanti, he composed 31 works,16 motets,13 settings of the Salve Regina, and two psalm settings. Although he became known as an operatic composer, he maintained a steady output of sacred music throughout his career. In 1741 Galuppi was invited to work in London and he petitioned the Mendicanti authorities for leave of absence, to which they agreed. He was in England for 18 months, supervising productions for the Italian opera company at the King’s Theatre, rival composer Handel attended one of these productions. Galuppi also attracted attention as a virtuoso and composer. His contemporary, the English musicologist Charles Burney, wrote that Galuppi had had influence on English music than any other Italian composer. However, in Burneys view Galuppis skills were still immature during his spell in London, Burney wrote, He now copied the hasty, light and flimsy style which reigned in Italy at this time, and which Handels solidity and science had taught the English to despise. On his return to Venice in May 1743, Galuppi returned to his employment with the Mendicanti, the operatic fashion in Venice was on the point of changing from opera seria to a new style of comic opera, dramma giocoso. He continued to compose operas, sometimes in partnership with the librettist Metastasio. The libretto Artaserse, by the imperial poet Metastasio was chosen for Galuppi to set to music. Daniel Heartz observes that, while ensembles in opera were not unusual, pieces in which the action is written into the music
Baldassare Galuppi
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Galuppi by a Venetian artist, bearing date 1751
Baldassare Galuppi
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Statue of Galuppi in the main square of Burano, the Piazza Galuppi
Baldassare Galuppi
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The King's Theatre, Haymarket, London
Baldassare Galuppi
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Galuppi's best-known librettists,
Metastasio, top, and
Carlo Goldoni
28.
Christoph Willibald Gluck
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Christoph Willibald Gluck was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. With a series of new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste. The strong influence of French opera in these works encouraged Gluck to move to Paris, fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French national genre into a new synthesis, Gluck wrote eight operas for the Parisian stages. One of the last of these, Iphigénie en Tauride, was a success and is generally acknowledged to be his finest work. Gluck was born on 2 July 1714 in Erasbach near Neumarkt and his father Alexander was a forester in Erasbach, and after 1717 head forester in Reichstadt, Kreibitz and Eisenberg, all in northern Bohemia. According to some biographers, it was here, in the middle of Lusatian Mountains, in 1727 the family moved to Eisenberg, where his father was admitted to the service of Prince Philip Hyazinth von Lobkowitz. The Alsatian painter Johann Christian von Mannlich says it was as a Bohemian schoolboy that Gluck received his first musical training. Mannlich relates in his memoirs, written in French and published in 1810 and he quotes Gluck as saying, My father was forestmaster at M. in Bohemia and he planned that eventually I should succeed him. In my homeland everyone is musical, music is taught in the schools, as I was passionate about the art, I made rapid progress. I played several instruments and the schoolmaster, singling me out from the other pupils, I no longer thought and dreamt of anything but music, the art of forestry was neglected. Most now claim that the object of Glucks travels was not Vienna but Prague, at the time the University of Prague boasted a flourishing musical scene that included performances of both Italian opera and oratorio. Gluck eventually left Prague without taking a degree, and vanishes from the record until 1737. According to the music historian Daniel Heartz, there has been considerable controversy concerning Glucks native language, Glucks first biographer, Anton Schmid, accepted that Gluck spoke Czech, but thought Salieri incorrect, proposing instead that Gluck learned Czech in Prague. Heartz writes, More devious manoeuvres have been attempted by Glucks German biographers of this century, while the French ones have, without exception, hans Joachim Moser wanted a lyric work in Czech as proof. In fact, the music theorist Larent Garcin, writing in 1770 before Gluck arrived in Paris, in 1737 Gluck arrived in Milan, where he studied under G. B. Sammartini, who, according to Carpani, taught Gluck practical knowledge of all the instruments, apparently this relationship lasted for several years. Set to a libretto by Metastasio, the opera opened the Milanese Carnival of 1742, according to one anecdote, the public would not accept Glucks style until he inserted an aria in the lighter Milanese manner for contrast. Nearly all of his operas in this period were, like Artaserse, set to Metastasios texts, in 1745 Gluck accepted an invitation to become house composer at Londons Kings Theatre, probably travelling to England via Frankfurt and in the company of Georg Christian, Fürst von Lobkowitz
Christoph Willibald Gluck
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Gluck in a 1775 portrait by
Joseph Duplessis
Christoph Willibald Gluck
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Castle Jezeří (de) (Schloss Eisenberg), 1882
29.
Daniel Auber
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Daniel François Esprit Auber was a French composer. The son of a Paris print-seller, Auber was born in Caen in Normandy, though his father expected him to continue in the print-selling business, he also allowed his son to learn how to play several musical instruments. His first teacher was the Tirolean composer, Josef Alois Ladurner, at the age of 20 Auber was sent to London for business training, but he was obliged to leave England in 1804 when the Treaty of Amiens was breached. Auber had already attempted musical composition, and at this period produced several concertos pour basse, modelled after the violoncellist Lamare, in whose name they were published. The praise given to his concerto for the violin, which was played at the Paris Conservatoire by Mazas, encouraged him to undertake a resetting of an old comic opera and he also began to study with the renowned Luigi Cherubini. In 1813 the unfavourable reception of his one-act debut opera Le Séjour militaire put an end for some years to his attempts as composer, but his failure in business, and the death of his father in 1819, compelled him once more to turn to music. He produced another opera, Le Testament et les billets-doux, which was no better received than the former, but he persevered, and the next year was rewarded by the complete success of La Bergère châtelaine, an opera in three acts. This was the first in a series of brilliant successes. In 1822 began his association with librettist Eugène Scribe. Their first opera, Leicester, shows evidence of the influence of Gioachino Rossini in its musical style, Auber soon developed his own voice, however, light, vivacious, graceful, and melodious—characteristically French. Le maçon was his first major triumph, staying in the repertory until the 20th century, an ensemble from the latter found its way into Herolds ballet La Somnambule as an air parlante. Auber achieved another triumph in La muette de Portici, also known as Masaniello after its hero. Produced in Paris in 1828, it became a European favourite, and the foundation work of a new genre, grand opera. La Muette broke ground also in its use of a ballerina in a leading role, official and other dignities testified to the public appreciation of Aubers works. In 1829 he was elected a member of the Institut de France, Fra Diavolo, which premiered on 28 January 1830, was his most successful opera. That same year,1830, he was named director of the court concerts, next year, on 20 June 1831, he had another big success, with Le Philtre, starring Adolphe Nourrit. The libretto was translated into Italian and set by Donizetti as Lelisir damore, two years later, on 27 February 1833, Gustave III, his second grand opera, also triumphed and stayed in the repertory for years. The libretto was to be used more, first by Saverio Mercadante for Il reggente, with the action transferred to Scotland
Daniel Auber
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Daniel François Esprit Auber
Daniel Auber
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Daniel François Esprit Auber, circa 1860s, by
Nadar
Daniel Auber
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Portrait of D.F.E. Auber from sheet music for Lestocq (Boston:
William H. Oakes, 19th century)
Daniel Auber
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Daniel François Esprit Auber (1869)
30.
Hector Berlioz
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Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts. Berlioz made significant contributions to the orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works, and he also composed around 50 songs. His influence was critical for the development of Romanticism, especially in composers like Richard Wagner, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss. Hector Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, Louis was an agnostic, with a liberal outlook, his mother, Marie-Antoinette, was a devout Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood, the other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life. Berlioz was not a prodigy, unlike some other famous composers of the time, he began studying music at age 12, writing small compositions. As a result of his fathers discouragement, he never learned to play the piano and he became proficient at guitar, flageolet and flute. He learned harmony from textbooks alone—he was not formally trained, the majority of his early compositions were romances and chamber pieces. While yet at age twelve, as recalled in his Mémoires, he experienced his first passion for a woman and he also began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library, seeking out scores of Glucks operas and making personal copies of parts of them. He recalled in his Mémoires his first encounter with Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini attempted to throw the impetuous Berlioz out of the library since he was not a formal music student at that time. Berlioz also heard two operas by Gaspare Spontini, a composer who influenced him through their friendship, and whom he later championed when working as a critic, from then on, he devoted himself to composition. He was encouraged in his endeavors by Jean-François Le Sueur, director of the Royal Chapel, in 1823, he wrote his first article—a letter to the journal Le corsaire defending Spontinis La vestale. Despite his parents disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his studies to pursue a career in music. This work was rehearsed and revised after the rehearsal but not performed until the following year, Berlioz later claimed to have burnt the score, but it was re-discovered in 1991. Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the opera Les francs-juges, the work survives only in fragments, the overture has been much recorded and is sometimes played in concert. In 1826 he began attending the Conservatoire to study composition under Jean-François Le Sueur and he also submitted a fugue to the Prix de Rome, but was eliminated in the primary round. Winning the prize would become an obsession until he won it in 1830
Hector Berlioz
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Crop of a
carte de visite photo of Hector Berlioz by Franck, Paris, c. 1855
Hector Berlioz
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Drawing of
Harriet Smithson as
Ophelia in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
Hector Berlioz
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Lithograph of Berlioz by
August Prinzhofer, Vienna, 1845. Berlioz considered this to be a good likeness.
Hector Berlioz
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Painting of a young Berlioz by
Émile Signol, 1832.
31.
Georges Bizet
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Georges Bizet, registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer of the romantic era. During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes and he was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were largely ignored, as a result, his career stalled. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, neither of his two operas that reached the stage in this time—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—were immediately successful. The production of Bizets final opera, Carmen, was delayed because of fears that its themes of betrayal and murder would offend audiences. After its premiere on 3 March 1875, Bizet was convinced that the work was a failure, Bizets marriage to Geneviève Halévy was intermittently happy and produced one son. After his death, his work, apart from Carmen, was generally neglected, manuscripts were given away or lost, and published versions of his works were frequently revised and adapted by other hands. He founded no school and had no obvious disciples or successors, after years of neglect, his works began to be performed more frequently in the 20th century. Later commentators have acclaimed him as a composer of brilliance and originality whose premature death was a significant loss to French musical theatre, Georges Bizet was born in Paris on 25 October 1838. He was registered as Alexandre César Léopold, but baptised as Georges on 16 March 1840 and his father, Adolphe Bizet, had been a hairdresser and wigmaker before becoming a singing teacher despite his lack of formal training. He also composed a few works, including at least one published song, in 1837 Adolphe married Aimée Delsarte, against the wishes of her family who considered him a poor prospect, the Delsartes, though impoverished, were a cultured and highly musical family. Aimée was an accomplished pianist, while her brother François Delsarte was a singer and teacher who performed at the courts of both Louis Philippe and Napoleon III. François Delsartes wife Rosine, a prodigy, had been an assistant professor of solfège at the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of 13. Georges, a child, showed early aptitude for music and quickly picked up the basics of musical notation from his mother. This precocity convinced his ambitious parents that he was ready to begin studying at the Conservatoire even though he was only nine years old. Georges was interviewed by Joseph Meifred, the horn virtuoso who was a member of the Conservatoires Committee of Studies, Meifred was so struck by the boys demonstration of his skills that he waived the age rule and offered to take him as soon as a place became available. Bizet was admitted to the Conservatoire on 9 October 1848, two weeks before his 10th birthday and he made an early impression, within six months he had won first prize in solfège, a feat that impressed Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, the Conservatoires former professor of piano
Georges Bizet
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Georges Bizet in 1875
Georges Bizet
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Part of the
Paris Conservatoire, where Bizet studied from 1848 to 1857 (photographed in 2009)
Georges Bizet
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Charles Gounod, depicted here in later life, was a mentor and inspiration to Bizet in the latter's Conservatoire years.
Georges Bizet
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The Villa Medici, the official home of the French Académie in Rome since 1803
32.
The Damnation of Faust
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La damnation de Faust, Op.24 is a work for four solo voices, full seven-part chorus, large childrens chorus and orchestra by the French composer Hector Berlioz. He called it a légende dramatique and it was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 6 December 1846. The French composer was inspired by a translation of Goethes dramatic poem Faust and produced a work that, like the masterpiece on which it is based. Conceived at various times as an oratorio and as an opera its travelogue form. Berlioz himself was eager to see the work staged, but once he did, most of the works fame has come through concert performances. Berlioz read Goethes Faust Part One in 1828, in Gérard de Nervals translation, I read it incessantly, at meals, in the theatre, in the street. He was so impressed that a suite entitled Eight Scenes from Faust became his Opus 1, the Metropolitan Opera premiered it first in concert and then on stage and revived it in concert at Carnegie Hall on 10 November 1996. Filmmaker Terry Gilliam made his debut at Londons English National Opera in May 2011. Three instrumental passages, the Marche Hongroise, Ballet des sylphes, hearing peasants sing and dance, he realizes that their simple happiness is something he will never experience. An army marches past in the distance, Faust doesnt understand why the soldiers are so enthusiastic about glory and fame. Depressed, Faust has returned to his study, even the search for wisdom can no longer inspire him. Tired of life, he is about to commit suicide when the sound of bells and an Easter hymn remind him of his youth. Suddenly Méphistophélès appears, ironically commenting on Fausts apparent conversion and he offers to take him on a journey, promising him the restoration of his youth, knowledge, and the fulfillment of all his wishes. Méphistophélès and Faust arrive at Auerbachs tavern in Leipzig, where Brander, the other guests offer an ironic Amen, and Méphistophélès continues with another song about a flea that brings his relatives to infest a whole royal court. Disgusted by the vulgarity of it all, Faust demands to be somewhere else. On a meadow by the Elbe, Méphistophélès shows Faust a dream vision of a woman named Marguerite. He calls out her name, and Méphistophélès promises to lead Faust to her, together with a group of students and soldiers, they enter the town where she lives. Faust and Méphistophélès hide in Marguerites room, Faust feels that he will find in her his ideal of a pure and innocent woman
The Damnation of Faust
–
Hector Berlioz
33.
Esclarmonde
–
Esclarmonde is an opéra in four acts and eight tableaux, with prologue and epilogue, by Jules Massenet, to a French libretto by Alfred Blau and Louis Ferdinand de Gramont. It was first performed on 15 May 1889 by the Opéra-Comique at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Place du Châtelet in Paris with American soprano Sibyl Sanderson in the role in her professional debut. The original costumes were by Charles Bianchini, the sets by Antoine Lavastre and Eugène Carpezat, Esclarmonde is perhaps Massenets most ambitious work for the stage and is his most Wagnerian in style and scope. In orchestral coloring and structure of melody, however, it is French to the core, the opera has been revived sporadically in the modern era, most notably during the 1970s with Joan Sutherland, conducted by Massenet champion Richard Bonynge. The role of Esclarmonde is notoriously difficult to sing, with stratospheric coloratura passages that are possible for only the most gifted of performers. The story of the opera is based on the medieval chivalric tale Parthénopéus de Blois, in the original tale, however, the protagonist sorceress is called Melior, Esclarmondes name was borrowed from another chanson de geste of the 13th century, Huon de Bordeaux. Although the Esclarmonde who appears in Huon is completely different from her operatic counterpart, Alfred Blau discovered Parthénopéus in 1871 in the library of Blois, where he took refuge during the time of the Paris Commune. The libretto was originally called Pertinax, it was first drafted in prose and later versified by Blaus collaborator, in that form – a romantic melodrama in five acts – it was offered in 1882 to the Belgian composer François-Auguste Gevaert, who, however, declined to set it. Soon the libretto found its way into Massenets hands, though the circumstances in which this occurred remain a mystery. He had already seen the entire Ring cycle when it was produced in Brussels in 1883, the work was commissioned as a spectacular event to open the Paris Exposition of 1889. The opera was completed by the end of 1888, and stage rehearsals started at Opéra-Comique, Massenet dedicated the work to Sybil Sanderson in gratitude, allowing her signature to stand alongside his own in the manuscript of the score. After a very successful run, however, the opera disappeared from the repertoire. Soon afterwards Sybil Sanderson fell ill, when she died around the start of the 20th century, it seems that Massenet himself lost interest in the opera he had written for her and he discouraged any further productions. The work was not revived until 1923, well after the composers death, some short-lived revivals then followed, either staged or in concert performance. It was only in the 1970s that the efforts of Richard Bonynge, since then the work has been performed more frequently, but it has failed to recapture its former glory. Listing below are based on Casaglia, Gherardo. December 17,1888 – the first rehearsal of Esclarmonde at Opéra-Comique in Paris,13 May 1889 – the final rehearsal of Esclarmonde. 10 September 1889 – 50th performance of Esclarmonde in Théâtre National de Opéra-Comique in Paris,20 more performances followed that premiere
Esclarmonde
–
Jules Massenet
Esclarmonde
–
Original poster for Paris premiere
34.
Louise (opera)
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Louise is an opera in four acts by Gustave Charpentier to an original French libretto by the composer, with some contributions by Saint-Pol-Roux, a symbolist poet and inspiration of the surrealists. The opera depicts Parisian working-class life, however the city itself is in many ways the true star of this very atmospheric work – invoked at various points during the opera. A French example of opera, it tells the story of the love between Louise, a seamstress living with her parents in Paris, and Julien, a young artist. It is the story of a young girls desire for freedom, Charpentier later wrote a sequel to Louise, the opera Julien, which describes the artistic aspirations of Louise’s suitor. Louise premiered on 2 February 1900 at the Opéra-Comique conducted by André Messager in a production by Albert Carré, the opera helped launch the career of the soprano Mary Garden, who sang Louise in Act 3 at the eighth performance. On 30 April 1900 the Opéra-Comique director Albert Carré gave away 400 seats to Paris dressmakers. The success in Paris led to productions in Algiers, Brussels, Budapest and Milan in 1901 and in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Geneva and Stockholm in 1902, followed by other cities. First seen in New York City at the Manhattan Opera House in 1908 and it was revived at the Met in a new production in 1930, broadcast twice, after 1949 it disappeared from the Met repertoire. Although it was hoped that Charpentier might conduct the performance, in the end André Cluytens did so, but with the composer conducting the Chant de l’apothéose after the 3rd act. Louise was staged by English National Opera in 1981, and more recently, at the Paris Opera, Duisberg, the Spoleto Festival, the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg and Mulhouse, there are several recordings, and the opera is still performed today. The third-act aria Depuis le jour is a concert piece that has often been recorded. The Parisian home of Louises parents Louise has fallen in love with her neighbor, at the opening of the opera, they recall how they met. Louises mother interrupts them and vocally expresses her disapproval of Julien, the exhausted father comes home from work and his wife and daughter implore him to quit the taxing job. However, he feels that it is his responsibility to provide for his family, at supper, he reads a letter that Julien left in which he proposed marriage to Louise. He is indifferent, but the mother is livid and, when Louise stands up for Julien, the peaceful father asks his daughter to sit with him and read the paper. As she reads about springtime in Paris, she breaks down, scene 1, A street in Paris It begins with a prelude that suggests dawn in Paris. The curtain rises to a scene where people go about their daily routines. The Noctambulist enters and calls himself the spirit of the Pleasure of Paris, Julien appears with a group of fellow bohemians to show them where Louise works
Louise (opera)
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Poster by
Rochegrosse for the opera's premiere
Louise (opera)
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Portrait of Charpentier by
Edgar-Henri Boutry, 1888
35.
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
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Ariane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play of the name by Maurice Maeterlinck. Dukas had been impressed by Maeterlincks play when it was first published in 1899, Maeterlinck had initially reserved the rights to use Ariane as a libretto for Edvard Grieg. When Grieg abandoned his plans to compose the opera, Maeterlinck offered it to Dukas instead, Dukas worked on the score between 1899 and 1906. The work has often compared to Debussys opera Pelléas et Mélisande, also based on a Maeterlinck play. Dukas, who knew Debussy well, actually borrowed three bars from Debussys opera to accompany the first mention of Mélisande, although the character is minor in Dukas opera and it received its first performance at the Opéra Comique in Paris, on 10 May 1907. Performances in the half of the twentieth century were rare. Ariane et Barbe-bleue premiered at Opéra Comique in Paris on 10 May 1907 with Maeterlincks partner, Georgette Leblanc and it was conducted by Alexander von Zemlinsky at the Vienna Volksoper on 2 April 1908. Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern were in the audience, further performances followed in Brussels, New York and Milan, Buenos Aires and Madrid. The British premiere did not take place until 20 April 1937, five commercial recordings exist, as well as recordings of an orchestral suite, prepared by Arturo Toscanini and premiered in a 1947 broadcast by the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Scene, A vast, lavish semi-circular hall in Barbe-bleues castle Ariane is destined to be Barbe-bleues sixth wife, as she and her nurse arrive at Barbe-bleues castle, they are greeted by a chorus of peasants clamouring for Barbe-bleues death because they believe he has murdered his former wives. Ariane is convinced they are still alive and she declares, Il maime, je suis belle, et jaurai son secret. Dabord il faut désobéir, cest le premier devoir quand lordre est menaçant et ne sexplique pas, – Les autres ont eu tort et les voilà perdues pour avoir hésité. Barbe-bleue has given her seven keys to his chambers, the six silver ones she is permitted to use. Ariane says this is the key which matters and goes to look for the seventh door while her nurse opens the others. The nurse turns the lock in the first door and a cascade of jewels, the second door reveals a shower of sapphires, the third, a deluge of pearls, the fourth, a waterfall of emeralds, the fifth, a tragic torrent of rubies. Ariane is unimpressed by the gems, although the contents of the sixth, avalanches of gigantic diamonds, the sixth door also reveals the vault containing the seventh to Ariane. Ignoring her nurses warning, she turns the key in the lock
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
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Paul Dukas, the composer of Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
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Georgette Leblanc, who created the role of Ariane
36.
La Voix humaine
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La voix humaine is a forty-minute, one-act opera for soprano and orchestra composed by Francis Poulenc in 1958. The work is based on the play of the name by Jean Cocteau. The libretto consists of a womans last phone conversation with her lover, during the call, the woman reveals that she has attempted suicide because her lover has abandoned her. The work has been frequently revived, sopranos from France, other continental European countries, the UK and the US have performed the solo role, and several of them, beginning with Duval, have recorded it. Cocteau finished writing La voix humaine in 1928, and the monodrama was premiered two years later, having been previously criticized for using mechanical effects in his plays, Cocteau sought to reduce his drama to the simplest of forms. Indeed, the play involves a single character in a single room with a telephone. The character—an anonymous woman referred to only as Elle —has been abandoned by her lover, the play consists of her last conversation with her lover. As a one-act play, the drama lacks the breaks that would determine its structure. Instead, Cocteau suggests that the actresss different poses represent different phases of the monologue, the structure of the play is further delineated by the phone cutting off frequently without warning. Upon the success of his second opera Dialogues des Carmélites in 1957, hervé Dugardin, the Paris director of Ricordi Publishers, suggested that Poulenc set Cocteaus monodrama to music, with Greek-American soprano Maria Callas singing the role of Elle. Poulenc, however, wrote the opera specifically for Denise Duval, Poulencs close work with Duval helped his compositional process because he knew the details of the sopranos stormy love life, and this helped to cultivate a sense of specificity in the opera. Poulenc also identified with Elles situation, which allowed him to pour immense anguish into his opera… Like her he abused sleeping pills, tranquilizers and he thus immersed himself in a deeply personal project with which he easily connected. Poulenc met Cocteau early in his career because of the close relationship with Les Six. The two maintained a friendship throughout their lives, but Poulenc did not set many of Cocteaus texts prior the composition of La voix humaine. Poulenc himself explained that he waited so many years to set Cocteaus play because he felt that he needed a deal of experience to perfectly construct such a work. In composing La voix humaine, Poulenc strove to maintain the effectiveness of Cocteaus original drama. He very carefully adapted Cocteaus text, omitting only those passages that he believed would reduce the tension of the opera. In his article on Poulenc and Cocteau, Denis Waleckx proposes that there are five types of phases in Cocteaus play and these phases deal with chronology, psychological evolution, social interaction, telephone problems, and the remembrance of past happiness
La Voix humaine
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Operas by
Francis Poulenc
La Voix humaine
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Example 1: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), 3 after no. 24
La Voix humaine
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Example 2: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), 3 before no. 63
La Voix humaine
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Example 3: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), no. 1 ("Exasperated waiting" motif)
37.
Paris Conservatoire
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The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France. The Conservatoire offers instruction in music, dance, and drama, today the conservatories operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. On 3 December 1783 Papillon de la Ferté, intendant of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, the school was instituted by a decree of 3 January 1784 and opened on 1 April with the composer François-Joseph Gossec as the provisional director. Piccinni refused the directorship, but did join the faculty as a professor of singing, the new school was located in buildings adjacent to the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at the junction of the rue Bergère and the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. In June, a class in dramatic declamation was added, in 1792, Bernard Sarrette created the École gratuite de la garde nationale, which in the following year became the Institut national de musique. On 3 August 1795, the government combined the École royale with the Institut national de musique, the combined organization remained in the facilities on the rue Bergère. The first 351 pupils commenced their studies in October 1796, a concert hall, designed by the architect François-Jacques Delannoy, was inaugurated on 7 July 1811. The hall, which exists today, was in the shape of a U. It held an audience of 1055, the acoustics were generally regarded as superb. The French composer and conductor Antoine Elwart described it as the Stradivarius of concert halls, in 1828 François Habeneck, a professor of violin and head of the Conservatorys orchestra, founded the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. The Society held concerts in the hall almost continuously until 1945, the French composer Hector Berlioz premiered his Symphonie fantastique in the conservatorys hall on 5 December 1830 with an orchestra of more than a hundred players. The original library was created by Sarrette in 1801, after the construction of the concert hall, the library moved to a large room above the entrance vestibule. In the 1830s, Berlioz became a curator in the Conservatory library and was the librarian from 1852 until his death in 1869. He was succeeded as librarian by Félicien David, Sarrette was dismissed on 28 December 1814, after the Bourbon Restoration, but was reinstated on 26 May 1815, after Napoleons return to power during the Hundred Days. However, after Napoleons fall, Sarrette was finally compelled to retire on 17 November, in 1819, François Benoist was appointed professor of organ. Probably the best known director in the 19th century was Luigi Cherubini, Cherubini maintained high standards and his staff included teachers such as François-Joseph Fétis, Habeneck, Fromental Halévy, Le Sueur, Ferdinando Paer, and Anton Reicha. Cherubini was succeeded by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber in 1842, in 1852, Camille Urso, who studied with Lambert Massart, became the first female student to win a prize on violin. The Conservatory Instrument Museum, founded in 1861, was formed from the instrument collection of Louis Clapisson, the French music historian Gustave Chouquet became the curator of the museum in 1871 and did much to expand and upgrade the collection
Paris Conservatoire
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Entrance to the
CNSAD (48°52′21″N 2°20′49″E / 48.872559°N 2.34690°E / 48.872559; 2.34690)
Paris Conservatoire
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Former Conservatoire building (until 1911) in the
9th arrondissement of Paris, which now houses the
CNSAD (48°52′23″N 2°20′49″E / 48.873074°N 2.347001°E / 48.873074; 2.347001)
Paris Conservatoire
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Site plan (1836) of the
Menus-Plaisirs, the Concert Hall, and the Conservatoire
Paris Conservatoire
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A concert in March 1843
38.
The English Cat
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The English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur dune chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac. The opera was first performed in a German translation by the Stuttgart Opera at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival on 2 June 1983, the French premiere was at the Opéra-Comique, Paris in 1984. The first performance using the original English text was at Santa Fe on 13 July 1985, the UK premiere was at the Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, on 19 August 1987. A revised version was performed at Montepulciano in 1990 and this was given in London in 1991, the opera is set in London in the 1890s. A group of cats has formed the Royal Society for the Protection of Rats. Avowed pacifists as well, the society has been raising a young mouse, Louise. There is a triangle between Lord Puff, his wife Minette, and Tom. Stanley Sadie ISBN 0-333-73432-7 The English Cat on the Schott Music website Wergo English language page on CD set of The English Cat
The English Cat
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Hans Werner Henze
39.
Dido and Aeneas
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Dido and Aeneas is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain and it was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priests girls school in London by the end of 1689. Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683, the story is based on Book IV of Virgils Aeneid. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, a monumental work in Baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas is remembered as one of Purcells foremost theatrical works. It was also Purcells only true opera, as well as his only all-sung dramatic work, one of the earliest known English operas, it owes much to John Blows Venus and Adonis, both in structure and in overall effect. The influence of Cavallis opera Didone is also apparent and he also composed songs for two plays by Nahum Tate, The Sicilian Usurper and Cuckold-Haven. Dido and Aeneas was Purcells first all-sung opera and derives from the English masque tradition, originally based on Nahum Tates play Brutus of Alba, or The Enchanted Lovers, the opera is likely, at least to some extent, to be allegorical. The prologue refers to the joy of a marriage between two monarchs, which could refer to the marriage between William and Mary. In a poem of about 1686, Tate alluded to James II as Aeneas, who is misled by the machinations of the Sorceress and her witches into abandoning Dido. The same symbolism may apply to the opera and this explains the addition of the characters of the Sorceress and the witches, which do not appear in the original Aeneid. It would be noble, or at least acceptable, for Aeneas to follow the decree of the Gods, no score in Purcells hand is extant, and the only seventeenth-century source is a libretto, possibly from the original performance. The earliest extant score, held in the Bodleian Library, was copied no earlier than 1750, no later sources follow the act divisions of the libretto, and the music to the prologue is lost. The first of the arias to be published separately was Ah, the most famous aria of the work is When I am laid in earth, popularly known as Didos Lament. Both arias are formed on a ground bass. Didos Lament has been performed or recorded by far from the typical operatic school, such as Klaus Nomi, Ane Brun. It has also been transcribed or used in scores, including the soundtrack to the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. It is played annually by a band at the Cenotaph remembrance ceremony. The music is thought by some to be too simple for Purcell in 1689, the work is scored for four-part strings and continuo
Dido and Aeneas
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Henry Purcell
Dido and Aeneas
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The Meeting of Dido and Aeneas by
Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Dido and Aeneas
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Stay, Prince and hear
40.
Atys (Lully)
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Atys is a tragédie en musique, a type of early French opera, in a prologue and five acts by Jean-Baptiste Lully to a libretto by Philippe Quinault based on Ovids Fasti. Although this opera was met with indifference by the Parisian audience and it was repeated for Louis XIV in 1678 and 1682. The French style of opera, established in the 1670s by Lully, was in five acts with a prologue, prologue Lullys prologues normally served to comment on current events at the court of Louis XIV in a way that flattered the king. When the opera was premiered in 1676, France was at war with the Netherlands, Louis XIV was waiting for the fairer spring weather to arrive so that he could invade Flanders. The scene for the prologue is at the Palace of the allegorical character Time, a chorus of Hours of the Day and Night sing the praises of a hero in Ses Justes loix, ses grands exploits. Flore, the goddess of spring and her nymphs arrive and discuss the arrival of spring, a Zephyr, on the other hand, laments the coming of spring and the battles that will follow. Just as the hero is about to leave for battle, Melpomene arrives and, in a gesture functioning as a transition to Act I, iris then enters and relays the message from the goddess Cybèle in Cybèle veut que Flore. This is followed by dances and the chorus Préparez vous de nouvelles festes. Act I Scene 1 takes place at the mountain of the goddess Cybèle. Atys sings the air Allons, allons at a tempo to wake up the Phrygians so that they can give a proper welcome to Cybèle. Idas mocks him in Scene 2, suggesting his motivation might be too much love for the goddess in the air Vous veillez lorsque tout sommeil, Sangaride and Doris arrive in Scene 3. Sangaride is betrothed to the king of the Phrygians, Celenus, the quartet sings Allons, allons accourez tous. In scene 4, we learn that Sangaride is in fact unhappy about her forthcoming wedding, to convey this, she sings the lament Atys est trop heureux based on the diatonically descending tetrachord model that had been established by Claudio Monteverdi in his Lament of the Nymph. During Scenes 5 and 6, Atys finds Sangaride lamenting and confesses his love for her in the recitative dialogue Sangaride ce jour est un grand jour pour vous, Sangaride is astonished by his declaration of love. Atys and Sangaride sing the duet Commençons, commençons and are joined by the chorus of Phrygians in Scene 7. After some dances by the Phrygians, Cybèle appears in Scene 8, the chorus of Phrygians motivate themselves to comply her wishes with Nous devons nous animer. Act II The scene of Act II is inside the temple of the goddess Cybèle, Celenus and Atys both announce their desire to be selected as the high priest of Cybèle in Scene 1s recitative Navancez plus loin. Atys then sings the air Quun indifférent est heureux, in Scene 2, Cybèle arrives and states that she chooses Atys as the high priest because she has secretly loved him
Atys (Lully)
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Jean-Baptiste Lully
41.
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
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Les Arts Florissants is a Baroque musical ensemble in residence at the Théâtre de Caen in Caen, France. The organization was founded by conductor William Christie in 1979, the ensemble derives its name from the 1685 opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The organization consists of an orchestra of period instruments and a small vocal ensemble. Current notable members include soprano Danielle de Niese and tenor Paul Agnew, jonathan Cohen is also on the conducting staff. Christie remains the organizations Artistic Director, although not specifically a baroque opera ensemble, it is within this field that Les Arts Florissants has achieved its greatest successes. The majority of the performances are of period operas, many of which are available on CD on the Harmonia Mundi and Erato labels. The group first drew international acclaim in the area of opera in December 1986-January 1987 with a production of Jean-Baptiste Lullys Atys at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. The opera had not been performed since 1753 and Christie had unearthed the score at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and created a performing edition. William Christie, There were a number of important moments in the history of the Arts Florissants, Christie had been approached by the director of the Paris Opera, Massimo Bogianckino, to think about putting on a Lully opera. The production marked the renaissance of Baroque Opera in France, the ensemble also occasionally presents works from the standard repertoire, most particularly a number of operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Les Arts Florissants has also had a number of successes in the concert repertoire, the organization has performed and recorded a number of oratorios, cantatas, madrigals, masses, motets, and other musical forms typical of early music. Many former members of Les Arts Florissants have gone on to have music careers outside of the organization. These include several internationally renowned conductors in the field of music, including Marc Minkowski, Christophe Rousset, Hugo Reyne. Arles, Harmonia Mundi,1996 Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers H.416, Sur la naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, H. N. J. C. Jesus-Christ, H.483, Magnificat à3 voix, H.416, Sur la naissance de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ H. William Christie et les théâtres des Arts florissants, Les Arts florissants de William Christie. William Christie et Les Arts Florissants,30 années en images, Official website Official resources website of Les Arts Florissants, with free scores, audio and video files, texts, photos. Official Facebook Page of Les Arts Florissants
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
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Baroque period instruments: a
lute, a
hurdy-gurdy, a
viola da gamba, a
baroque violin, and
baroque guitar.
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
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Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704) The ensemble derives its name from his opera
Les arts florissants, one of their earliest productions
Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)
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Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) The 1986 production of his opera
Atys by Les Arts Florissants brought the ensemble to international attention. The opera was subsequently recorded by the group for
Harmonia Mundi in 1993
42.
UEFA Cup
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The UEFA Europa League, previously called the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organized by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. Clubs qualify for the competition based on their performance in their national leagues, previously called the UEFA Cup, the competition has been known as the UEFA Europa League since the 2009–10 season, following a change in format. For UEFA footballing records purposes, the UEFA Cup and UEFA Europa League are considered the same competition, in 1999, the UEFA Cup Winners Cup was abolished and merged with the UEFA Cup. For the 2004–05 competition a group stage was added prior to the knockout phase, the 2009 re-branding included a merge with the UEFA Intertoto Cup, producing an enlarged competition format, with an expanded group stage and changed qualifying criteria. The winner enters at least at the round, and will enter the group stage if the berth reserved for the Champions League title holders is not used. The title has been won by 27 different clubs,12 of which have won the more than once. The UEFA Cup was preceded by the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, which was a European football competition played between 1955 and 1971, the competition grew from 11 teams during the first cup to 64 teams by the last cup which was played in 1970–71. It had become so important on the European football scene that in the end it was taken over by UEFA, the UEFA Cup was first played in the 1971–72 season, with an all-English final of Wolverhampton Wanderers versus Tottenham Hotspur, with Spurs taking the first honours. The title was retained by another English club, Liverpool in 1973, Borussia would win the competition in 1975 and 1979, and reach the final again in 1980. Liverpool won the competition for the time in 1976, beating Club Brugge in the final. During the 1980s, IFK Göteborg and Real Madrid won the competition twice each,1989 saw the commencement of the Italian clubs domination, when Maradonas Napoli beat Stuttgart. The 1990s started with two finals, and in 1992, Torino lost the final to Ajax on the away goals rule. Juventus won the competition for a time in 1993 and Internazionale kept the cup in Italy the following year. 1995 saw a third final, with Parma proving their consistency. The only final with no Italians during that decade was in 1996, Parma won the cup in 1999, which ended the Italian club era. Liverpool won the competition for the time in 2001 and Porto triumphed in the 2003 and 2011 tournaments. In 2004, the cup returned to Spain with Valencia being victorious, either side of Sevillas success, two Russian teams, CSKA Moscow in 2005 and Zenit Saint Petersburg in 2008, had their glory and yet another former Soviet club, Ukraines Shakhtar Donetsk, won in 2009. Atlético Madrid would themselves win twice in three seasons, in 2010 and 2012, the latter in another all-Spanish final, in 2013, Chelsea would become the first Champions League holders to win the UEFA Cup/Europa League the following year
UEFA Cup
–
UEFA Europa League
43.
Alcyone (opera)
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Alcyone is an opera by the French composer Marin Marais. It takes the form of a tragédie en musique in a prologue, the libretto, by Antoine Houdar de la Motte, is based on the Greek myth of Ceyx and Alcyone as recounted by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. The opera was first performed on 18 February 1706 by the Académie royale de musique at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris, the score is particularly famous for the storm scene in Act Four. The Marche pour les Matelots, also part of this movement, the mountain god Tmolus decides a musical competition between Pan and Apollo in favour of the latter. Apollo wishes for a return to the reign of peace over the world, Ceyx, King of Trachis, and Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, are due to be married. Peleus, the best friend of Ceyx, is also in love with Alcyone, the wedding ceremony is disrupted by the magic of Phorbas, whose ancestors once ruled Trachis and who is bent on revenge against Ceyx. Ceyx goes to Phorbass cave to him to stop his evil spells. But Phorbas tells Ceyx he must journey to the oracle of Apollo on the island of Claros to hear the gods verdict, in reality, this is a plan by Phorbas to bring about the death of Ceyx. Ceyx sets sail from the port of Trachis, Phorbas tells Peleus that he has arranged the voyage so Peleus can be free to woo Alcyone for himself. But Peleuss conscience is troubled when he sees Alcyone faint at the departure of Ceyx, Alcyone goes to the temple of Juno to pray for the safe return of Ceyx. She falls asleep and in a dream conjured up by Sommeil she sees a ship in trouble on a stormy sea, Peleus confesses his love for her and is so ashamed he offers to commit suicide. Alcyone sees a body washed up on the beach and, believing it is Ceyx, but Neptune restores the lovers to life and makes them responsible for calming the seas
Alcyone (opera)
–
Operas by
Marin Marais
44.
Jordi Savall
–
Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan conductor, viol player, and composer. His characteristic repertoire features medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music, although he has ventured into the Classical. His musical training started at age six in the choir of his native Igualada. In 1974 he formed the ensemble Hespèrion XX, together with his wife soprano Montserrat Figueras, Lorenzo Alpert, Hespèrion XX favored a style of interpretation characterized simultaneously by great musical vitality and maximum historical accuracy. In 1987 he returned to Barcelona to found La Capella Reial de Catalunya, more recently Savall has performed with family members. The family ensemble has included his wife Montserrat Figueras and their two children, Arianna and Ferran, Arianna plays the harp and sings, like her mother, Ferran plays the theorbo and sings, not only with his family but also in Barcelona jazz clubs. Savalls discography includes more than 100 recordings, originally recording with EMI Classics, and then from 1975 on Michel Bernsteins Astrée label, since 1998 he has recorded on his own label, Alia Vox. S. Bach 2000 -The Teares of the Muses, reina de Castilla 2004 -Harmonie Universelle II2005 - Les Concerts Royaux. François Couperin 2005 -Du temps & de linstant 2005 -Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles 2005 -Don Quijote de la Mancha 2005 -Altre Follie 2005 -La Musica notturna delle strade di Madrid, luigi Boccherini 2006 -Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Joseph Haydn 2007 -Claudio Monteverdi 2007 -Francisco Javier - The Route to the Orient 2008 -Estampies & Danses Royales 2008 -Fantasias for the Viols, georg Friederich Haendel 2008 -Invocation a la nuit 2008 -Su la Cetra Amorosa. Tarquinio Merula 2008 -Mireu el nostre mar 2008 -Jérusalem 2009 -Ministriles Royales, ménestrels royales – Royal Minstrels 2009 -The Celtic Viol - La Viole Celtique 2009 -The Fairy Queen. Henry Purcell 2009 -Maestros del Siglo de Oro 2009 -Peiwoh 2009 -Istanbul, dimitrie Cantemir 2009 - Septem Verba Christ in Cruce. Joseph Haydn 2009 -Le Royaumé Oublié2010 The Brandenbourgh Concertos -JS, Bach 2010 -El Nuevo Mundo 2010 -Le Concert Spirituel. Rameau 2010 -The Celtic Viol II, treble Viol & Lyra Viol 2010 -Dinastia Borgia 2010 -Pièces de Viole des Cinq Livres. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 2011 -El Cant de la Sibil·la a Catalunya 2011 -Cançons de la Catalunya Mil·lenària, planys & Llegendes 2011 -Lorquestre de Louis XV. Jean-Philippe Rameau 2011 -Hispania & Japan 2011 -Aria e Lamenti, claudio Monteverdi 2011 -Concerts à Deux Violes Esgales. Sieur de Sainte-Colombe 2011 -La Sublime Porte 2011 -Mare Nostrum 2012 -La Voix de lEmotion, Montserrat Figueras 2012 -Les Quatre Ouvertures. J. S Bach 2012 -Jeanne DArc 2012 -Ésprit DArménie, armenian Spirit 2012 -Pièces de Violes 1728
Jordi Savall
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Jordi Savall in 2007
Jordi Savall
–
Savall's discography includes more than 100 recordings. Originally recording with
EMI Classics, and then from 1975 on
Michel Bernstein, Astrée label, since 1998 he has recorded on his own label, Alia Vox.
45.
Salle Feydeau
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The Théâtre Feydeau, a former Parisian theatre company, was founded in 1789 with the patronage of Monsieur, Comte de Provence, and was therefore initially named the Théâtre de Monsieur. The company was renamed Feydeau after the family was arrested during the French Revolution. The Italian Luigi Cherubini was the composer, but the French composers Jean-François Le Sueur, François Devienne. In 1801 the Théâtre Feydeau merged with, and took the name of its chief rival, the Salle Feydeau was demolished shortly thereafter. Since the Théâtre de Monsieur was opened for the Kings brother and was at the Tuileries Palace, while most theatres of the time were only permitted to do one kind of drama, the Théâtre de Monsieur performed French drama, opéra comique, vaudeville, and Italian opera buffa. On 6 October 1789 Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette moved to the Tuileries Palace after being forced to leave Versailles for Paris by rioters, the companys last performance at the Tuileries was on 23 December, and it opened at the Salle des Variétés on 10 January 1790. The sixteen-year-old violinist Pierre Rode played a concerto by Viotti between the acts of Giuseppe Sartis Le gelosie villane on 18 October, the company continued to perform in the theatre at the Saint-Germain fairground until 31 December 1790. For the new theatre, a site just east of the end of the Tuileries Palace. This location was advantageous, even at this late date. Several other sites were considered, but by February 1790. Despite its proximity to the Salle Favart, home of the Opéra-Comique, and objections by Jean Sylvain Bailly, the mayor of Paris, permission was granted in April. The new theatre on the rue Feydeau was built in just over six months in a style to the designs by the architects Jacques Legrand. These designers were not too concerned with the practicality of the theatre space and it was a rectangular building that was curved on the side of the lobby at the front. On the curved front were seven windows that let natural light into the lobby. In between these windows were statues that were the height as the windows. These features, along with the statues on the outside of the lobby, were novel, the lobby was highly ornate and was where Legrand and Molnios focused a lot of their attention. The theatre was lit by candlelight and by hanging chandeliers, there were seats in the pit as well as lining the sides of the theatre. There were three balconies and two different standing areas, there were also boxed seats next to the stage
Salle Feydeau
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Salle Feydeau 48°52′11.43″N 2°20′24.20″E / 48.8698417°N 2.3400556°E / 48.8698417; 2.3400556
Salle Feydeau
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Architectural drawings of the Salle Feydeau
Salle Feydeau
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The Salle Feydeau (in blue) on an 1814 map of Paris
Salle Feydeau
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The Salle Feydeau as the
Opéra-Comique (c. 1801–1804)
46.
Salle Ventadour
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When the Théâtre-Italien company went out of business in 1878, the theatre was converted to offices. The Opéra-Comique first performed at the Salle Ventadour on 20 April 1829, the opening night audience was a distinguished one and found the new theatre luxurious and comfortable. After 22 March 1832 the Opéra-Comique left the Salle Ventadour and moved to the Salle de la Bourse, the Salle Ventadour was reopened on 10 June 1834 as the Théâtre Nautique — nautique since some of the main attractions were works performed in a basin of water on the stage. The programs included the ballet-pantomime Les ondines, which was based on Fouqués novella Undine, about a water sprite who marries a knight in order to save her soul, and used music from E. T. A. These were interspersed with choruses by Carl Maria von Weber and others, the entracte was the overture to Webers opera Oberon. The reviews were not good, and the size of the audience decreased over time and he called the concoction La derniére heure dun condamné, and it used music by Cesare Pugni. The new piece was a pantomime, since Smithsons French was far from perfect, unfortunately, this new performance was not as favorably received. But apparently her performances were not enough to rescue the enterprise, the Salle Ventadour was used for a brief time by the Théâtre-Italien after the destruction of the companys previous home, the Salle Favart, by fire on 15 January 1838. Only one opera new to Paris was presented, Gaetano Donizettis Parisina, the company moved to the Odéon for three years before returning to the Salle Ventadour in 1841. Their aim was to bring together in one theatre the elitist, the new company opened on 8 November 1838 with the premiere of Hugos drama Ruy Blas with Frédérick Lemaître in the title role. Two new plays by Dumas were also presented, Bathilde and Lalchimiste, jolys venture was short-lived however, closing on 16 May 1841. After the Théâtre de la Renaissance closed in 1841 the theater was expanded to a capacity of 1,294 and was used by the Théâtre-Italien company from 2 October 1841 to 28 June 1878. Among the important singers appearing in Verdis operas were Giorgio Ronconi, Adelaide Borghi-Mamo, verdi is reported to have referred to the Salle Ventadour as his favorite opera house in Paris. Besides opera, the Salle Ventadour was also used for concerts. Giaocchino Rossinis Stabat Mater received its premiere there on 7 January 1842, Richard Wagner conducted three concerts devoted to his own music, including extracts from The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde, and Lohengrin, on 25 January,1 and 8 February 1860. Verdi conducted the Paris premiere of his Requiem on 30 May 1876, the name Théâtre de la Renaissance was revived for the use of Carvalhos venture, in order to distinguish it from the Théâtre-Italien. Carvalho had overextended himself, however, and soon went bankrupt, the Théâtre-Italien also shared the theater with the Paris Opéra from 19 January to December 1874. Companies sharing the theatre usually performed on alternate nights, the libretto follows Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet more closely than that of the opera by Gounod, but Richard dIvrys opera suffered in comparison
Salle Ventadour
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The Salle Ventadour as an opera house in the mid 19th century.
Salle Ventadour
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A performance by the Théâtre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour (ca. 1843).
47.
Salle de la Bourse
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The name Théâtre des Nouveautés has been used successively to refer to several different Parisian theatre companies and their buildings, beginning in 1827. The current theatre was built in 1921 and is located at 24 boulevard Poissonnière, the name was used for three different companies prior to inauguration of the current company in 1921. The first Théâtre des Nouveautés opened on 10 March 1827 in the Salle de la Bourse located on the rue Vivienne, the founder was Cyprien Bérard, a former director of the Théâtre du Vaudeville. The programs consisted of ballads, opéras comiques, satires and political plays, the theatre suffered the prohibitions of censorship and had recurrent difficulties with the Opéra-Comique, which refused to share its privileges. However, for other reasons Bérard was forced to close his theatre on 15 February 1832, the companys last performance in the theatre was on 30 April 1840, after which it moved to the new Salle Favart. The Théâtre du Vaudeville then moved into the Salle de la Bourse, remaining there until 1869, the Salle de la Bourse was closed and immediately demolished. In its place there is now a pub named The Vaudeville in memory of that theatre, but a fire completely destroyed the new theatre just eight months after its opening. Rebuilt in less than three months, the theatre reopened on 28 January 1867, many productions followed until October 1873 when the theatre returned to its former name - Théâtre des Délassements-Comiques. This incarnation of the theatre was demolished in 1878, on 12 June 1878 a new Théâtre des Nouveautés was inaugurated at 26 boulevard des Italiens. This incarnation of the Théâtre des Nouveautés was demolished in 1911 to allow the construction of the rue des Italiens, the current Théâtre des Nouveautés was established in 1921 at 24 boulevard Poissonnière, under the leadership of Benoît-Léon Deutsch in collaboration with Gilbert Dupé. Built by the architect Adolf Tiers with 585 seats, the hall was inaugurated on 21 April 1921 with the play La journée des surprises by Jean Bouchor, the programming was devoted to operettas and comedies. Gilbert Dupé succeeded Benoît-Léon Deutsch from 1961 to 1973, denise Moreau-Chantegris took over in September 1973, and in 2010 Pascal Legros became the director of the theatre. 2009, Un oreiller … ou trois. by Ray Cooney and Gene Stone, the Company at the Heart of the Operatic Institution, Chollet and the Changing Nature of Comic-Opera Role Types during the July Monarchy in Fauser and Everist 2009, pp. 11–28. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, hemmings, F. W. J. Theatre and State in France, 1760–1905. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Théâtre de lOpéra-Comique Paris, répertoire 1762-1972. Some of the information in this article was translated from Wikipedia français
Salle de la Bourse
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Théâtre des Nouveautés in 2010
48.
Foire Saint-Laurent
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Théâtre de la foire is the collective name given to the theatre put on at the annual fairs at Saint-Germain and Saint-Laurent in Paris. The earliest references to the annual date to 1176. The covered Saint-Germain market today occupies part of the fairground site with access from the Boulevard Saint-Germain via the Rue de Montfaucon. The fair generally lasted three to five weeks around Easter, during the 18th century it consistently opened on 3 February and lasted until Palm Sunday. In 1618, André Soleil and Isabel Le Gendre met with similar success, later, marionette manipulators, tightrope walkers and animal trainers so delighted the fair-going public that in 1643, Paul Scarron dedicated a poem on the subject to the Duke of Orléans. Early operatic works by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny were performed at the fair, the intermède Les aveux indiscrets, and the opéras bouffons Le maître en droit, and Le cadi dupé. François-André Danican Philidors opéra comique Blaise le savetier was produced there on 9 March 1759, among depictions of this fair is the famous miniature dated 1763 by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe at the Wallace Collection in London. The Saint Laurent fair was first established in 1183 in central Paris at Les Champeaux, after a century and a half, it moved north of Paris to a site near the fairs new sponsor, the leper colony of Saint-Lazare. In 1661 it moved to an enclosure on the north side of the Rue de Saint Laurent, across from. The new location was just east of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, the Abbaye was later to become the Prison Saint-Lazare, and finally the Hôpital Saint-Lazare. Although the fairground was demolished in the early 19th century, its site is located directly southwest of the entrance to todays Gare de lEst. Many artists and performance troupes from the Saint-Germain fair also appeared at Saint-Laurent, as one fair happenened in the spring, beginning in the eighteenth century, the Saint-Laurent Fair was scheduled to last from 9 August to 29 September. Pierre-Alexandre Monsignys On ne savise jamais de tout was premiered there on 14 September 1761, founded in 1764 at the Place Louis XIV, the Saint-Ovide fair moved to the Place Louis XV in 1772. A small fair, it competed with the Saint-Laurent fair. It disappeared in 1777, destroyed by a fire, from marionettes and tightrope walkers, fairground performers gradually came to perform extremely small plays, often written by renowned and talented authors. After the expulsion of Italian actors in 1697, actors and showmen were emboldened, the professionalization of entertainment at the fair began to worry the Comédie-Française, which saw in it a dangerous competition. But it had not counted on the tricks that fairground actors were able to deploy to subvert these prohibitions, later they invented a form of jargon evoking a sort of low Latin, but which did not compete with the French language of which the Comédie-Française claimed exclusive use. Later, performers would write all the dialogue on écriteaux, a sort of paper roll on which they displayed the words of the play, the Comédie-Française no longer had any objective reasons for working against the fair performers, their claims had been met
Foire Saint-Laurent
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The
Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1615 with the Foire Saint-Germain just behind, the
Église Saint-Sulpice (upper right) and the old city wall with two gates (upper left) on the
Merian plan of Paris
Foire Saint-Laurent
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The Foire Saint-Germain as shown in
Turgot's 1739 map of Paris with the
Église Saint-Sulpice (upper right)
Foire Saint-Laurent
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A fire which destroyed the Foire Saint-Germain on the night of 16/17 March 1762
Foire Saint-Laurent
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The Foire Saint-Germain after its reconstruction in 1763. A
parade, a short comic entertainment to entice passersby to buy tickets, is being performed on the balcony of
Nicolet's theatre.
49.
Blaise le savetier
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Blaise le savetier is a 1759 one-act opéra comique, by the French composer François-André Danican Philidor. The libretto was by Michel-Jean Sedaine, after a story by Jean de La Fontaine entitled Conte dune chose arrivée à Château-Thierry, the first complete opéra comique by the composer, it was premiered by the Opéra-Comique at the Foire St Germain in Paris, on 9 March 1759. Very successful in Paris, the work was performed in French in Brussels in January 1760. Further performances in French were given in Amsterdam beginning on 26 May 1762, Turin in the spring of 1765, Hanover on 17 July 1769, prince, Jean Michel as Babiche, Michel Forel as Mathurin, and Guy Saint-Clair as Jeannot. Bampton Classical Opera performed the opera in English in 2012 and it was translated into German by J. H. Faber and performed in Frankfurt in 1772 and Munich on 19 May 1785. An adaptation in Swedish was prepared by Carl Envallsson and performed in Stockholm on 21 April 1797, a Dutch version by J. T. Neyts was also published. A German adaptation called Der Dorfbarbier with text by C. F. Weisse, an adaptation called The Cobler, or A Wife of Ten Thousand with text and music by Charles Didbin was first produced in London at Drury Lane on 9 December 1774. Julian Rushton comments that the work combines well-turned ariettes with usual flair for writing, forming an excellent farce. Stylized laughter, sobbing and trembling anticipate later onomatopoeic effects, Daniel Heartz has written that the strengths of Philidors art are already fully apparent in Blaise. His ability to characterize different personalities or actions simultaneously represents a breakthrough in opera, andré Grétry asserted that Philidor was the first to create ensembles with contrasting rhythms, and that nothing like it had been heard in Italian theatres. He credited Philidors ability to produce these complex amalgams to his mastery of chess, the story concerns an attractive, but penniless, young couple and a predatory landlady and her husband. The landlady tries to buy the favours of the young man, notes Sources Amadeus Almanac, accessed 25 November 2010 Brenner, Clarence D. The Theatre Italien, Its Repertory, 1716–1793, OCLC557673281,459611766,2167834 Heartz, Daniel. Music in European Capitals, The Galant Style, 1720–1780, totowa, New Jersey, Rowman and Littlefield. Rushton, Julian, Blaise le savetier in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie ISBN 0-333-73432-7 Wild, Nicole, Charlton, théâtre de lOpéra-Comique Paris, répertoire 1762-1972
Blaise le savetier
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François-André Danican Philidor
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