1.
Manhattan
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Manhattan is the most densely populated borough of New York City, its economic and administrative center, and the citys historical birthplace. The borough is coextensive with New York County, founded on November 1,1683, Manhattan is often described as the cultural and financial capital of the world and hosts the United Nations Headquarters. Many multinational media conglomerates are based in the borough and it is historically documented to have been purchased by Dutch colonists from Native Americans in 1626 for 60 guilders which equals US$1062 today. New York County is the United States second-smallest county by land area, on business days, the influx of commuters increases that number to over 3.9 million, or more than 170,000 people per square mile. Manhattan has the third-largest population of New York Citys five boroughs, after Brooklyn and Queens, the City of New York was founded at the southern tip of Manhattan, and the borough houses New York City Hall, the seat of the citys government. The name Manhattan derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, a 1610 map depicts the name as Manna-hata, twice, on both the west and east sides of the Mauritius River. The word Manhattan has been translated as island of hills from the Lenape language. The United States Postal Service prefers that mail addressed to Manhattan use New York, NY rather than Manhattan, the area that is now Manhattan was long inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. In 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano – sailing in service of King Francis I of France – was the first European to visit the area that would become New York City. It was not until the voyage of Henry Hudson, an Englishman who worked for the Dutch East India Company, a permanent European presence in New Netherland began in 1624 with the founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island. In 1625, construction was started on the citadel of Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan Island, later called New Amsterdam, the 1625 establishment of Fort Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan Island is recognized as the birth of New York City. In 1846, New York historian John Romeyn Brodhead converted the figure of Fl 60 to US$23, variable-rate myth being a contradiction in terms, the purchase price remains forever frozen at twenty-four dollars, as Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace remarked in their history of New York. Sixty guilders in 1626 was valued at approximately $1,000 in 2006, based on the price of silver, Straight Dope author Cecil Adams calculated an equivalent of $72 in 1992. In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant was appointed as the last Dutch Director General of the colony, New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city on February 2,1653. In 1664, the English conquered New Netherland and renamed it New York after the English Duke of York and Albany, the Dutch Republic regained it in August 1673 with a fleet of 21 ships, renaming the city New Orange. Manhattan was at the heart of the New York Campaign, a series of battles in the early American Revolutionary War. The Continental Army was forced to abandon Manhattan after the Battle of Fort Washington on November 16,1776. The city, greatly damaged by the Great Fire of New York during the campaign, became the British political, British occupation lasted until November 25,1783, when George Washington returned to Manhattan, as the last British forces left the city
2.
Chambers Street (Manhattan)
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Chambers Street is a two-way street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from River Terrace, Battery Park City, in the west, past PS234 and Stuyvesant High School to 1 Centre Street, in the early 20th century the street continued through that buildings archway. Between Broadway and Centre Street, Chambers Street forms the boundary of the grounds surrounding New York City Hall. Opposite the Tweed Courthouse sits the Surrogates Courthouse for Manhattan,280 Broadway the Marble Palace, lies west of there, on the north side of Chambers. Beginning in 2010, Chambers Street was fully reconstructed, john Murray, Chambers law partner, has nearby Murray Street named after him
3.
Broadway (Manhattan)
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Broadway /ˈbrɔːdweɪ/ is a road in the U. S. state of New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in New York City, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement, the name Broadway is the English language literal translation of the Dutch name, Brede weg. Broadway is known widely as the heart of the American theatre industry, Broadway was originally the Wickquasgeck Trail, carved into the brush of Manhattan by its Native American inhabitants. Wickquasgeck means birch-bark country in the Algonquian language and this trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail became the main road through the island from Nieuw Amsterdam at the southern tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David Pietersz. de Vries gives the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642, the Dutch named the road Heerestraat. Although current street signs are simply labeled as Broadway, in a 1776 map of New York City, in the mid-eighteenth century, part of Broadway in what is now lower Manhattan was known as Great George Street. An 1897 City Map shows a segment of Broadway as Kingsbridge Road in the vicinity of what is now the George Washington Bridge. In the 18th century, Broadway ended at the town north of Wall Street, where traffic continued up the East Side of the island via Eastern Post Road. The western Bloomingdale Road would be widened and paved during the 19th century, on February 14,1899, the name Broadway was extended to the entire Broadway/Bloomingdale/Boulevard road. Broadway once was a street for its entire length. The present status, in which it runs one-way southbound south of Columbus Circle, on 6 June 1954, Seventh Avenue became southbound and Eighth Avenue became northbound south of Broadway. On 3 June 1962, Broadway became one-way south of Canal Street, with Trinity Place, northbound traffic on Broadway now needs to take Amsterdam Avenue to 73rd Street, make a sharp turn on the very narrow 73rd and then right turn on Broadway. Otherwise, and effectively, the traffic on Broadway has been diverted into Amsterdam Avenue. In August 2008, two lanes from 42nd to 35th Streets were taken out of service and converted to public plazas. Additionally, bike lanes were added on Broadway from 42nd Street down to Union Square, the city decided that the experiment was successful and decided to make the change permanent in February 2010. Additionally, portions of Broadway in the Madison Square and Union Square have been dramatically narrowed, Broadway runs the length of Manhattan Island, roughly parallel to the North River, from Bowling Green at the south to Inwood at the northern tip of the island. South of Columbus Circle, it is a southbound street
4.
Opera house
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An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other houses are part of larger performing arts centers. In contrast, there was no house in London when Henry Purcell was composing. Early United States opera houses served a variety of functions in towns and cities, hosting community dances, fairs, plays, with the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the 19th century, European culture moved away from its patronage system to a publicly supported system. In the 2000s, most opera and theatre companies raise funds from a combination of government and institutional grants, ticket sales, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples introduces the plant horseshoe, the oldest in the world, a model for the Italian theater. On this model were built following theaters of Italy and Europe, among others, the theater of the Palace of Caserta. Given the popularity of opera in 18th and 19th century Europe, opera houses are large, with generally more than 1,000 seats. Modern opera houses of the century such as New Yorks Metropolitan Opera. Many operas are better suited to being presented in smaller theatres, in a traditional opera house, the auditorium is U-shaped, with the length of the sides determining the audience capacity. Around this are tiers of balconies, and often, nearer to the stage, are boxes and this is especially true of Wagners Bayreuth Festspielhaus where the pit is almost completely covered. The size of an opera orchestra varies, but for some operas, oratorios and other works, it may be large, for some romantic period works. Similarly, an opera may have a large cast of characters, chorus, dancers, therefore, a major opera house will have extensive dressing room facilities. Opera houses often have on-premises set and costume building shops and facilities for storage of costumes, make-up, masks, and stage properties, major opera houses throughout the world often have highly mechanized stages, with large stage elevators permitting heavy sets to be changed rapidly. At the Metropolitan Opera, for instance, sets are changed during the action, as the audience watches. This occurs in the Mets productions of such as Aida. Much the same happened in the remodeling of Milans La Scala opera house between 2002 and 2004, since the 1990s, however, many opera houses have begun using a subtle form of sound reinforcement called acoustic enhancement. Often, operas are presented in their languages, which may be different from the first language of the audience. For example, a Wagnerian opera presented in London may be in German, therefore, since the 1980s modern opera houses have assisted the audience by providing translated supertitles, projections of the words above or near to the stage
5.
Broadway theatre
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Along with Londons West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world. The Theater District is a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the great majority of Broadway shows are musicals. They presented Shakespeare plays and ballad operas such as The Beggars Opera, in 1752, William Hallam sent a company of twelve actors from Britain to the colonies with his brother Lewis as their manager. They established a theatre in Williamsburg, Virginia and opened with The Merchant of Venice, the company moved to New York in the summer of 1753, performing ballad operas and ballad-farces like Damon and Phillida. The Revolutionary War suspended theatre in New York, but thereafter theatre resumed in 1798, the Bowery Theatre opened in 1826, followed by others. Blackface minstrel shows, a distinctly American form of entertainment, became popular in the 1830s, by the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. In 1829, at Broadway and Prince Street, Niblos Garden opened, the 3, 000-seat theatre presented all sorts of musical and non-musical entertainments. In 1844, Palmos Opera House opened and presented opera for four seasons before bankruptcy led to its rebranding as a venue for plays under the name Burtons Theatre. The Astor Opera House opened in 1847, booth played the role for a famous 100 consecutive performances at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1865, and would later revive the role at his own Booths Theatre. Other renowned Shakespeareans who appeared in New York in this era were Henry Irving, Tommaso Salvini, Fanny Davenport, lydia Thompson came to America in 1868 heading a small theatrical troupe, adapting popular English burlesques for middle-class New York audiences. Thompsons troupe called the British Blondes, was the most popular entertainment in New York during the 1868–1869 theatrical season, the six-month tour ran for almost six extremely profitable years. Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown beginning around 1850, in 1870, the heart of Broadway was in Union Square, and by the end of the century, many theatres were near Madison Square. Broadways first long-run musical was a 50-performance hit called The Elves in 1857, New York runs continued to lag far behind those in London, but Laura Keenes musical burletta The Seven Sisters shattered previous New York records with a run of 253 performances. It was at a performance by Keenes troupe of Our American Cousin in Washington, the production was a staggering five-and-a-half hours long, but despite its length, it ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post was the first show to call itself a musical comedy, Tony Pastor opened the first vaudeville theatre one block east of Union Square in 1881, where Lillian Russell performed. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 and 1890, with book and lyrics by Harrigan and music by his father-in-law David Braham. They starred high quality singers, instead of the women of repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. Plays could run longer and still draw in the audiences, leading to better profits, as in England, during the latter half of the century, the theatre began to be cleaned up, with less prostitution hindering the attendance of the theatre by women
6.
William Evans Burton
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William Evans Burton, who often went by the nickname Billy, was an English actor, playwright, theater manager and publisher who relocated to the United States. Intended for a career in the church, Burton was a pupil at St. Pauls School in London, an institution associated also with the dramatic names of Robert William Elliston and Charles Mathews. At the age of 18, in consequence of the death of his father, the youth was called to take charge of the printing office and his first effort was to establish a monthly magazine. The attempt was a failure, but it brought him theatrical acquaintances, the first step in his theatrical career, as usual, was to join an amateur dramatic society, and it is said that about this time he gave a performance of Hamlet somewhere on the Strand. In 1825 he was associated with a provincial company acting at Norwich, and elsewhere in England, and he played low comedy. His aspirations at the start were for the tragic, and it is known that late in life he still at times entertained the fancy that nature had intended him to be a tragedian. Burton was one of the funniest creatures that lived, but his interior nature was thoughtful. He thought, felt, and understood tragedy, but when he came to act, at the outset of his career he led the usual life of an itinerant actor. There is a tradition that in the course of his wanderings he once played before George IV at Windsor. John Liston was then the favorite in London, and next to Liston stood John Reeve. His talents as a writer likewise displayed themselves at an early age, Burton went on to a large number of plays during his career. On 10 April 1823 Burton had married Elizabeth Loft, by whom in 1824 he had a son. The marriage was not a success, and partly due to this in 1834 Burton relocated to the United States, where he appeared in Philadelphia as Dr. Ollapod in The Poor Gentleman. He took a prominent place, both as actor and manager, in New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore, the theatre which he leased in New York being renamed Burtons Theatre. He was very successful as Captain Cuttle in John Broughams dramatization of Dombey and Son, in 1837 in Philadelphia he established the Gentlemens Magazine, of which Edgar Allan Poe was for some time the editor. His magazine was intended for an audience, incorporating the standard fare of poetry and fiction. For the September 1837 issue Burton wrote an early example of the story, The Secret Cell, detailing a London policemans efforts to trace an abducted girl. Burton likely served as a critic himself for the magazine
7.
John M. Trimble
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H. P. Phelps writes, Mr. John Montague Trimble…was born in New York, in 1815, …and became stage carpenter at the old Bowery. He, in time, acquired the trades of carpentry and masonry, and also learned something of architecture. He became famous as the Lightning Builder, once, when the Bowery burned down, he re-erected it in sixty days. He built Barnums old museum, Genins hat store, and other buildings, almost without number, during the California excitement, he built many houses which were shipped to the Pacific coast, all ready to be put up. He delighted to make a contract to have a certain number done in a short time, say forty days. He understood, thoroughly, the way to employ a number of men at the same time. His work seemed always done by magic, …While building the New Bowery, in 1859, he went to bed one night and arose the next morning, blind. … bore up bravely under this painful affliction, although he never did much work afterward. One summer, …it was suggested to him to come to Albany and change the old Pearl street theatre, then a church, into its original condition. He thought well of the idea, acted upon it, and so, in 1863, became for the first time in his life, a manager. He died at 4 A. M. June 7,1867, at 31 Beaver street, of consumption, in 1848, he was engaged to enlarge the Albany Museum, a theatre. In 1857, he designed Pikes Opera House in Cincinnati along with Horatio Nelson White, the following year, he designed Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina, which is still in use. Notes Sources Bishir, Catherine W. and Buchman, Tim North Carolina Architecture, the Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina, Inc.2005 Brown, Thomas Allston A History of the New York Stage, Vol.1. Ireland, Joseph N. Records of the New York Stage, morrison, Craig Theaters Phelps, H. P. Players of a Century, A Record of the Albany Stage, steelman, Ben “What is Thalian Hall. ”At website MyReporter. com Thalian Hall at website of Wilmington Downtown, Inc
8.
I puritani
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I puritani is an opera in by Vincenzo Bellini. It was originally written in two acts and later changed to three acts on the advice of Gioachino Rossini, with whom the composer had become friends. Taking from April until its premiere the following January, Bellini had time to ensure that the opera was as close to perfection as possible. In a word, my dear Florimo, it was an unheard of thing, upon his arrival in Paris, Bellini quickly entered into the fashionable world of the Parisian salons, including that run by Princess Belgiojoso whom he had met in Milan. In addition to the writers of the time, among the musical figures which he would have encountered were several Italians such as Michele Carafa and Luigi Cherubini. Thus, for most of the remainder of 1833, Bellinis musical activity was very limited and he pleaded guilty in the letter to Florimo in March 1834 noting that the citys attractions were immense. The contract to write a new opera for the Théâtre-Italien, which was signed in January 1834, in the same letter he tells of working towards finding a subject with the Italian émigré, Count Pepoli, who had not written a libretto before. The chosen source of the libretto was identified as a play performed in Paris only six months before in September 1833. When first shown the play and other subjects by Pepoli, in the opinion of writer William Weaver, it was clearly the heroines madness that attracted the composer. But a month later, he comments to Florimo on what it takes working on the libretto with Pepoli, keeping moving ahead costs me a lot of weariness, he lacks practice which is a great thing. Finally, Bellini stated that he did not want to negotiate with anybody until I see what success my opera will have and this included a proposal from the Opéra-Comique in Paris for a new opera for that company. Pepoli adopts a modern aesthetic agenda, condemning vocal ornamentation as a dilution of dramatic sense and attacking imitation as cheapening musics inherent, quoting Pepoli, Smart continues, for this song the people fight, win, triumph, Europe and the world shouted Liberty. It is beautiful to face death shouting liberty, then she recounts how Bellini reacted to what she describes as Pepoli’s “hotheaded patriotism which appears in librettist’s poetry. Around the middle of April 1834, Bellini became concerned when he learned that Gaetano Donizetti would be composing for the Théâtre-Italien during the season as the one for which he was writing. As it transpired, Bellinis total success and Donizettis moderate one with Marin Faliero was insignificant, throughout his stay in Paris, Bellini had cultivated the older composer and had maintained a friendship with him, I have always adored Rossini, and I succeeded, and happily. Tamed Rossinis hatred, I no longer was frightened and finished work of mine which won me so much honour. Later, the dress rehearsal, he wrote. With rehearsals planned for late December/early January, the dress rehearsal took place on 20 January 1835 and it was attended by all of high society, all the great artists, and everyone most distinguished in Paris were in the theatre, enthusiastic
9.
Emma Albertazzi
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Emma Albertazzi was an English stage contralto. Born Emma Howson, she was the daughter of Francis Howson and she was a pupil of Michael Costa with whom she began studying at the age of 14 in London. She debuted in 1829 at Argyle Rooms, London and she was engaged at Her Majestys Theatre in 1830, and then in Piacenza, Italy in 1831, where she married the Italian lawyer Albertazzi. While in Italy she was a pupil of famed soprano Giuditta Pasta and she sang in La Scala, Madrid, and Paris at the Théâtre des Italiens, her most brilliant period. She reappeared in London in 1837-1839 where she performed in the world premiere of Michael William Balfes Falstaff on 19 July 1838. The Wilis ran for 21 performances, with Albertazzis final performance on 7 January 1847 and she had, however, already given a farewell concert in London in 1846. According to Bakers Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, she had a fine voice, henry Fothergill Chorley expressed the same view in his musical memoirs. However, his contemporary, dramatic author, Edward Fitzball took a different view. Never presented itself to the eye, or tender heart. Her voice was unsurpassable. Her singing of Di Piacer is not to be described, … poor lovely Albertazzi, … died young after a brief career, like a bird that sings sweetly beneath our lattice, then takes flight to more sunny regions. … An Englishwoman by birth … voice and execution have seldom been surpassed by a foreigner. According to Fitzball, Albertazzi died young in a deep decline, the term deep decline possibly period code for tuberculous meningitis. S. in the 1870s with some success, settling there permanently
Media related to Palmo's Opera House at Wikimedia Commons