Jacopo Peri | L'Ulisse errante

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The Diva and Bagnacavallo | Ebe Stignani

When the diva is a mezzo Romantic opera brought at the centre of the stage sopranos, heroines of every love drama composed by Bellini to Donizetti to Puccini passing through Verdi. Mezzo-sopranos in those days played somehow the part of “Cinderella”, before the meeting with the fairy Godmother. Relegated mostly to a secondary role, they were seldom able to share the popularity and admiration granted to the leading sopranos of their time. Ebe Stignani, one of the most beautiful voices of the last century Take for example Ebe Stignani. Not many know her or who she was, yet she was one of the most beautiful voices and of the finest musicians of the last century. Ebe Stignani and Maria Callas Stignani was a main star at the Teatro Alla Scala while Maria Callas was just starting her cooperation with the Milan stage. Those were Callas’ difficult first years at La Scala, where she debuted in 1950 as a replacement to Renata Tebaldi in Aida. There was certainly a pre-established criticism if not hostility and even a lack of interest for Callas’ vocal talents, that kept growing till 1953 when, after a Norma with Stignani, the Greek soprano left Italy to return […]

December

Rome, the Domus Aurea | Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea

The libretto for Monteverdi’s Opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea was mainly drawn from the roman historians Tacitus. Its leading character is Poppea, the beautiful mistress who became wife to the Roman Emperor Nero, one of the most loved and, at the same time, hated emperor of the ancient Rome. Nero after the great fire of Rome, built on the Colle Oppio, the most lavish and vast villa of the ancient Rome, the Domus Aurea.

March

Bologna | A setting for Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto

Giovanni Bertati sets The Secret Marriage in Bologna not without a reason: Bologna is historically a wealthy city, hometown for enterprising bourgeois engaged in commerce and industry. The city is famous for its towers and long arcades, for the beautiful well-preserved historic centre, one of the largest in Italy. Well renowned is also Bologna strong culinary tradition.

December

Il Matrimonio Segreto by Domenico Cimarosa

Domenico Cimarosa’s most successful opera, The Secret Marriage, was composed on a libretto written by Giovanni Bertati, a Venetian employed as court poet in Vienna, on a subject very popular at the time. The story was in fact at the centre of a series of 6 paintings by William Hogarth, the Marriage in Fashion, le Mariage à la Mode, published in London between 1743 and 1745, depicting the bad consequences of a wedding between a penniless aristocrat and a rich bourgeois. Bertati the librettist turns the social satire into a mockery of bourgeois, eager to ennoble but happy to save half of the dowry when the opportunity arises.

Opera | A Renaissance creation

Opera: the merging of bass and singing on a unique melodic line The main difference between…

Tag Archives: Jacopo Peri

The Diva and Bagnacavallo | Ebe Stignani

Rome, the Domus Aurea | Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea

Bologna | A setting for Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto

Il Matrimonio Segreto by Domenico Cimarosa

Opera | A Renaissance creation

L’Ulisse Errante

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