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226-812: The Théâtre Lyrique was one of four opera companies performing in Paris during the middle of the 19th century (the other three being the Opéra , the Opéra-Comique , and the Théâtre-Italien ). The company was founded in 1847 as the Opéra-National by the French composer Adolphe Adam and renamed Théâtre Lyrique in 1852. It used four different theatres in succession, the Cirque Olympique ,

452-519: A conductor . Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western classical music , and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres , including some that include spoken dialogue such as Singspiel and Opéra comique . In traditional number opera , singers employ two styles of singing: recitative ,

678-482: A "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts , such as acting , scenery , costume , and sometimes dance or ballet . The performance is typically given in an opera house , accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble , which since the early 19th century has been led by

904-529: A British official to England. In the meantime, on 4 September, a group of republican deputies proclaimed the return of the Republic , and the creation of a Government of National Defense . From 5 September 1870 until 19 March 1871, Napoleon III and his entourage, including Joseph Bonaparte's grandson Louis Joseph Benton, were held in comfortable captivity in a castle at Wilhelmshöhe , near Kassel . Eugénie traveled incognito to Germany to visit Napoleon. When

1130-436: A French translation by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré of Mozart's four-act comic opera Le nozze di Figaro (8 May 1858; 200 performances); L'enlèvement au sérail , a French translation by Prosper Pascal of Mozart's two-act opéra comique Die Entführung aus dem Serail (11 May 1859; 87 performances); and Gluck's Orphée (18 November 1859; 138 performances). The last had been translated from

1356-563: A French translation by Adolphe de Leuven and Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges (1 September 1857; 28 performances), and the one-act opéra comique Abou Hassan in a French translation by Charles Nuitter and Louis-Alexandre Beaumont (11 May 1859; 21 performances). Other successful revivals under Carvalho's leadership at the Théâtre Historique included André Grétry 's three-act opéra comique Richard Coeur-de-lion (23 May 1856; 302 performances); Les noces de Figaro ,

1582-605: A Monastery , and War and Peace ; as well as Dmitri Shostakovich in The Nose and Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District , Edison Denisov in L'écume des jours , and Alfred Schnittke in Life with an Idiot and Historia von D. Johann Fausten . Czech composers also developed a thriving national opera movement of their own in the 19th century, starting with Bedřich Smetana , who wrote eight operas including

1808-610: A boarding school for girls on Royal York Crescent in Clifton , Bristol, to learn English. Eugénie was teased as "Carrots" for her red hair and tried to run away to India, making it as far as climbing on board a ship at Bristol docks. In August 1837, they returned to school in Paris. However, much of the girls' education took place at home, under the tutelage of English governesses Miss Cole and Miss Flowers, and family friends such as Prosper Mérimée and Henri Beyle . In March 1839, on

2034-573: A cello; or accompagnato (also known as strumentato ) in which the orchestra provided accompaniment. Over the 18th century, arias were increasingly accompanied by the orchestra. By the 19th century, accompagnato had gained the upper hand, the orchestra played a much bigger role, and Wagner revolutionized opera by abolishing almost all distinction between aria and recitative in his quest for what Wagner termed "endless melody". Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagner 's example, though some, such as Stravinsky in his The Rake's Progress have bucked

2260-557: A change in setting from Bohemia during the Thirty Years War to ostensibly Yorkshire during the reign of Charles I , although Sir Walter Scott 's novels may also have been an influence, since Scotland is also mentioned. The famous Wolf's Glen scene was located at the crossroads of Saint Dunstan. Among the alterations to the music was the addition of a duet ("Hin nimm die Seele mein!") from Weber's Euryanthe , although Perrin appears to have omitted this. Weber had objected to

2486-763: A child by Pauline Viardot , had failed to make much of an impression at the Opéra-Comique in the 1849–1850 season, but she achieved greater success at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels from 1850 to 1853 and in guest appearances in France at theatres in Lyons and Strassbourg . At the Lyrique she began attracting the carriage trade, and boxes had to be reserved four or five days in advance. The first 15 performances of

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2712-550: A civil ceremony at the Tuileries , and on the 30th, there was a grander religious ceremony at Notre Dame . The marriage had come after considerable activity concerning who would make a suitable match, often toward titled royals and with an eye to foreign policy. The final choice was opposed in many quarters. Eugénie was considered of too little social standing by some. In the United Kingdom, The Times made light of

2938-506: A complex web of leitmotifs , recurring themes often associated with the characters and concepts of the drama, of which prototypes can be heard in his earlier operas such as Der fliegende Holländer , Tannhäuser and Lohengrin ; and he was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as tonality , in his quest for greater expressivity. In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde , Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal , he abolished

3164-422: A concern for expressive recitative which matched the contours of the French language. In the 18th century, Lully's most important successor was Jean-Philippe Rameau , who composed five tragédies en musique as well as numerous works in other genres such as opéra-ballet , all notable for their rich orchestration and harmonic daring. Despite the popularity of Italian opera seria throughout much of Europe during

3390-473: A general rehearsal, wrote a description in a letter to Edmond Galabert (April 1869): They began at eight o'clock.—They finished at two.—Eighty instrumentalists in the orchestra, thirty on the stage, a hundred thirty choristers, a hundred fifty walk-ons.—Work badly constructed. A single role: that of Rienzi, remarkably played by Monjauze. An uproar, of which nothing can give an idea; a mixture of Italian themes; peculiar and bad style; music of decline rather than of

3616-662: A gift, with the first shipment arriving in February 1861. The collection numbers some 800 objects, with 300 coming from the sack of the Summer Palace. In 1854, Emperor Napoleon III and Eugénie bought several acres of dunes in Biarritz and gave the engineer Dagueret the task of establishing a summer home surrounded by gardens, woods, meadows, a pond and outbuildings. Napoleon III chose the location near Spain so his wife would not get homesick for her native country. The house

3842-622: A great power was under threat, and that a victory against Prussia would secure her son's future rule. Maxime du Camp claimed that, after the Prussian victory over Austria in 1866, the Empress would often state that "Catholic France could not support the neighborhood of a great Protestant power." In 1870, when the diplomatic crisis which would lead to the Franco-Prussian War erupted over Prussia's Hohenzollern candidate for

4068-404: A guarantee of papal sovereignty from the new Italian kingdom. The Duke of Persigny blamed her influence when Thouvenel was dismissed by the emperor, declaring to Louis-Napoléon that, "You allow yourself to be ruled by your wife just as I do. But I only compromise my future...whereas you sacrifice your own interests and those of your son and the country at large." She was blamed for the fiasco of

4294-530: A health spa resort. During an afternoon visit in 1881, she called on the queen of Sweden , at her residence 'Crag Head'. Her deposed family's friendly association with the United Kingdom was commemorated in 1887 when she became the godmother of Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (1887–1969), daughter of Princess Beatrice , who later became queen consort of Alfonso XIII of Spain . She was also close to Empress consort Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, who last visited her, along with Emperor Nicholas II , in 1909. On

4520-589: A hearing. Berlioz's epic masterpiece Les Troyens , the culmination of the Gluckian tradition, was not given a full performance for almost a hundred years. In the second half of the 19th century, Jacques Offenbach created operetta with witty and cynical works such as Orphée aux enfers , as well as the opera Les Contes d'Hoffmann ; Charles Gounod scored a massive success with Faust ; and Georges Bizet composed Carmen , which, once audiences learned to accept its blend of Romanticism and realism, became

4746-499: A highly varied body of operatic works, often with libretti by the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal . Other composers who made individual contributions to German opera in the early 20th century include Alexander von Zemlinsky , Erich Korngold , Franz Schreker , Paul Hindemith , Kurt Weill and the Italian-born Ferruccio Busoni . The operatic innovations of Arnold Schoenberg and his successors are discussed in

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4972-458: A large variety of works for stage. Perhaps, the most famous Iranian opera is Rostam and Sohrab by Loris Tjeknavorian premiered not until the early 2000s. Chinese contemporary classical opera , a Chinese language form of Western style opera that is distinct from traditional Chinese opera , has had operas dating back to The White-Haired Girl in 1945. In Latin America, opera started as

5198-554: A letter that M. Pasdeloup had only taken the direction of the Théâtre Lyrique to perform his six operas. We hope that M. Pasdeloup will repudiate this bragging. If the Théâtre Lyrique is subventioned it is primarily to assist the French school and M. Pasdeloup must never forget that. One Wagner opera will suffice for our enlightenment." Even so, the new season began with a performance of Rienzi on 1 September. Pasdeloup did provide some French music: on 12 September there

5424-515: A new phrase. This fashion of opera directed opera from Verdi, onward, exercising tremendous influence on his successors Giacomo Puccini , Richard Strauss , and Benjamin Britten . After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni 's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo 's Pagliacci that came to dominate

5650-424: A new seriousness to the genre, which had never been wholly "comic" in any case. Another phenomenon of this period was the 'propaganda opera' celebrating revolutionary successes, e.g. Gossec's Le triomphe de la République (1793). By the 1820s, Gluckian influence in France had given way to a taste for Italian bel canto , especially after the arrival of Rossini in Paris . Rossini's Guillaume Tell helped found

5876-500: A new venture, an extension of the Théâtre Lyrique at the Salle Ventadour . To avoid confusion with the Théâtre-Italien , which was the resident company at that theatre, Carvalho's new enterprise was to be called the Théâtre de la Renaissance . The Théâtre Lyrique's more lavish productions, such as Gounod's Faust and Roméo et Juliette and Weber's Le Freischütz , were to be presented at the more distinguished Ventadour, while

6102-483: A nineteenth-century peak of Polish national opera . In the 20th century, other operas created by Polish composers included King Roger by Karol Szymanowski and Ubu Rex by Krzysztof Penderecki . The first known opera from Turkey (the Ottoman Empire ) was Arshak II , which was an Armenian opera composed by an ethnic Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian in 1868 and partially performed in 1873. It

6328-454: A one-act opéra comique by Ferdinand Poise called Les charmeurs (7 March 1855; 66 performances). The last had a libretto by Adolphe de Leuven based on Charles Simon Favart 's Les ensorcelés, ou Jeannot et Jeannette . After beginning the season with a series of six less-than-successful premieres, Perrin revived a much-needed money-maker, the three-act Robin des bois ( Robin Hood ). This

6554-725: A restoration of the Bourbons in Spain or trying to help the deposed monarchs of Parma and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies . According to Nancy Nichols Barker , "her ideas on the principles of government were ill formed and included a jumble of Bonapartism and Legitimism , whose incompatibility she seemed not to even recognize." She was a staunch defender of papal temporal powers in Italy and of ultramontanism . Because of this she ardently tried to dissuade her husband from recognizing

6780-723: A result of European colonisation. The first opera ever written in the Americas was 1701's La púrpura de la rosa , by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco , a Peruvian composer born in Spain; a decade later, 1711's Partenope , by the Mexican Manuel de Zumaya , was the first opera written from a composer born in Latin America (music now lost). The first Brazilian opera for a libretto in Portuguese was A Noite de São João , by Elias Álvares Lobo . However, Antônio Carlos Gomes

7006-522: A separate French tradition was founded by the Italian-born French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully at the court of King Louis XIV . Despite his foreign birthplace, Lully established an Academy of Music and monopolised French opera from 1672. Starting with Cadmus et Hermione , Lully and his librettist Quinault created tragédie en musique , a form in which dance music and choral writing were particularly prominent. Lully's operas also show

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7232-734: A speech-inflected style, and self-contained arias . The 19th century saw the rise of the continuous music drama . Opera originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri 's mostly lost Dafne , produced in Florence in 1598) especially from works by Claudio Monteverdi , notably L'Orfeo , and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in

7458-469: A superb sense of drama, harmony, melody, and counterpoint to write a series of comic operas with libretti by Lorenzo Da Ponte , notably Le nozze di Figaro , Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , which remain among the most-loved, popular and well-known operas. But Mozart's contribution to opera seria was more mixed; by his time it was dying away, and in spite of such fine works as Idomeneo and La clemenza di Tito , he would not succeed in bringing

7684-569: A title later ceded to Eugenia, married the 15th Duke of Alba in 1849. Until her marriage in 1853, Eugenia variously used the titles Countess of Teba or Countess of Montijo. However, some family titles were inherited by her elder sister, through which they passed to the House of Alba . After the death of her father, Eugenia became the 9th Countess of Teba and is named as such in the Almanach de Gotha (1901 edition). After Eugenia's demise, all titles of

7910-491: A token of appreciation. Besides the previously mentioned productions, Seveste's first season included nine other premieres and two additional revivals of opéras comiques , all by French composers, but none of these proved to be quite as successful. Over the summer additional chorus members were auditioned and engaged, and the first violinist and assistant conductor Adolphe Deloffre was promoted to principal conductor. Deloffre would remain in that post until 1868, when he moved to

8136-644: A total of 124 performances. Marie Cabel starred in the title role, and a new tenor, Jules Monjauze , who had previously been an actor at the French Theatre in Saint Petersburg and at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris, sang Maurice. Other notable premieres included Adolphe Adam's three-act opéra comique Le muletier de Tolède with Marie Cabel in the leading soprano role of Elvire (14 December 1854; 54 performances); Adam's one-act opéra comique À Clichy (24 December 1854; 89 performances); and

8362-540: A troupe consisting of some of the singers in the company and presented a two-month summer season at St James's Theatre in London. Jules Seveste decided to stay in France to prepare for the fall season. In London Cabel was the star, attracting full-houses even in the midst of the summer heat and performing in Adam's Le bijou perdu , Auber's Les diamants de la couronne , and Donizetti's La fille du régiment . The wheels of

8588-407: A vaudeville by Eugène Scribe called La chatte metamorphosée en femme . In spite of its initial success the work was never revived. During Réty's directorship receipts at the theatre had consistently fallen, so that by 4 October 1862 he finally gave up and resigned with debts of 773,000 francs. Later in his career (1870–1895) he would become the music critic of Le Figaro , writing under

8814-417: Is an artist of merit." None of these productions were filling the house, despite significantly lower ticket prices. Henri Moreno of Le Ménestrel (31 January 1869) wrote of Don Juan : "He [Pasdeloup] does not want stars, but one cannot perform the classics, above all, unless with artists of the first order." The Revue et Gazette Musicale (31 January 1869) agreed: "Unfortunately he does not work on

9040-471: Is dead!...They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn't he kill himself! Doesn't he know he has dishonored himself?!". Later, when hostile crowds formed near the Tuileries Palace and the staff began to flee, the empress slipped out with one of her entourage and sought sanctuary with her American dentist, Thomas W. Evans , who took her to Deauville. From there, on 7 September, she took the yacht of

9266-431: Is doubtful that she allowed further approaches by her husband once she had given him an heir. He subsequently resumed his "petites distractions" with other women. Eugénie faithfully performed the duties of an empress, entertaining guests and accompanying the emperor to balls, opera, and theater. After her marriage, her ladies-in-waiting consisted of six (later twelve) dames du palais , most of whom were chosen from among

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9492-622: Is generally regarded as the most outstanding Brazilian composer, having a relative success in Italy with its Brazilian-themed operas with Italian librettos, such as Il Guarany . Opera in Argentina developed in the 20th century after the inauguration of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires—with the opera Aurora , by Ettore Panizza , being heavily influenced by the Italian tradition, due to immigration. Other important composers from Argentina include Felipe Boero and Alberto Ginastera . Perhaps

9718-629: Is most famous for his Italian comic operas , especially The Marriage of Figaro ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Don Giovanni , and Così fan tutte , as well as Die Entführung aus dem Serail ( The Abduction from the Seraglio ), and The Magic Flute ( Die Zauberflöte ), landmarks in the German tradition. The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini all creating signature works of that style. It also saw

9944-401: Is most remembered today for having given the first performance in Paris of Wagner's Rienzi , as well as the premieres of operas by French composers, in particular Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles , Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens à Carthage , Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette , and above all Gounod's Faust , the opera performed most often by the Théâtre Lyrique, and still one of

10170-487: Is the first opera score to have survived until the present day. However, the honour of being the first opera still to be regularly performed goes to Claudio Monteverdi 's L'Orfeo , composed for the court of Mantua in 1607. The Mantua court of the Gonzagas , employers of Monteverdi, played a significant role in the origin of opera employing not only court singers of the concerto delle donne (till 1598), but also one of

10396-830: Is the shift away from long, suspended melodies, to short quick mottos, as first illustrated by Giuseppe Verdi in his Falstaff . Composers such as Strauss, Britten, Shostakovich and Stravinsky adopted and expanded upon this style. Operatic modernism truly began in the operas of two Viennese composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his student Alban Berg , both composers and advocates of atonality and its later development (as worked out by Schoenberg), dodecaphony . Schoenberg's early musico-dramatic works, Erwartung (1909, premiered in 1924) and Die glückliche Hand display heavy use of chromatic harmony and dissonance in general. Schoenberg also occasionally used Sprechstimme . The two operas of Schoenberg's pupil Alban Berg, Wozzeck (1925) and Lulu (incomplete at his death in 1935) share many of

10622-474: Is weakening visibly and the empress is our enemy and works with the priests. If I had her in my hands I would teach her well what women are good for and with what she should meddle." She also clashed with the French foreign minister Édouard Thouvenel over the question of the French garrison in Rome. Much to Eugénie's chagrin, Thouvenel negotiated an agreement to wind down the French military presence in exchange for

10848-530: The English Restoration , foreign (especially French) musicians were welcomed back. In 1673, Thomas Shadwell 's Psyche , patterned on the 1671 'comédie-ballet' of the same name produced by Molière and Jean-Baptiste Lully . William Davenant produced The Tempest in the same year, which was the first musical adaption of a Shakespeare play (composed by Locke and Johnson). About 1683, John Blow composed Venus and Adonis , often thought of as

11074-661: The French intervention in Mexico and the eventual death of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico . However, the assertion of her clericalism and influence on the side of conservatism is often countered by other authors. In 1868, Empress Eugénie visited the Dolmabahçe Palace in Constantinople , the home to Pertevniyal Sultan , mother of Abdulaziz , 32nd sultan of the Ottoman Empire . Pertevniyal became outraged by

11300-615: The Liria Palace in Madrid in her native Spain, and she is interred in the Imperial Crypt at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough , with her husband and her son. The British King George V attended her requiem. After World War I, Eugenie lived long enough to see the collapse of other European monarchies, such as those of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary . She left her possessions to various relatives: her Spanish estates went to

11526-569: The Louis XV and Louis XVI styles. A general vogue arose for 18th century French design, becoming known as "Style Louis XVI Impératrice" . According to Nancy Nichols Barker, her admiration for Marie Antoinette "was nearly an obsession. She collected her portraits and trinkets, lived in her suite at Saint-Cloud , had constructed a small model of the Petit Trianon in the park, and frequently engaged Hübner in lugubrious conversation about

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11752-407: The Opéra-Comique . Seveste's 1853–1854 season continued to introduce many new French works, including a three-act opéra comique by Adolphe Adam called Le bijou perdu ( The Lost Jewel ), which was first performed on 6 October. A new singer, the 26-year-old Marie Cabel , created the lead soprano role of Toinon and became one of the star attractions of the company. Cabel, who had been discovered as

11978-531: The Second French Empire , having himself crowned emperor on 2 December. For a boulevard theatre which typically charged a maximum of five or six francs for its most expensive seats, this was indeed an increase in status. Seveste was also fortunate with his second new offering that season, a "trifling" one-act opéra comique by Eugène Gautier called Flore et Zéphire , which was first performed on 2 October 1852 and ultimately presented 126 times by

12204-594: The Second Republic with her mother at a reception given by the "prince-president" at the Élysée Palace on 12 April 1849. "What is the road to your heart?" Napoleon demanded to know. "Through the chapel, Sire", she answered. In a speech on 22 January 1853, Napoleon III, after becoming emperor, formally announced his engagement, saying, "I have preferred a woman whom I love and respect to a woman unknown to me, with whom an alliance would have had advantages mixed with sacrifices". They were wed on 29 January 1853 in

12430-599: The Sinfonietta and the Glagolitic Mass . Spain also produced its own distinctive form of opera, known as zarzuela , which had two separate flowerings: one from the mid-17th century through the mid-18th century, and another beginning around 1850. During the late 18th century up until the mid-19th century, Italian opera was immensely popular in Spain, supplanting the native form . In Russian Eastern Europe, several national operas began to emerge. Ukrainian opera

12656-749: The Suez Canal and officially represented her husband whenever he traveled outside France. In 1860, she visited Algiers with Napoleon. She strongly advocated equality for women; she pressured the Ministry of National Education to give the first baccalaureate diploma to a woman and tried unsuccessfully to induce the Académie Française to elect the writer George Sand as its first female member. Her husband often consulted her on important questions. She acted as regent during his absences in 1859, 1865 and 1870, as he often accompanied his soldiers on

12882-745: The Théâtre Historique , the Salle du Théâtre-Lyrique (now the Théâtre de la Ville ), and the Salle de l'Athénée , until it ceased operations in 1872. The diverse repertoire of the company "cracked the strict organization of the Parisian operatic world by breaking away from the principle that institution and genre were of one substance." The company was generally most successful with revivals of foreign works translated into French, particularly operas by Gluck , Mozart , Weber , and Verdi , but probably

13108-577: The dramatist Sir William Davenant produced The Siege of Rhodes . Since his theatre was not licensed to produce drama, he asked several of the leading composers ( Lawes , Cooke , Locke , Coleman and Hudson ) to set sections of it to music. This success was followed by The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) and The History of Sir Francis Drake (1659). These pieces were encouraged by Oliver Cromwell because they were critical of Spain. With

13334-462: The libretto (meaning "small book"). Some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti; others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e.g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte . Traditional opera, often referred to as " number opera ", consists of two modes of singing: recitative , the plot-driving passages sung in a style designed to imitate and emphasize the inflections of speech, and aria (an "air" or formal song) in which

13560-471: The 1640s. His most important follower Francesco Cavalli helped spread opera throughout Italy. In these early Baroque operas, broad comedy was blended with tragic elements in a mix that jarred some educated sensibilities, sparking the first of opera's many reform movements, sponsored by the Arcadian Academy , which came to be associated with the poet Metastasio , whose libretti helped crystallize

13786-451: The 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe (except France), attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel . Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. The most renowned figure of late 18th-century opera is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , who began with opera seria but

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14012-437: The 1851 rule (which had been established for the Opéra-National ) of only 33% of acts in this category. The company's success with Robin des Bois prompted Carvalho to mount three additional Weber operas, although none did as well as Robin . The first was Obéron , in a French translation by Charles Nuitter , Alexandre Beaumont , and Paul de Chazot (27 February 1857; 100 performances), followed by Euryanthe in

14238-557: The 18th century another genre was gaining popularity in France: opéra comique . This was the equivalent of the German singspiel , where arias alternated with spoken dialogue. Notable examples in this style were produced by Monsigny , Philidor and, above all, Grétry . During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, composers such as Étienne Méhul , Luigi Cherubini and Gaspare Spontini , who were followers of Gluck, brought

14464-464: The 19th century in Russia, there were written such operatic masterpieces as Rusalka and The Stone Guest by Alexander Dargomyzhsky , Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina by Modest Mussorgsky , Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin , Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades by Pyotr Tchaikovsky , and The Snow Maiden and Sadko by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov . These developments mirrored

14690-562: The 20th century for his innovative works. His later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera Jenůfa , which was premiered in 1904 in Brno . The success of Jenůfa (often called the " Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as Káťa Kabanová and The Cunning Little Vixen ,

14916-547: The 20th century, English opera began to assert more independence, with works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and in particular Benjamin Britten , who in a series of works that remain in standard repertory today, revealed an excellent flair for the dramatic and superb musicality. More recently Sir Harrison Birtwistle has emerged as one of Britain's most significant contemporary composers from his first opera Punch and Judy to his most recent critical success in The Minotaur . In

15142-582: The Baroque period, Italian opera never gained much of a foothold in France, where its own national operatic tradition was more popular instead. After Rameau's death, the Bohemian-Austrian composer Gluck was persuaded to produce six operas for the Parisian stage in the 1770s. They show the influence of Rameau, but simplified and with greater focus on the drama. At the same time, by the middle of

15368-586: The Beach ), Mark Adamo , John Corigliano ( The Ghosts of Versailles ), Robert Moran , John Adams ( Nixon in China ), André Previn and Jake Heggie . Many contemporary 21st century opera composers have emerged such as Missy Mazzoli , Kevin Puts , Tom Cipullo , Huang Ruo , David T. Little , Terence Blanchard , Jennifer Higdon , Tobias Picker , Michael Ching , Anthony Davis , and Ricky Ian Gordon . Opera

15594-417: The Castil-Blaze point of view; and as the " maestro " had taken liberties with this great composer's text, the " professore " thought he might, with equal good grace, embellish and vary the melodies. He set himself to work, and spared not roulades, shakes, and ricercate , whereof Weber had no idea, and which, had he heard them, would have driven him mad. Madame Lauters thought she could not go wrong in following

15820-552: The Czech national spirit, as were some of his choral works. By far the most successful of the operas is Rusalka which contains the well-known aria "Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém" ("Song to the Moon"); it is played on contemporary opera stages frequently outside the Czech Republic . This is attributable to their uneven invention and libretti, and perhaps also their staging requirements – The Jacobin , Armida , Vanda and Dimitrij need stages large enough to portray invading armies. Leoš Janáček gained international recognition in

16046-614: The London stage from the mid-19th century into the 1870s. London's Daily Telegraph agreed, describing The Yeomen of the Guard as "a genuine English opera, forerunner of many others, let us hope, and possibly significant of an advance towards a national lyric stage". Sullivan produced a few light operas in the 1890s that were of a more serious nature than those in the G&S series, including Haddon Hall and The Beauty Stone , but Ivanhoe (which ran for 155 consecutive performances, using alternating casts—a record until Broadway's La bohème ) survives as his only grand opera . In

16272-676: The Montijo family came to the Fitz-Jameses (the Dukes of Alba and Berwick ). On 18 July 1834, María Manuela and her daughters left Madrid for Paris, fleeing a cholera outbreak and the dangers of the First Carlist War . The previous day, Eugenia had witnessed a riot and murder in the square outside their residence, Casa Ariza. Eugénie de Montijo, as she became known in France, was formally educated mostly in Paris, beginning at

16498-557: The Opera (1755) proved to be an inspiration for Christoph Willibald Gluck 's reforms. He advocated that opera seria had to return to basics and that all the various elements—music (both instrumental and vocal), ballet , and staging—must be subservient to the overriding drama. In 1765 Melchior Grimm published " Poème lyrique ", an influential article for the Encyclopédie on lyric and opera librettos . Several composers of

16724-406: The Opéra-Comique, and most significantly the soprano Caroline Miolan-Carvalho . Miolan-Carvalho was to become the most important singer in the company. Although Pellegrin's appointment with the Théâtre Lyrique was ratified on 29 September 1855, he was having little success and shortly after signing Miolan-Carvalho, in the midst of preparations for a new premiere, Clapisson's La fanchonnette , he

16950-458: The Prix de Rome in 1835 and father of Nadia Boulanger ), which premiered on 10 May and received only 18 performances. The latter, having been adapted from Cervantes' novel by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré and declined by Offenbach , "was received benevolently but without favor. The piece was lacking in interest or movement; it presented nothing but a series of scenes badly stitched one to

17176-726: The Second Empire was overthrown after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, the empress and her husband took permanent refuge in England and settled at Camden Place in Chislehurst , Kent . Her husband, Napoleon III, died in 1873, and her son died in 1879 while fighting in the Zulu War in South Africa, with Eugénie visiting his death site on the first anniversary. Before her son's death and after she

17402-502: The Spanish throne, Eugénie was key in pushing her husband toward supporting what she called "my war" ("C'est ma guerre"). In one instance she pointed to the couple's son in front of her husband and declared "this child will never reign unless we repair the misfortunes of Sadowa ". Adolphe Thiers included her, the foreign secretary the Duc de Gramont , Émile Ollivier , and the military in

17628-639: The Théâtre Lyrique from the Opéra-Comique and was the star of the even more successful La chatte merveilleuse , a three-act opéra comique by Albert Grisar (18 March 1862; 72 performances) with Cabel as Féline, Caroline Vadé as the Princess, Jules Monjauze as Urbain, and Émile Wartel as the Ogre of the Forest. The libretto by Dumanoir and d'Ennery was based on Charles Perrault 's Chat botté ( Puss in Boots ) and

17854-556: The Théâtre Lyrique: the Emperor and his new bride attended a performance there on the night of 28 February. The boulevard du Temple was specially lit up and decorated for the occasion, and Seveste received the couple at the foot of the staircase leading up to the auditorium. The program included Flore et Zéphire , Le postillon de Longjumeau , and the premiere of a two-act opéra-ballet, Le lutin de la vallée ( The Goblin of

18080-457: The Valley ). The last had a libretto by Jules Edouard Alboize de Pujol and Michel Carré and music by Eugène Gautier with insertions of pieces by Adam and Arthur Saint-Léon . Saint-Léon, a "very indifferent" composer, was primarily a dancer and choreographer, but also played violin. For the premiere Saint-Léon had composed and played a violin solo called "Une matinée à la Campagne" ("A morning in

18306-636: The acquaintances to the empress before her marriage, headed by the Grand-Maitresse Anne Debelle, Princesse d'Essling , and the dame d'honneur , Pauline de Bassano . In 1855 Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting , where it depicted Eugénie, sitting beside the Grand-Maitresse in a countryside setting, with eight of her ladies-in-waiting. She traveled to Egypt to open

18532-551: The acts of stage plays, operas in the new comic genre of intermezzi , which developed largely in Naples in the 1710s and 1720s, were initially staged during the intermissions of opera seria. They became so popular, however, that they were soon being offered as separate productions. Opera seria was elevated in tone and highly stylised in form, usually consisting of secco recitative interspersed with long da capo arias. These afforded great opportunity for virtuosic singing and during

18758-485: The advent of grand opera typified by the works of Daniel Auber and Giacomo Meyerbeer as well as Carl Maria von Weber 's introduction of German Romantische Oper (German Romantic Opera). The mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Giuseppe Verdi in Italy and Richard Wagner in Germany. The popularity of opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini and Richard Strauss in

18984-402: The advice of so great a master of the art vocal as M. Duprez, and accordingly she repeated, note for note, what he had taught her. The public delighted at a tour de force, quand même , applauded 'to the echo;' and it was only on reading the feuilletons of the principal journalists that Madame Lauters woke from her dream of contented happiness. Like a sensible woman she profited by advice, though

19210-486: The army, Marshal Le Bœuf , both resigned, and Eugenie took it upon herself to name a new government. She chose General Cousin-Montauban , better known as the count of Palikao, 74 years old, as her new prime minister. The count of Palikao named Maréchal Francois Achille Bazaine , the commander of the French forces in Lorraine, as the new overall military commander. Napoleon III proposed returning to Paris, realizing that he

19436-457: The art form back to life again. The bel canto opera movement flourished in the early 19th century and is exemplified by the operas of Rossini , Bellini , Donizetti , Pacini , Mercadante and many others. Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate, requiring supreme agility and pitch control. Examples of famous operas in

19662-517: The asteroid 45 Eugenia was named after her, and its moon Petit-Prince after the prince imperial. She had an extensive and unique jewelry collection, most of which later was owned by the Brazilian socialite Aimée de Heeren . De Heeren collected jewelry and was fond of the empress as both were considered to be the "Queens of Biarritz"; both spent summers on the Côte Basque. Impressed by

19888-400: The audience uncomfortable. Guardi was not much better. It closed after only eleven performances with the claim that Viardot and Battaille had other engagements, but poor ticket sales were undoubtedly the deciding factor. Réty finished the season by introducing some insubstantial new works and giving further performances of Orphée . For the 1860–1861 season Réty's most successful new production

20114-542: The battlefield to motivate them during the wars. In the 1860s, she often attended meetings of the Council of Ministers, even leading the meetings for a brief space of time in 1866 when her husband was away from Paris. A Catholic and a conservative, her influence countered any liberal tendencies in the emperor's policies. Her strong preference was for hereditary monarchy and she made repeated displays of support for members of European royalty who were in crisis, like supporting

20340-411: The bel canto style include Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and La Cenerentola , as well as Bellini's Norma , La sonnambula and I puritani and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor , L'elisir d'amore and Don Pasquale . Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi , beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco . This opera, and

20566-599: The bureaucracy had finally caught up with reality at the Théâtre Lyrique on 21 May 1854, when the Minister of the Interior announced that Jules Seveste was now indeed the legitimate holder of the ten-year license, formerly for the Opéra-National , which had originally been awarded to his brother Edmond in 1851. Unfortunately, Jules Seveste died unexpectedly on 30 June 1854 in Meudon near Paris. Émile Perrin became

20792-459: The characters express their emotions in a more structured melodic style. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action. In some forms of opera, such as singspiel , opéra comique , operetta , and semi-opera , the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, recitative, are also referred to as arioso . The terminology of

21018-410: The circle of opera fans. Since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on (and written for) these media. Beginning in 2006, a number of major opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. Since 2009, complete performances can be downloaded and are live streamed . The words of an opera are known as

21244-482: The company for the Opéra and was replaced by the Hungarian soprano Aglaja Orgeni . She had been recommended by Pauline Viardot on the advice of Clara Schumann and had a strong foreign accent. She may have been mistaken as German and was poorly received. Gustave Bertrand, writing in the 7 February issue of Le Ménestrel , complained that the audience was "as unjust as they were brutal" and found that "Mlle Orgeni

21470-675: The company were also to receive much praise: the mezzo-soprano Pauline Deligne-Lauters , who would later marry Louis Guéymard and have a successful career at the Opéra; and the tenor Léon Achard, who would later create the role of Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas' Mignon at the Opéra-Comique (with Cabel as Philine). The terms of the company's cahier des charges were also made somewhat more restrictive at this time, calling for 15 acts of new works per season, at least three by composers previously unperformed in Paris. In addition, Perrin

21696-468: The company's simpler productions and operas by young composers were to be presented at the theatre on the Place du Châtelet. Performances at the new venue began on 16 March with Faust , but by 7 May 1868 Carvalho was bankrupt, the new venture ceased to operate, and he was eventually forced to resign as director of the Théâtre Lyrique. By 22 August 1868 Jules Pasdeloup had been selected and confirmed as

21922-471: The company. The engagement of the famous tenor Jean-Baptiste Chollet , who had recently returned from London and at 54 was rather far along in his career, received much favorable coverage in the press. His debut with the company was on 3 November in the role of Chapelou in a revival of Adam's Le postillon de Longjumeau , a part which he had created to great acclaim in 1836. The critic Gustave Hécquet wrote that "Chollet has lost nothing of his talent from

22148-460: The costumes were plentiful and rich. The chorus was enlarged to 120 voices, and many of the principal artists of the company had agreed to sing in it for this production. At certain points in the opera as many as 200 extras were on stage at once. The cast included Jules Monjauze as Rienzi, Anna Sternberg as Irène, Juliette Borghèse as Adriano, and Marguerite Priola (in her operatic debut) as Le Messager. The composer Georges Bizet , who attended

22374-473: The country") in which he imitated all the sounds of a barnyard. It proved to be the most popular piece of the evening, and if he played it for the royal couple, it was probably well received – their musical tastes ran to polkas and waltzes. One of the ballerinas, Marie Guy-Stéphan , whom Saint-Léon had brought with him from the Paris Opera Ballet , received a diamond bracelet from the new Empress as

22600-428: The cup was bitter and the dose strong. I have heard her again, and was delighted to find she had discarded M. Duprez and returned to Weber. A greater improvement, a more decided change for the better, I could hardly have imagined; nor could there be a greater treat than to hear Weber's exquisite melodies uttered by the rich and musical voice of Madame Lauters. Perrin may have been somewhat disappointed with his results at

22826-559: The day, with a different dress for the morning, afternoon, evening, and night. The British satirical magazine Punch christened her variously as the "Queen of Fashion", "Imperatrice de la Mode", "Countess of Crinoline", and "Goddess of the Bustles ". She never wore the same gown twice, and in this way commissioned and acquired an enormous wardrobe, which she disposed of in annual sales to benefit charity. Her favored couturier, Charles Frederick Worth , provided hundreds of gowns to her over

23052-467: The days of the Second Empire and features the titular empress as one of its lead characters. Named for the empress, the Eugénie hat is a style of women's chapeau worn dramatically tilted and drooped over one eye; its brim is folded up sharply at both sides in the style of a riding topper, often with one long ostrich plume streaming behind it. The hat was popularized by film star Greta Garbo and enjoyed

23278-459: The death of their father in Madrid, the girls left Paris to rejoin their mother there. In Spain, Eugénie grew up into a headstrong and physically daring young woman, devoted to horseriding and a range of other sports. She was rescued from drowning and twice attempted suicide after romantic disappointments. She was very interested in politics and became devoted to the Bonapartist cause, under

23504-408: The distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless flow of "endless melody". Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth with part of the patronage from Ludwig II of Bavaria , exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in

23730-506: The drama is understated, enigmatic and completely un-Wagnerian. Other notable 20th-century names include Ravel , Dukas , Roussel , Honegger and Milhaud . Francis Poulenc is one of the very few post-war composers of any nationality whose operas (which include Dialogues des Carmélites ) have gained a foothold in the international repertory. Olivier Messiaen 's lengthy sacred drama Saint François d'Assise (1983) has also attracted widespread attention. In England, opera's antecedent

23956-577: The early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia . The 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism ( Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg ), neoclassicism ( Igor Stravinsky ), and minimalism ( Philip Glass and John Adams ). With the rise of recording technology , singers such as Enrico Caruso and Maria Callas became known to much wider audiences that went beyond

24182-460: The elegance, style and design of the jewelry of the neo-classical era, in 1858, she had a boutique in the Royal Palace under the name Royale Collections. She was honoured by John Gould who gave the white-headed fruit dove the scientific name Ptilinopus eugeniae . George W. M. Reynolds 's penny dreadful The Empress Eugenie's Boudoir tells of the goings-on in the French court during

24408-427: The emergence of the separate but closely related art of musical theatre in the late 19th century. Sullivan wrote only one grand opera, Ivanhoe (following the efforts of a number of young English composers beginning about 1876), but he claimed that even his light operas constituted part of a school of "English" opera, intended to supplant the French operettas (usually performed in bad translations) that had dominated

24634-576: The extra costs, but the reviews, which were extensive, were mostly critical. By 13 May the prices had to be lowered, and the work had been cut so much that it was reduced to little more than unending dialogue between Rienzi and the people of Rome. Nevertheless, Pasdeloup was persistent, and the production was to receive a total of 38 performances. The season ended on 31 May with a performance of Rienzi . Gustave Bertrand, writing in Le Ménestrel (11 July 1869), commented: "M. Wagner confirmed in

24860-523: The failure of Philémon et Baucis and partly because of his many extravagant productions, Carvalho had run into significant financial difficulty. As one critic wrote: " Faust was a magnificent production, but M. Carvalho had spent 150,000 francs on it, that is to say 120,000 francs too much." He resigned as director of the company on 1 April. Charles Réty, who had joined the company in March ;1856 as secretary-general, took his place, and

25086-602: The fall of Napoleon III in 1870. The company continued performing in the theatre, sometimes referred to as the Salle du Théâtre-Lyrique, until 25 May 1871, when it was destroyed by a fire caused by the fighting during the Paris Commune . The theatre was eventually rebuilt on the same site in the same style and reopened in 1874 as the Théâtre des Nations and later became the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, but

25312-480: The fashionable, traditionalist Convent of the Sacré Cœur from 1835 to 1836. A more compatible school was the progressive Gymnase Normal, Civil et Orthosomatique, from 1836 to 1837, which appealed to her athletic side (a school report praised her strong liking for athletic exercise, and although an indifferent student, that her character was "good, generous, active and firm"). In 1837, Eugénie and Paca briefly attended

25538-679: The fate of the martyred queen." In 1863, the Empress established a museum of Asian art called the musée Chinois (Chinese Museum) at the Palace of Fontainebleau . She carefully curated the displays of her museum, constituting diplomatic gifts given to her by an embassy from Siam in 1860, as well as loot taken from the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing by French troops during the Second Opium War . General Charles Cousin-Montauban had sent crates of this loot to Eugénie as

25764-529: The first actual "opera singers", Madama Europa . Opera did not remain confined to court audiences for long. In 1637, the idea of a "season" (often during the carnival ) of publicly attended operas supported by ticket sales emerged in Venice . Monteverdi had moved to the city from Mantua and composed his last operas, Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea , for the Venetian theatre in

25990-672: The first decade of the 21st century, the librettist of an early Birtwistle opera, Michael Nyman , has been focusing on composing operas, including Facing Goya , Man and Boy: Dada , and Love Counts . Today composers such as Thomas Adès continue to export English opera abroad. Also in the 20th century, American composers like George Gershwin ( Porgy and Bess ), Scott Joplin ( Treemonisha ), Leonard Bernstein ( Candide ), Gian Carlo Menotti , Douglas Moore , and Carlisle Floyd began to contribute English-language operas infused with touches of popular musical styles. They were followed by composers such as Philip Glass ( Einstein on

26216-400: The first new work of the season was a French opera, Victorin de Joncières ' four-act Le dernier jour de Pompéï , which premiered on 21 September 1869. Marie Schroeder sang the lead soprano role of Ione. It did not go unnoticed that the libretto, by Charles Nuitter and Louis-Alexandre Beaumont, was, like Rienzi , based on a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton ( The Last Days of Pompeii ). It

26442-461: The first true English-language opera. Blow's immediate successor was the better known Henry Purcell . Despite the success of his masterwork Dido and Aeneas (1689), in which the action is furthered by the use of Italian-style recitative, much of Purcell's best work was not involved in the composing of typical opera, but instead, he usually worked within the constraints of the semi-opera format, where isolated scenes and masques are contained within

26668-431: The form and style that would dominate opera throughout the twentieth century. Rather than long, suspended melodies, Falstaff contains many little motifs and mottos, that, rather than being expanded upon, are introduced and subsequently dropped, only to be brought up again later. These motifs never are expanded upon, and just as the audience expects a character to launch into a long melody, a new character speaks, introducing

26894-437: The forwardness of Eugénie taking the arm of one of her sons while he gave a tour of the palace garden, and she slapped the empress on the stomach as a reminder that they were not in France. According to another account, Pertevniyal perceived the presence of a foreign woman within her quarters of the seraglio as an insult. She reportedly slapped Eugénie across the face, almost resulting in an international incident. The empress

27120-574: The four-act Peines d'amour perdues , a highly adapted version of Mozart's Così fan tutte that starred Constance-Caroline Faure-Lefebvre and Marie Cabel and was first performed on 31 March 1863, but only received 18 performances; Grétry's two-act L'épreuve villageoise (11 September 1863; 48 performances); Verdi's Rigoletto (24 December 1863; 243 performances); Bellini's Norma (14 June 1864; 8 performances); Donizetti's Don Pasquale (9 September 1864; 35 performances); Verdi's La traviata , performed under

27346-527: The front, the emperor told Marshal Le Bœuf, "we've both been dismissed." The army was ultimately defeated, and Napoleon III gave himself up to the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan . The news of the capitulation reached Paris on 3 September. When the empress received word that the emperor and the army were prisoners, she reacted by shouting at the Emperor's personal aide, "No! An emperor does not capitulate! He

27572-447: The future. Some numbers detestable! some admirable! on the whole; an astonishing work, prodigiously alive : a breathtaking, Olympian grandeur! inspiration, without measure, without order, but of genius! will it be a success? I do not know!—The house was full, no claque! Some prodigious effects! some disastrous effects! some cries of enthusiasm! then doleful silence for half-an-hour." The ticket prices for Rienzi had been raised to offset

27798-541: The genre of opera seria , which became the leading form of Italian opera until the end of the 18th century. Once the Metastasian ideal had been firmly established, comedy in Baroque-era opera was reserved for what came to be called opera buffa . Before such elements were forced out of opera seria, many libretti had featured a separately unfolding comic plot as sort of an "opera-within-an-opera". One reason for this

28024-452: The golden age of opera seria the singer really became the star. The role of the hero was usually written for the high-pitched male castrato voice, which was produced by castration of the singer before puberty , which prevented a boy's larynx from being transformed at puberty. Castrati such as Farinelli and Senesino , as well as female sopranos such as Faustina Bordoni , became in great demand throughout Europe as opera seria ruled

28250-590: The grandsons of her sister Paca; the house in Farnborough with all collections to the heir of her son, Prince Victor Bonaparte ; Villa Cyrnos to his sister Princess Laetitia of Aosta . Liquid assets were divided into three parts and given to the above relatives except for the sum of 100,000 francs bequeathed to the Committee for Rebuilding the Cathedral of Reims . The empress has been commemorated in space;

28476-410: The greatest French grand opera , Don Carlos , and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff , which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century. These final two works showed Verdi at his most masterfully orchestrated, and are both incredibly influential, and modern. In Falstaff , Verdi sets the pre-eminent standard for

28702-625: The growth of Russian nationalism across the artistic spectrum, as part of the more general Slavophilism movement. In the 20th century, the traditions of Russian opera were developed by many composers including Sergei Rachmaninoff in his works The Miserly Knight and Francesca da Rimini , Igor Stravinsky in Le Rossignol , Mavra , Oedipus rex , and The Rake's Progress , Sergei Prokofiev in The Gambler , The Love for Three Oranges , The Fiery Angel , Betrothal in

28928-439: The influence of Eleanore Gordon, a former mistress of Louis Napoléon . Due to her mother's role as a lavish society hostess, Eugénie became acquainted with Queen Isabella II of Spain and the prime minister Ramón Narváez . María Manuela was increasingly anxious to find a husband for her daughter and took her on trips to Paris again in 1849 and England in 1851. She first met Prince Louis Napoléon after he had become president of

29154-504: The internationally popular The Bartered Bride . Smetana's eight operas created the bedrock of the Czech opera repertory, but of these only The Bartered Bride is performed regularly outside the composer's homeland. After reaching Vienna in 1892 and London in 1895 it rapidly became part of the repertory of every major opera company worldwide. Antonín Dvořák 's nine operas, except his first, have librettos in Czech and were intended to convey

29380-671: The lack of important female roles and a tenor produced a certain monotony in the timbres of the musical numbers. The most important new production, however, was the French premiere of Wagner's Rienzi on 6 April 1869. Pasdeloup was a well known advocate of Wagner's music and had performed it often at his popular concerts at the Cirque Napoléon, even though it was sometimes greeted with hostility by both his orchestra and many in his audiences. He had travelled to Lucerne to consult with Wagner about Rienzi , and Wagner agreed to many of Pasdeloup's suggested alterations for adapting

29606-446: The large number of one-act opéras comiques which had previously predominated. His presentations were more carefully prepared and lavishly produced, and one production (or an alternating pair) was kept on stage until it was no longer making money. If successful, fewer productions were mounted in a given year, if not, new production activity could become almost feverish. He put a greater emphasis on public domain works, significantly exceeding

29832-526: The late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this influence. In 1644, Sigmund Staden produced the first Singspiel , Seelewig , a popular form of German-language opera in which singing alternates with spoken dialogue. In the late 17th century and early 18th century, the Theater am Gänsemarkt in Hamburg presented German operas by Keiser , Telemann and Handel . Yet most of

30058-476: The latter concern, emphasizing that the parvenu Bonapartes were marrying into Grandees and one of the most important established houses in the peerage of Spain : "We learn with some amusement that this romantic event in the annals of the French Empire has called forth the strongest opposition and provoked the utmost irritation. The Imperial family, the Council of Ministers, and even the lower coteries of

30284-609: The leadership Zacharia Paliashvili , who fused local folk songs and stories with 19th-century Romantic classical themes. The key figure of Hungarian national opera in the 19th century was Ferenc Erkel , whose works mostly dealt with historical themes. Among his most often performed operas are Hunyadi László and Bánk bán . The most famous modern Hungarian opera is Béla Bartók 's Duke Bluebeard's Castle . Stanisław Moniuszko 's opera Straszny Dwór (in English The Haunted Manor ) (1861–64) represents

30510-402: The libretto was by Gustave Vaëz , and the production received 43 performances. Later that season on 16 March she created the role of Marie in the three-act opéra comique La promise . The music was composed by Louis Clapisson , the libretto was by Adolphe de Leuven and Léon-Lévy Brunswick, and it was given a total 60 times that season and the next. After the season had ended, Lafont organized

30736-438: The major German composers of the time, including Handel himself, as well as Graun , Hasse and later Gluck , chose to write most of their operas in foreign languages, especially Italian. In contrast to Italian opera, which was generally composed for the aristocratic class, German opera was generally composed for the masses and tended to feature simple folk-like melodies, and it was not until the arrival of Mozart that German opera

30962-430: The many changes, but Castil-Blaze replied that Weber was being ungrateful, as the alterations would guarantee the opera's success in France. Adding "financial insult to artistic injury", the adaptors, not the composer, were the ones to receive the performance fees. Perrin's revival of Robin des bois opened on 24 January 1855 and was performed 59 times that season and a total of 128 times by the company up to 1863, when it

31188-499: The most daring and revolutionary. In it, Verdi blurs the distinction between the aria and recitative as it never before was, leading the opera to be "an unending string of duets". La traviata was also novel. It tells the story of courtesan, and it includes elements of verismo or "realistic" opera, because rather than featuring great kings and figures from literature, it focuses on the tragedies of ordinary life and society. After these, he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps

31414-542: The most obvious stylistic manifestation of modernism in opera is the development of atonality . The move away from traditional tonality in opera had begun with Richard Wagner , and in particular the Tristan chord . Composers such as Richard Strauss , Claude Debussy , Giacomo Puccini , Paul Hindemith , Benjamin Britten and Hans Pfitzner pushed Wagnerian harmony further with a more extreme use of chromaticism and greater use of dissonance. Another aspect of modernist opera

31640-414: The most popular of all opéra comiques. Jules Massenet , Camille Saint-Saëns and Léo Delibes all composed works which are still part of the standard repertory, examples being Massenet's Manon , Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila and Delibes' Lakmé . Their operas formed another genre, the opéra lyrique , combined opéra comique and grand opera. It is less grandiose than grand opera, but without

31866-476: The most popular operas throughout the world. After the company ended operations in 1872 several short-lived companies revived the name, most notably Albert Vizentini 's Théâtre National Lyrique (1876–1878), but none were as successful as the original. The Théâtre Lyrique was created from the Opéra-National at the end of the latter's 1851–1852 season by a simple change of name. It continued to perform at

32092-417: The most significant figure was undoubtedly Wagner . Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber and Meyerbeer , he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with

32318-458: The musical stage in England. The only exceptions were ballad operas , such as John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera (1728), musical burlesques , European operettas , and late Victorian era light operas , notably the Savoy operas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan , all of which types of musical entertainments frequently spoofed operatic conventions; these genres contributed significantly to

32544-475: The new Kingdom of Italy , which was formed after Sardinia 's 1861 annexation of the Bourbon-ruled Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and all of the pope's territory outside Rome. She also supported keeping a French garrison in Rome to protect the papacy's continued hold on the city. Her opposition to Italian unification earned her the enmity of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy , who stated that "the emperor

32770-625: The new director of the Théâtre Lyrique. Pasdeloup, a successful conductor of popular concerts at the Cirque Napoléon with little experience as a theatre director, began with some already established productions. The season opened on 24 October with the company's revival of Halévy's Le val d'Andorre , which was followed by performances of Flotow's Martha , Rossini's Le barbier de Seville , Paer 's two-act opéra comique Le maître de chapelle , and Grisar 's one-act opéra comique Les bégaiements d'amour . Pasdeloup's first new production

32996-416: The new director on 26 July 1854, while also retaining his post as director of the Opéra-Comique . This arrangement created some anxieties within the company regarding potential conflicts of interest between itself and its chief rival. An announcement was made in an attempt to allay these concerns: "Each of the two establishments will have a separate company and special repertory. The Théâtre Lyrique will not be

33222-482: The new genre of grand opera , a form whose most famous exponent was another foreigner, Giacomo Meyerbeer . Meyerbeer's works, such as Les Huguenots , emphasised virtuoso singing and extraordinary stage effects. Lighter opéra comique also enjoyed tremendous success in the hands of Boïeldieu , Auber , Hérold and Adam . In this climate, the operas of the French-born composer Hector Berlioz struggled to gain

33448-471: The new opera yielded more than 60,000 francs. The Emperor and Empress came to see her just before Christmas. The opera received 40 performances before the end of that year, and a total of 132 by the company. Cabel also created the role of Corbin in the one-act opéra comique Georgette ou Le moulin de Fontenoy at the Lyrique on 28 November 1853. The music was by the Belgian composer François-Auguste Gevaert ,

33674-495: The old days. He still has his figure, his comic gestures, his delivery (clear and energetic)... You can imagine how he was received in the role in which he always triumphed. It was like a family gathering, a return of the prodigal son...". On 22 January 1853 it was formally announced that Napoleon III would marry Countess Eugénie de Montijo , and the wedding took place a week later amid the usual festivities. Princess Mathilde may have reported favorably to her relatives of her visit to

33900-586: The ones that would follow in Verdi's career, revolutionized Italian opera, changing it from merely a display of vocal fireworks, with Rossini's and Donizetti's works, to dramatic story-telling. Verdi's operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian nationalism in the post- Napoleonic era, and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement for a unified Italy. In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular operas: Rigoletto , Il trovatore and La traviata . The first of these, Rigoletto , proved

34126-483: The opening of Le brasseur , Adolphe Deloffre , who up to this time had been the chief conductor of the Théâtre Lyrique, left to become the conductor of the Opéra-Comique . The new year brought further performances of the company's productions of Verdi's Rigoletto (beginning 8 January 1869), Mozart's Don Juan (beginning on 24 January), and Verdi's Violetta (beginning on 1 February). Christine Nilsson, who had been highly successful as Violetta, had left

34352-479: The operas of Mozart , who wrote in Vienna near the century's close. Leading Italian-born composers of opera seria include Alessandro Scarlatti , Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora . Opera seria had its weaknesses and critics. The taste for embellishment on behalf of the superbly trained singers, and the use of spectacle as a replacement for dramatic purity and unity drew attacks. Francesco Algarotti 's Essay on

34578-552: The orchestra made so many egregious errors that the audience began murmuring. Paul Scudo in the Revue des deux mondes agreed, saying that the orchestra was "at its wits ends", while adding that the singers were all subpar except for Deligne-Lauters. The Musical World (24 February 1855) reported that Madame Lauters had been coached by Gilbert Duprez : Never could singer be under more unfit master for an opera like Der Freischütz . M. Duprez seems to have considered this masterpiece from

34804-464: The original Italian by Pierre-Louis Moline when Gluck had adapted his Vienna version in 1774 for the Paris Opera , replacing the alto castrato role of Orfeo with the high tenor ( haute-contre ) role of Orphée. The Théâtre Lyrique's production was a landmark revival in the history of the opera, with the music adapted by Hector Berlioz for the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot as Orphée. Eurydice

35030-412: The original version), Guardi ( né Hector Gruyer) sang the role of Jean Galéas (Florestan), and Charles-Amable Battaille was Rocco. The role of Don Fernando became Charles VIII of France. The production was first presented on 5 May, and unfortunately Viardot did not repeat the success she had with Orphée. The part was too high for her, and inexplicably the spoken dialogue gave her difficulty, making

35256-549: The other dominating force in English opera at this time was George Frideric Handel , whose opera serias filled the London operatic stages for decades and influenced most home-grown composers, like John Frederick Lampe , who wrote using Italian models. This situation continued throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, including in the work of Michael William Balfe , and the operas of the great Italian composers, as well as those of Mozart, Beethoven, and Meyerbeer, continued to dominate

35482-516: The other lyric theatres in Paris put together." Carvalho was greatly aided in his success by the presence of his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho , who became the leading soprano and the company's greatest box office attraction, but Léon Carvalho also engaged other important singers who were already, or would become, major stars, including Delphine Ugalde , Marie Sax , Pauline Viardot , and Christine Nilsson . Most of Léon Carvalho's productions were to be substantial works of 3 acts or more, as opposed to

35708-531: The other, and which passed before the eyes of the spectator like magic lantern slides." Jules Ruelle, writing in Le Guide Musical , thought the baritone Auguste-Alphonse Meillet excellent in the role of Sancho-Pança, but the young bass Alfred Giraudet , although having the proper physique, not quite up to the role of the Don vocally – his voice began to fail by the end of the second act. Ruelle also felt that

35934-580: The outbreak of World War I , she donated her steam yacht Thistle to the British Navy . She funded a military hospital at Farnborough Hill as well as made large donations to French hospitals, for which she was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in 1919. The former empress died on 11 July 1920, aged 94, during a visit to her relative the 17th Duke of Alba , at

36160-589: The palace or its purlieus, all affect to regard this marriage as an amazing humiliation..." Eugénie found childbearing extraordinarily difficult. An initial miscarriage in 1853, after a three-month pregnancy, frightened and soured her. On 16 March 1856, after two-day labor that endangered mother and child and from which Eugénie made a prolonged recovery, the empress gave birth to an only son, Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte , styled Prince Impérial . After marriage, it did not take long for her husband to stray as Eugénie found sex with him "disgusting". It

36386-572: The period, including Niccolò Jommelli and Tommaso Traetta , attempted to put these ideals into practice. The first to succeed however, was Gluck. Gluck strove to achieve a "beautiful simplicity". This is evident in his first reform opera, Orfeo ed Euridice , where his non-virtuosic vocal melodies are supported by simple harmonies and a richer orchestra presence throughout. Gluck's reforms have had resonance throughout operatic history. Weber, Mozart, and Wagner, in particular, were influenced by his ideals. Mozart, in many ways Gluck's successor, combined

36612-488: The piece could be performed on successive evenings. Adam's opera was given 66 times before the end of the year, and eventually received a total of 166 performances by the company, the last being in 1863. The 60th performance in December was an especially gala affair, attended by a noted patron of the arts, Princess Mathilde , daughter of Jérôme Bonaparte and cousin of Napoleon III . The latter had just established

36838-475: The pro-war camp behind the Emperor, who was himself indecisive. After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, Eugénie remained in Paris as Regent while Napoleon III and the Prince Imperial travelled to join the troops at the German front. When the news of several French defeats reached Paris on 7 August, it was greeted with disbelief and dismay. Prime Minister Émile Ollivier and the chief of staff of

37064-516: The pseudonym of Charles Darcours. In 1862, as a result of the destruction of the theatres on the boulevard du Temple during Haussmann's renovation of Paris , the company relocated to a new theatre (capacity 1800) on the east side of the Place du Châtelet . The architect was Gabriel Davioud , and he also designed a larger, but similarly styled theatre, the Cirque Impérial, on the west side of

37290-473: The public with such a wretched apology for an eruption." This opera was only performed 13 times. In an attempt to recover from so many poorly received productions, Pasdeloup's next new production was a revival of another Verdi opera, this time Un ballo in maschera as Le bal masqué in a French translation by the reliable Edouard Duprez. Marie-Stéphanie Meillet was reengaged for the important role of Amelia. Juliette Borghèse sang Ulrique, and Richard (Riccardo)

37516-459: The quality of performances at the theatre began to decline. When Charles Réty (1826–1895) took over from Léon Carvalho in April 1860, a new revival was already in rehearsal. This was Beethoven's Fidelio in a French translation by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré with the location of the story changed to Milan in the 15th century. Pauline Viardot was Isabelle, Duchesse d'Aragon (Leonore in

37742-511: The quintessential designer of these productions, and this style was to dominate the English stage for three centuries. These masques contained songs and dances. In Ben Jonson 's Lovers Made Men (1617), "the whole masque was sung after the Italian manner, stilo recitativo". The approach of the English Commonwealth closed theatres and halted any developments that may have led to the establishment of English opera. However, in 1656,

37968-665: The remainder of her life working to commemorate their memories and the memory of the Second French Empire . María Eugenia Ignacia Agustina was born on 5 May 1826 in Granada , Spain. She was the youngest child and daughter of Don Cipriano de Palafox y Portocarrero , three times Grandee of Spain , whose titles included 13th Duke of Peñaranda de Duero , 9th Count of Montijo , 15th Count of Teba , 8th Count of Ablitas, 8th Count of Fuentidueña, 14th Marquis of Ardales , 17th Marquis of Moya and 13th Marquis of la Algaba, and María Manuela Enriqueta Kirkpatrick y Grivegnée . María de Grivegnée

38194-620: The same characteristics as described above, though Berg combined his highly personal interpretation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique with melodic passages of a more traditionally tonal nature (quite Mahlerian in character) which perhaps partially explains why his operas have remained in standard repertory, despite their controversial music and plots. Schoenberg's theories have influenced (either directly or indirectly) significant numbers of opera composers ever since, even if they themselves did not compose using his techniques. Eug%C3%A9nie de Montijo Born to prominent Spanish nobility, Eugénie

38420-471: The same principles as M Carvalho, the production is therefore diminished as, consequently, is the success, in spite of all the care given elsewhere to the orchestral part." These revivals were followed by some premieres: a one-act opéra comique by Ernest Guiraud called En prison , which was first presented on 5 March 1869 and received 21 performances, and another new work, the three-act opéra comique Don Quichotte by Ernest Boulanger (winner of

38646-420: The same venue, the Théâtre Historique on the boulevard du Temple . Jules Seveste , the new director who had taken over after the death of his brother Edmond, opened the season on 4 September 1852 with the premiere of a particularly noteworthy new French opéra comique , Adolphe Adam 's three-act Si j'étais roi ( If I Were King ), which received an especially lavish production. Dual casts were employed so

38872-516: The section on modernism . During the late 19th century, the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II , an admirer of the French -language operettas composed by Jacques Offenbach , composed several German-language operettas, the most famous of which was Die Fledermaus . Nevertheless, rather than copying the style of Offenbach, the operettas of Strauss II had distinctly Viennese flavor to them. In rivalry with imported Italian opera productions,

39098-419: The sense "composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined" in 1639; the first recorded English usage in this sense dates to 1648. Dafne by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the " Camerata de' Bardi ". Significantly, Dafne

39324-614: The spoken dialogue of opèra comique . At the same time, the influence of Richard Wagner was felt as a challenge to the French tradition. Many French critics angrily rejected Wagner's music dramas while many French composers closely imitated them with variable success. Perhaps the most interesting response came from Claude Debussy . As in Wagner's works, the orchestra plays a leading role in Debussy's unique opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) and there are no real arias, only recitative. But

39550-472: The square. The two theatres, which face each other, are still to be found in the same locations, but with different names: the Cirque Impérial soon became the Théâtre du Châtelet , and that of the Théâtre Lyrique is today known as the Théâtre de la Ville . Not long before opening at the new theatre in October, the company was officially renamed Théâtre Lyrique Impérial , but reverted to its previous name after

39776-401: The stage in every country except France. Farinelli was one of the most famous singers of the 18th century. Italian opera set the Baroque standard. Italian libretti were the norm, even when a German composer like Handel found himself composing the likes of Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare for London audiences. Italian libretti remained dominant in the classical period as well, for example in

40002-525: The structure of a spoken play, such as Shakespeare in Purcell's The Fairy-Queen (1692) and Beaumont and Fletcher in The Prophetess (1690) and Bonduca (1696). The main characters of the play tend not to be involved in the musical scenes, which means that Purcell was rarely able to develop his characters through song. Despite these hindrances, his aim (and that of his collaborator John Dryden )

40228-593: The style he wanted. Opera would never be the same after Wagner and for many composers his legacy proved a heavy burden. On the other hand, Richard Strauss accepted Wagnerian ideas but took them in wholly new directions, along with incorporating the new form introduced by Verdi. He first won fame with the scandalous Salome and the dark tragedy Elektra , in which tonality was pushed to the limits. Then Strauss changed tack in his greatest success, Der Rosenkavalier , where Mozart and Viennese waltzes became as important an influence as Wagner. Strauss continued to produce

40454-697: The theatre after having "directed in the morning the beautiful Mass of Mme la Vicomte de Grandval at the Panthéon , and, in the afternoon the concert at the Cirque [Napoléon]." Pasdeloup had also retained his post as conductor of the Orphéonistes and seems to have had too little time available for running the Théâtre Lyrique. His next new revival was Adolphe Adam 's three-act opéra comique Le brasseur de Preston on 23 December. The latter proved to be more popular, receiving 60 performances. Not long after

40680-407: The theatre. In any case, he resigned his post and Pierre Pellegrin took his place. Marie Cabel was under contract directly with Perrin, so the company's star soprano transferred before the end of the year to the Opéra-Comique where Perrin was still the manager. However, Pellegrin did manage to attract some new singers, including a Mlle Pouilley who had appeared at the Opéra , the bass Hermann-Léon from

40906-431: The time of the premiere it was evident that much of the scenery and costumes had been reused from previous productions. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the final tableau triggered laughter. Galignani's Messenger (30 September 1869) wrote: "The two or three squibs spit forth by the convulsed volcano are conducive to mirth alone. ... We can assure M. Pasdeloup that no country theatre in Italy would have ventured to put off

41132-740: The title Violetta with Christine Nilsson in the title role (27 October 1864; 102 performances); Mozart's The Magic Flute , performed as La flûte enchantée with Christine Nilsson as the Queen of the Night and Delphine Ugalde as Papagena (23 February 1865; 172 performances); Verdi's Macbeth (21 April 1865; 14 performances); Flotow's Martha with Christine Nilsson as Lady Henriette (18 December 1865; 163 performances); and Mozart's Don Giovanni , performed as Don Juan , with Anne Charton-Demeur as Donna Anna, Christine Nilsson as Donna Elvire, and Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Zerline (8 May 1866; 71 performances). The most successful premiere during this period

41358-401: The title role and her presence probably accounted for its relatively long run of 61 performances. The Musical World (14 April 1860) wrote that Ugalde "fills the role of the hero to the great delight of the public, for whatever charm may now and then be found wanting in her voice she supplies by her animated acting [...] nothing is equal to the song she sings before the door of the inn where

41584-404: The trend. The changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below . The Italian word opera means "work", both in the sense of the labour done and the result produced. The Italian word derives from the Latin word opera , a singular noun meaning "work" and also the plural of the noun opus . According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the Italian word was first used in

41810-399: The various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below . During both the Baroque and Classical periods , recitative could appear in two basic forms, each of which was accompanied by a different instrumental ensemble: secco (dry) recitative, sung with a free rhythm dictated by the accent of the words, accompanied only by basso continuo , which was usually a harpsichord and

42036-467: The vassal of its elder brother, on the contrary, every effort will be made to keep up a noble spirit of emulation between the two, which cannot fail to be profitable to the art." Marie Cabel, having been under contract to Jules Seveste, was now free to leave, and there were reports she might go to the Opéra . Perrin was however successful in signing her to a new contract, and the new season opened on 30 September with Cabel in La promise . Two singers new to

42262-413: The villagers are feasting, accompanying herself with a mandoline. He [Gil Blas] is expressing the hunger he feels, and when they will not listen to him he changes his tone to diabolical menaces. The air was rapturously encored." Albert Lasalle tells us that "the 'Serenade of Gil Blas' was used on all the Barbary barrel organs [of Paris] for the next two or three years." Probably at least partly because of

42488-421: The work to a French audience. The libretto was translated by Charles Nuitter and Jules Guillaume, and the rehearsals, which at Wagner's suggestion were superintended by Carl Eckert , were extensive. The lavish production was stage managed by Augustin Vizentini (father of Albert Vizentini , a former violinist with the Théâtre Lyrique). The sets were designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Auguste Alfred Rubé , and

42714-399: The world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini 's La bohème , Tosca , and Madama Butterfly . Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono , have experimented with modernism . The first German opera was Dafne , composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until

42940-431: The years and was appointed the official dressmaker to the court in 1869. In the late 1860s, she caused a shift in fashion by turning against the crinoline and adopting Worth's "new" slimmer silhouettes with the skirt gathered in the back over a bustle. Eugénie's influence on contemporary taste extended into the decorative arts. She was a great admirer of Queen Marie Antoinette and decorated her interiors in revivals of

43166-402: Was Tsefal i Prokris by the Italian composer Francesco Araja (1755). The development of Russian-language opera was supported by the Russian composers Vasily Pashkevich , Yevstigney Fomin and Alexey Verstovsky . However, the real birth of Russian opera came with Mikhail Glinka and his two great operas A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). After him, during

43392-402: Was "perhaps the last Royal personage to have a direct and immediate influence on fashion". She set the standard for contemporary fashion at a time when the luxury industries of Paris were flourishing. Gowns, colors, and hairstyles "à l'impératrice" were avidly copied from the empress throughout Europe and America. She was famous for her large crinolines and for rotating her outfits throughout

43618-735: Was Gounod's Roméo et Juliette (27 April 1867; 90 performances). Of historical interest, if less successful, were Georges Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles (30 September 1863; 18 performances); Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens à Carthage (4 November 1863; 21 performances); Charles Gounod's Mireille (19 March 1864; 41 performances); and La jolie fille de Perth (26 December 1867; 18 performances). There were also two new one-act opéras comiques which premiered together on 8 December 1864: Albert Grisar's Les bégaiements d'amour ( The Stammerers of Love ; 36 performances) and Henri Caspers ' Le cousin Babylas (59 performances). In 1868 Carvalho launched

43844-440: Was Gounod's opera Faust (19 March 1859; 306 performances) in which Carvalho's wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho sang the role of Marguerite. She later became internationally famous in the part. Beginning on 18 February 1860 Gounod's Philémon et Baucis premiered at the theatre. Despite a strong cast, with Caroline Carvalho as Baucis, Marie Sax as the Bacchante, and Charles-Amable Battaille as Jupiter, this production

44070-426: Was a concert which included Félicien David 's symphonic ode Le désert , but also Acts I and II of Rossini's Le barbier de Seville . The concert was repeated. Later another concert included David's symphonic ode Christophe Colombe , but this concert also included foreign works: the overture to Rossini's Semiramide , and an aria from Le Freischütz sung by Marie Schroeder. This program was repeated twice. Still,

44296-517: Was a highly altered version of Weber's Der Freischütz , that had been translated and adapted in 1824 by Thomas Sauvage and Castil-Blaze , for performance at the Théâtre de l'Odéon . Eugène Scribe had also been brought in to make some revisions early in the run, but he preferred to keep his contribution anonymous. This version had also been performed with success at the Opéra-Comique in 1835 and in several provincial theatres. The alterations to Weber's opera were both textual and musical and involved

44522-458: Was a revival of Halévy's three-act opéra comique Le val d'Andorre (15 October 1860; 135 performances) with Marie-Stéphanie Meillet as Rose-de Mai and Jules Monjauze as Stéphan. The most successful new work was Ernest Reyer 's three-act opéra comique La statue (11 April 1861; 59 performances) with Blanche Baretti as Margyane, Jules Monjauze as Sélim, and Émile Wartel as Kaloum. The following season Marie Cabel returned to

44748-423: Was a revival of Méhul's one-act opéra comique L'irato (1801), which opened on 16 November 1868. It was such an abysmal failure that it received only one performance. Next was a new revival of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride , which was first presented on 26 November and did somewhat better with 15 performances. Ernest Reyer reported that at the second performance of Iphigénie on 29 November Pasdeloup arrived at

44974-428: Was able to match its Italian counterpart in musical sophistication. The theatre company of Abel Seyler pioneered serious German-language opera in the 1770s, marking a break with the previous simpler musical entertainment. Mozart 's Singspiele , Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782) and Die Zauberflöte (1791) were an important breakthrough in achieving international recognition for German opera. The tradition

45200-449: Was able to move beyond the Italian influences and create his own unique and distinctly English voice. His modernized ballad opera, Love in a Village (1762), began a vogue for pastiche opera that lasted well into the 19th century. Charles Burney wrote that Arne introduced "a light, airy, original, and pleasing melody, wholly different from that of Purcell or Handel, whom all English composers had either pillaged or imitated". Besides Arne,

45426-437: Was also duly noted that Wagner had strongly influenced Joncières' music. (Joncières was a Wagner enthusiast and travelled to Munich to see one of the first performances of Das Rheingold .) However, other influences were also heard, including Meyerbeer, Verdi, and Donizetti. It had been advertised that the settings would be designed by Enrico Robecchi, Charles-Antoine Cambon , Auguste Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon , but by

45652-409: Was an attempt to attract members of the growing merchant class, newly wealthy, but still not as cultured as the nobility, to the public opera houses . These separate plots were almost immediately resurrected in a separately developing tradition that partly derived from the commedia dell'arte , a long-flourishing improvisatory stage tradition of Italy. Just as intermedi had once been performed in between

45878-424: Was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama , part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance . The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. Dafne , however, is lost. A later work by Peri, Euridice , dating from 1600,

46104-450: Was born in the middle of an earthquake and her mother was carried out of the house and laid under a tree, her family ever after used to mock at her saying, “ The mountain was in travail and it brought forth a mouse.”" Eugenia's elder sister, Maria Francisca de Sales Palafox Portocarrero y Kirkpatrick , nicknamed "Paca", who inherited most of the family honours and was 14th Duchess of Peñaranda, Grandee of Spain and 9th Countess of Montijo,

46330-585: Was brought to Russia in the 1730s by the Italian operatic troupes and soon it became an important part of entertainment for the Russian Imperial Court and aristocracy . Many foreign composers such as Baldassare Galuppi , Giovanni Paisiello , Giuseppe Sarti , and Domenico Cimarosa (as well as various others) were invited to Russia to compose new operas, mostly in the Italian language . Simultaneously some domestic musicians of Ukrainian origin like Maxim Berezovsky and Dmitry Bortniansky were sent abroad to learn to write operas. The first opera written in Russian

46556-442: Was built for her at Cape Martin, between Menton and Nice, where she lived in retirement, abstaining from politics. Her house in Farnborough is now an independent Catholic girls' school, Farnborough Hill . After the deaths of her husband and son, as her health started to deteriorate, she spent some time at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight ; her physician recommended she visit Bournemouth which was, in Victorian times, famed as

46782-440: Was called the Villa Eugénie, today the Hôtel du Palais . The presence of the imperial couple attracted other European royalty like the British monarchs Queen Victoria and the Spanish king Alfonso XIII and made Biarritz well-known. The Empress held anti-Prussian views and disliked the North German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck , for what she perceived as his "meddling" in Spanish affairs. She believed that France's status as

47008-419: Was developed by Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873) whose most famous work Zaporozhets za Dunayem (A Cossack Beyond the Danube) is regularly performed around the world. Other Ukrainian opera composers include Mykola Lysenko ( Taras Bulba and Natalka Poltavka ), Heorhiy Maiboroda , and Yuliy Meitus . At the turn of the century, a distinct national opera movement also began to emerge in Georgia under

47234-416: Was developed in the 19th century by Beethoven with his Fidelio (1805), inspired by the climate of the French Revolution . Carl Maria von Weber established German Romantic opera in opposition to the dominance of Italian bel canto . His Der Freischütz (1821) shows his genius for creating a supernatural atmosphere. Other opera composers of the time include Marschner , Schubert and Lortzing , but

47460-404: Was doing no good for the army. The empress responded by telegraph: "Don't think of coming back unless you want to unleash a terrible revolution. They will say you quit the army to flee the danger." The emperor agreed to remain with the army but sent his son back to the capital. With the empress directing the country and Bazaine commanding the army, the emperor no longer had any real role to play. At

47686-419: Was educated in France, Spain, and England. As Empress, she used her influence to champion "authoritarian and clerical policies"; her involvement in politics earned her much criticism from contemporaries. Napoléon and Eugénie had one child together, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial (1856–1879). After the fall of the Empire, the three lived in exile in England; Eugénie outlived both her husband and son and spent

47912-523: Was forced to file a petition for bankruptcy. The artists attempted to take on the management of the company and on 18 January 1856 mounted a double-bill consisting of the premiere of Adam's one-act opéra comique Falstaff (23 performances) and a more successful revival of his three-act opéra comique Le sourd ou L'auberge pleine (133 performances), but Clapisson soon intervened and invited Madame Carvalho's husband Léon Carvalho to take Pellegrin's place. Carvalho agreed, and on 20 February 1856 he

48138-417: Was fully staged in 1945 in Armenia. The first years of the Soviet Union saw the emergence of new national operas, such as the Koroğlu (1937) by the Azerbaijani composer Uzeyir Hajibeyov . The first Kyrgyz opera, Ai-Churek , premiered in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theatre on 26 May 1939, during Kyrgyz Art Decade. It was composed by Vladimir Vlasov , Abdylas Maldybaev and Vladimir Fere . The libretto

48364-501: Was less successful: "it merely fizzled out after 13 indifferent performances." It was, however, revived more successfully in a two-act version at the Opéra-Comique in 1876. The revised version was kept in that company's repertory up to 1943. Gounod's opera was followed on 24 March by the premiere of Théophile Semet's five-act opéra comique Gil Blas with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based on Alain-René Lesage 's novel Gil Blas de Santillane . Delphine Ugalde starred in

48590-453: Was never again used by the Théâtre Lyrique. Léon Carvalho was reappointed director of the company on 7 October 1862. As before Carvalho kept the company solvent by reviving established operas, including both French and foreign works translated into French. Revivals at the theatre on the Place du Châtelet included a new, more faithful translation of Weber's Der Freischütz (now called Le Freischütz ), first performed on 8 December 1862;

48816-409: Was not allowed to present more than 6 acts by any composer who had already had four or more works staged by the Opéra or the Opéra-Comique. During Perrin's one full season with the company he produced 11 new French operas and only two revivals. The most successful of the premieres was a three-act opéra comique by Fromental Halévy called Jaguarita l'Indienne (14 May 1855), which eventually received

49042-435: Was officially appointed the new director. Léon Carvalho had had little or no experience as a theatre director when he took on the position at the Théâtre Lyrique, yet he proved to be the most successful in the company's history. His counterpart at the Opéra-Comique, Nestor Roqueplan , was later to say: "I admit my weakness for this indomitable and inventive director, who has done more for the spreading of great music than all

49268-403: Was replaced with a more faithful translation of the original called Le Freischütz . The singers included Pauline Deligne-Lauters in the role of Annette (Agathe in the original), Caroline Girard as Nancy (Ännchen), Rousseau de Lagrave as Tony (Max), and Marcel Junca as Robin (Samiel). Hector Berlioz in the Journal des débats thought the sets and the men's chorus were good, but the woodwinds in

49494-771: Was sung by Marie Sax , who later became a leading soprano at the Paris Opera. This period was also distinguished by many successful productions of new French works, including Louis Clapisson's three-act opéra comique La fanchonnette (1 March 1856; 192 performances), Aimé Maillart's three-act opéra comique Les dragons de Villars (19 September 1856; 156 performances), Victor Massé 's three-act opéra comique La reine topaze (19 September 1856; 170 performances), Léo Delibes ' one-act opéra comique Maître Griffard (3 October 1857; 64 performances), and Charles Gounod 's three-act opéra comique Le médecin malgré lui (15 January 1858; 142 performances). The most significant premiere under Carvalho, however,

49720-399: Was sung by a tenor by the name of Massy. The production opened on 17 November 1869 to ecstatic reviews and was performed a total of 65 times, notwithstanding that the opera was also being performed that same season in Italian at the Théâtre-Italien. Opera Opera is a form of Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers . Such

49946-472: Was the 17th-century jig . This was an afterpiece that came at the end of a play. It was frequently libellous and scandalous and consisted in the main of dialogue set to music arranged from popular tunes. In this respect, jigs anticipate the ballad operas of the 18th century. At the same time, the French masque was gaining a firm hold at the English Court, with even more lavish splendour and highly realistic scenery than had been seen before. Inigo Jones became

50172-415: Was the daughter of the Scots-born William Kirkpatrick of Closeburn (1764–1837), who became United States consul to Málaga , and later was a wholesale wine merchant, and his wife, Marie Françoise de Grivegnée (born 1769), daughter of Liège -born Henri, Baron de Grivegnée and Spanish wife, Doña Francisca Antonia de Gallegos y Delgado (1751–1853). In later life, the Empress told Lady Helena Gleichen that "she

50398-418: Was the first English composer to experiment with Italian-style all-sung comic opera, with his greatest success being Thomas and Sally in 1760. His opera Artaxerxes (1762) was the first attempt to set a full-blown opera seria in English and was a huge success, holding the stage until the 1830s. Although Arne imitated many elements of Italian opera, he was perhaps the only English composer at that time who

50624-415: Was to establish serious opera in England, but these hopes ended with Purcell's early death at the age of 36. Following Purcell, the popularity of opera in England dwindled for several decades. A revived interest in opera occurred in the 1730s which is largely attributed to Thomas Arne , both for his own compositions and for alerting Handel to the commercial possibilities of large-scale works in English. Arne

50850-429: Was widowed, she attempted to join Bonapartists and Legitimists in political alliance against the French Third Republic by making overtures to the Count of Chambord (the Legitimist claimant to the throne of France) and proposing that he adopt her son. The idea was rejected by the Count of Chambord. In 1885, she moved to Farnborough , Hampshire, and to the Villa Cyrnos (named after the ancient Greek for Corsica), which

51076-436: Was written by Joomart Bokonbaev, Jusup Turusbekov, and Kybanychbek Malikov. The opera is based on the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas . In Iran, opera gained more attention after the introduction of Western classical music in the late 19th century. However, it took until mid 20th century for Iranian composers to start experiencing with the field, especially as the construction of the Roudaki Hall in 1967, made possible staging of

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