DOCSLIB.ORG

A Second Book of Operas

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Second Book of Operas A Second Book Of Operas Henry Edward Krehbiel A Second Book Of Operas Table of Contents A Second Book Of Operas..................................................................................................................................1 Henry Edward Krehbiel...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER I. BIBLICAL OPERAS........................................................................................................1 CHAPTER II. BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO.........................................................6 CHAPTER III. RUBINSTEIN'S "GEISTLICHE OPER"....................................................................11 CHAPTER IV. "SAMSON ET DALILA"............................................................................................16 CHAPTER V. "DIE KONIGIN VON SABA"......................................................................................25 CHAPTER VI. "HERODIADE"...........................................................................................................27 CHAPTER VII. "LAKME"...................................................................................................................29 CHAPTER VIII. "PAGLIACCl"...........................................................................................................32 CHAPTER IX. "CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA".................................................................................38 CHAPTER X. THE CAREER OF MASCAGNI..................................................................................45 CHAPTER XI. "IRIS"...........................................................................................................................49 CHAPTER XII. "MADAMA BUTTERFLY".......................................................................................51 CHAPTER XIII. "DER ROSENKAVALIER"......................................................................................57 CHAPTER XIV. "KONIGSKINDER"..................................................................................................60 CHAPTER XV. "BORIS GODOUNOFF"............................................................................................63 CHAPTER XVI. "MADAME SANS−GENE" AND OTHER OPERAS BY GIORDANO...............66 CHAPTER XVII. TWO OPERAS BY WOLF−FERRARI.................................................................70 i A Second Book Of Operas Henry Edward Krehbiel This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online. http://www.blackmask.com • CHAPTER I. BIBLICAL OPERAS • CHAPTER II. BIBLE STORIES IN OPERA AND ORATORIO • CHAPTER III. RUBINSTEIN'S "GEISTLICHE OPER" • CHAPTER IV. "SAMSON ET DALILA" • CHAPTER V. "DIE KONIGIN VON SABA" • CHAPTER VI. "HERODIADE" • CHAPTER VII. "LAKME" • CHAPTER VIII. "PAGLIACCl" • CHAPTER IX. "CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA" • CHAPTER X. THE CAREER OF MASCAGNI • CHAPTER XI. "IRIS" • CHAPTER XII. "MADAMA BUTTERFLY" • CHAPTER XIII. "DER ROSENKAVALIER" • CHAPTER XIV. "KONIGSKINDER" • CHAPTER XV. "BORIS GODOUNOFF" • CHAPTER XVI. "MADAME SANS−GENE" AND OTHER OPERAS BY GIORDANO • CHAPTER XVII. TWO OPERAS BY WOLF−FERRARI This etext was produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. CHAPTER I. BIBLICAL OPERAS Whether or not the English owe a grudge to their Lord Chamberlain for depriving them of the pleasure of seeing operas based on Biblical stories I do not know. If they do, the grudge cannot be a deep one, for it is a long time since Biblical operas were in vogue, and in the case of the very few survivals it has been easy to solve the difficulty and salve the conscience of the public censor by the simple device of changing the names of the characters and the scene of action if the works are to be presented on the stage, or omitting scenery, costumes and action and performing them as oratorios. In either case, whenever this has been done, however, it has been the habit of critics to make merry at the expense of my Lord Chamberlain and the puritanicalness of the popular spirit of which he is supposed to be the official embodiment, and to discourse lugubriously and mayhap profoundly on the perversion of composers' purposes and the loss of things essential to the lyric drama. It may be heretical to say so, but is it not possible that Lord Chamberlain and Critic have both taken too serious a view of the matter? There is a vast amount of admirable material in the Bible (historical, legendary or mythical, as one happens to regard it), which would not necessarily be degraded by dramatic treatment, and which might be made entertaining as well as edifying, as it has been made in the past, by stage representation. Reverence for this material is neither inculcated nor preserved by shifting the scene and throwing a veil over names too transparent to effect a disguise. Moreover, when this is done, there is always danger that the process may involve a sacrifice of the respect to which a work of art is entitled on its merits as A Second Book Of Operas 1 A Second Book Of Operas such. Gounod, in collaboration with Barbier and Carre, wrote an opera entitled "La Reine de Saba." The plot had nothing to do with the Bible beyond the name of Sheba's Queen and King Solomon. Mr. Farnie, who used to make comic operetta books in London, adapted the French libretto for performance in English and called the opera "Irene." What a title for a grand opera! Why not "Blanche" or "Arabella"? No doubt such a thought flitted through many a careless mind unconscious that an Irene was a Byzantine Empress of the eighth century, who, by her devotion to its tenets, won beatification after death from the Greek Church. The opera failed on the Continent as well as in London, but if it had not been given a comic operetta flavor by its title and association with the name of the excellent Mr. Farnie, would the change in supposed time, place and people have harmed it? A few years ago I read (with amusement, of course) of the metamorphosis to which Massenet's "Herodiade" was subjected so that it might masquerade for a brief space on the London stage; but when I saw the opera in New York "in the original package" (to speak commercially), I could well believe that the music sounded the same in London, though John the Baptist sang under an alias and the painted scenes were supposed to delineate Ethiopia instead of Palestine. There is a good deal of nonsensical affectation in the talk about the intimate association in the minds of composers of music, text, incident, and original purpose. "Un Ballo in Maschera," as we see it most often nowadays, plays in Nomansland; but I fancy that its music would sound pretty much the same if the theatre of action were transplanted back to Sweden, whence it came originally, or left in Naples, whither it emigrated, or in Boston, to which highly inappropriate place it was banished to oblige the Neapolitan censor. So long as composers have the habit of plucking feathers out of their dead birds to make wings for their new, we are likely to remain in happy and contented ignorance of mesalliances between music and score, until they are pointed out by too curious critics or confessed by the author. What is present habit was former custom to which no kind or degree of stigma attached. Bach did it; Handel did it; nor was either of these worthies always scrupulous in distinguishing between meum and tuum when it came to appropriating existing thematic material. In their day the merit of individuality and the right of property lay more in the manner in which ideas were presented than in the ideas themselves. In 1886 I spent a delightful day with Dr. Chrysander at his home in Bergedorf, near Hamburg, and he told me the story of how on one occasion, when Keiser was incapacitated by the vice to which he was habitually prone, Handel, who sat in his orchestra, was asked by him to write the necessary opera. Handel complied, and his success was too great to leave Keiser's mind in peace. So he reset the book. Before Keiser's setting was ready for production Handel had gone to Italy. Hearing of Keiser's act, he secured a copy of the new setting from a member of the orchestra and sent back to Hamburg a composition based on Keiser's melodies "to show how such themes ought to be treated." Dr. Chrysander, also, when he gave me a copy of Bertati's "Don Giovanni" libretto, for which Gazzaniga composed the music, told me that Mozart had been only a little less free than the poet in appropriating ideas from the older work. One of the best pieces in the final scene of "Fidelio" was taken from a cantata on the death of the emperor of Austria, composed by Beethoven before he left Bonn. The melody originally conceived for the last movement of the Symphony in D minor was developed into the finale of one of the last string quartets. In fact the instances in which composers have put their pieces to widely divergent purposes are innumerable and sometimes amusing, in view of the fantastic belief that they are guided by plenary inspiration. The overture which Rossini wrote for his "Barber of Seville" was lost soon after the first production of the opera. The composer did not take the trouble to write another, but appropriated one which had served its purpose in an earlier work. Persons ignorant of that fact, but with lively imaginations, as I have said in one of my books, ["A Book of Operas," p. 9] have rhapsodized on its appositeness, and professed to hear in it the whispered plottings of the lovers and the merry raillery of Rosina contrasted
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Musical Landmarks in New York
    MUSICAL LANDMARKS IN NEW YORK By CESAR SAERCHINGER HE great war has stopped, or at least interrupted, the annual exodus of American music students and pilgrims to the shrines T of the muse. What years of agitation on the part of America- first boosters—agitation to keep our students at home and to earn recognition for our great cities as real centers of musical culture—have not succeeded in doing, this world catastrophe has brought about at a stroke, giving an extreme illustration of the proverb concerning the ill wind. Thus New York, for in- stance, has become a great musical center—one might even say the musical center of the world—for a majority of the world's greatest artists and teachers. Even a goodly proportion of its most eminent composers are gathered within its confines. Amer- ica as a whole has correspondingly advanced in rank among musical nations. Never before has native art received such serious attention. Our opera houses produce works by Americans as a matter of course; our concert artists find it popular to in- clude American compositions on their programs; our publishing houses publish new works by Americans as well as by foreigners who before the war would not have thought of choosing an Amer- ican publisher. In a word, America has taken the lead in mu- sical activity. What, then, is lacking? That we are going to retain this supremacy now that peace has come is not likely. But may we not look forward at least to taking our place beside the other great nations of the world, instead of relapsing into the status of a colony paying tribute to the mother country? Can not New York and Boston and Chicago become capitals in the empire of art instead of mere outposts? I am afraid that many of our students and musicians, for four years compelled to "make the best of it" in New York, are already looking eastward, preparing to set sail for Europe, in search of knowledge, inspiration and— atmosphere.
    [Show full text]
  • Mala Vita Melodramma in Tre Atti
    MALA VITA MELODRAMMA IN TRE ATTI versi di Nicola Daspuro musica di Umberto Giordano testi a cura di Agostino Pio Ruscillo COMUNE di FOGGIA Teatro comunale «U. Giordano» 2002 AVVERTENZA INDICE Ripubblichiamo qui senza varianti, se non di ordine tipografico, il libretto stampato in occasione della prima rappresentazione dell’opera; di seguito la descrizione del frontespizio: MALA VITA / MELODRAMMA IN TRE ATTI / versi di / N. DASPURO / musica di / UMBERTO GIORDANO / R. Teatro Argentina / Sta- INTRODUZIONE gione Carnevale-Quaresima 1892 / IMPRESA DEL MARCHESE Mala vita di Daspuro-Giordano: melodramma GINO MONALDI / [fregio] / MILANO / EDOARDO SONZOGNO, EDI- TORE / 14 - Via Pasquirolo - 14 / 1892. tardoromantico nel contenitore del teatro musicale verista 5 Durante la fase di collazione tra il libretto (LI) e lo spartito (SP) della Indicazioni bibliografiche 19 riduzione per canto e pianoforte (a cura di Alessandro Longo, Mila- no, Sonzogno, 1892) sono state registrate varianti significative e se- Note al testo 21 gnalate opportunamente nelle Note al libretto. LIBRETTO Elenco dei personaggi 31 Atto primo 33 Atto secondo 53 Atto terzo 71 Note al libretto 81 Grafica di copertina: Free point Impaginazione: RAgo Interpreti della rappresetnzione in epoca moderna © 1892, EDOARDO SONZOGNO (Foggia, Teatro «U. Giordano», 12 e 14 dicembre 2002) 95 © 2002, CASA MUSICALE SONZOGNO di Piero Ostali Via Bigli, 11 – 20121 Milano INTRODUZIONE Mala vita di Daspuro-Giordano: melodramma tardoromantico nel contenitore del teatro musicale verista. «Cominciato Napoli 8 Dicembre 1890».1 Con questa frase il ventitreenne Umberto Giordano, neodiplomato in compo- sizione presso il Conservatorio di S. Pietro a Majella di Napo- li, nella classe del maestro Paolo Serrao,2 segna indelebilmente il manoscritto degli abbozzi di Mala vita.
    [Show full text]
  • Symphony Hall, Boston Huntington and Massachusetts Avenues
    SYMPHONY HALL, BOSTON HUNTINGTON AND MASSACHUSETTS AVENUES Branch Exchange Telephones, Ticket and Administration Offices, Back Bay 149 1 lostoai Symphony QreSnesfe©J INC SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY, Conductor FORTY-FOURTH SEASON, 1924-1925 PiroErainriime WITH HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES BY PHILIP HALE COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, INC. THE OFFICERS AND TPJ 5TEES OF THE BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Inc. » FREDERICK P. CABOT . Pres.dent GALEN L. STONE ... Vice-President B. ERNEST DANE .... Treasurei FREDERICK P. CABOT ERNEST B. DANE HENRY B. SAWYER M. A. DE WOLFE HOWE GALEN L. STONE JOHN ELLERTON LODGE BENTLEY W, WARREN ARTHUR LYMAN E. SOHlER WELCH W. H. BRENNAN. Manager C E. JUDD Assistant Manager 1429 — THE INST%U<SMENT OF THE IMMORTALS IT IS true that Rachmaninov, Pader- Each embodies all the Steinway ewski, Hofmann—to name but a few principles and ideals. And each waits of a long list of eminent pianists only your touch upon the ivory keys have chosen the Steinway as the one to loose its matchless singing tone, perfect instrument. It is true that in to answer in glorious voice your the homes of literally thousands of quickening commands,, to echo in singers, directors and musicai celebri- lingering beauty or rushing splendor ties, the Steinway is an integral part the genius of the great composers. of the household. And it is equally true that the Steinway, superlatively fine as it is, comet well within the There is a Steinway dealer in your range of the inoderate income and community or near you through "whom meets all the lequirements of the you may purchase a new Steinway modest home.
    [Show full text]
  • Chronology 1916-1937 (Vienna Years)
    Chronology 1916-1937 (Vienna Years) 8 Aug 1916 Der Freischütz; LL, Agathe; first regular (not guest) performance with Vienna Opera Wiedemann, Ottokar; Stehmann, Kuno; Kiurina, Aennchen; Moest, Caspar; Miller, Max; Gallos, Kilian; Reichmann (or Hugo Reichenberger??), cond., Vienna Opera 18 Aug 1916 Der Freischütz; LL, Agathe Wiedemann, Ottokar; Stehmann, Kuno; Kiurina, Aennchen; Moest, Caspar; Gallos, Kilian; Betetto, Hermit; Marian, Samiel; Reichwein, cond., Vienna Opera 25 Aug 1916 Die Meistersinger; LL, Eva Weidemann, Sachs; Moest, Pogner; Handtner, Beckmesser; Duhan, Kothner; Miller, Walther; Maikl, David; Kittel, Magdalena; Schalk, cond., Vienna Opera 28 Aug 1916 Der Evangelimann; LL, Martha Stehmann, Friedrich; Paalen, Magdalena; Hofbauer, Johannes; Erik Schmedes, Mathias; Reichenberger, cond., Vienna Opera 30 Aug 1916?? Tannhäuser: LL Elisabeth Schmedes, Tannhäuser; Hans Duhan, Wolfram; ??? cond. Vienna Opera 11 Sep 1916 Tales of Hoffmann; LL, Antonia/Giulietta Hessl, Olympia; Kittel, Niklaus; Hochheim, Hoffmann; Breuer, Cochenille et al; Fischer, Coppelius et al; Reichenberger, cond., Vienna Opera 16 Sep 1916 Carmen; LL, Micaëla Gutheil-Schoder, Carmen; Miller, Don José; Duhan, Escamillo; Tittel, cond., Vienna Opera 23 Sep 1916 Die Jüdin; LL, Recha Lindner, Sigismund; Maikl, Leopold; Elizza, Eudora; Zec, Cardinal Brogni; Miller, Eleazar; Reichenberger, cond., Vienna Opera 26 Sep 1916 Carmen; LL, Micaëla ???, Carmen; Piccaver, Don José; Fischer, Escamillo; Tittel, cond., Vienna Opera 4 Oct 1916 Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos; Premiere
    [Show full text]
  • Ceriani Rowan University Email: [email protected]
    Nineteenth-Century Music Review, 14 (2017), pp 211–242. © Cambridge University Press, 2016 doi:10.1017/S1479409816000082 First published online 8 September 2016 Romantic Nostalgia and Wagnerismo During the Age of Verismo: The Case of Alberto Franchetti* Davide Ceriani Rowan University Email: [email protected] The world premiere of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana on 17 May 1890 immediately became a central event in Italy’s recent operatic history. As contemporary music critic and composer, Francesco D’Arcais, wrote: Maybe for the first time, at least in quite a while, learned people, the audience and the press shared the same opinion on an opera. [Composers] called upon to choose the works to be staged, among those presented for the Sonzogno [opera] competition, immediately picked Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana as one of the best; the audience awarded this composer triumphal honours, and the press 1 unanimously praised it to the heavens. D’Arcais acknowledged Mascagni’smeritsbut,inthesamearticle,alsourgedcaution in too enthusiastically festooning the work with critical laurels: the dangers of excessive adulation had already become alarmingly apparent in numerous ill-starred precedents. In the two decades prior to its premiere, several other Italian composers similarly attained outstanding critical and popular success with a single work, but were later unable to emulate their earlier achievements. Among these composers were Filippo Marchetti (Ruy Blas, 1869), Stefano Gobatti (IGoti, 1873), Arrigo Boito (with the revised version of Mefistofele, 1875), Amilcare Ponchielli (La Gioconda, 1876) and Giovanni Bottesini (Ero e Leandro, 1879). Once again, and more than a decade after Bottesini’s one-hit wonder, D’Arcais found himself wondering whether in Mascagni ‘We [Italians] have finally [found] … the legitimate successor to [our] great composers, the person 2 who will perpetuate our musical glory?’ This hoary nationalist interrogative returned in 1890 like an old-fashioned curse.
    [Show full text]
  • MASSENET and HIS OPERAS Producing at the Average Rate of One Every Two Years
    M A S S E N E T AN D HIS O PE RAS l /O BY HENRY FIN T. CK AU THO R O F ” ” Gr ie and His Al y sia W a ner and H W g , g is or ks , ” S uccess in Music and it W How is on , E ta , E tc. NEW YO RK : JO HN LANE CO MPANY MCMX LO NDO N : O HN L NE THE BO DLEY HE D J A , A K N .Y . O MP NY N E W Y O R , , P U B L I S HE R S P R I NTI N G C A , AR LEE IB R H O LD 8 . L RA Y BRIGHAM YO UNG UNlVERS lTW AH PRO VO . UT TO MY W I FE CO NTENTS I MASSENET IN AMER . ICA. H . B O GRAP KET H II I IC S C . P arents and Chi dhoo . At the Conservatoire l d . Ha D a n R m M rri ppy ys 1 o e . a age and Return to r H P a is . C oncert a Successes . In ar Time ll W . A n D - Se sational Sacred rama. M ore Semi religious m W or s . P ro e or and Me r of n i u k f ss be I st t te . P E R NAL R D III SO T AITS AN O P INIO NS . A P en P ic ure er en ne t by Servi es . S sitive ss to Griti m h cis .
    [Show full text]
  • Toscanini IV – La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera
    Toscanini IV – La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera Trying to find a balance between what the verbal descriptions of Toscanini’s conducting during the period of roughly 1895-1915 say of him and what he actually did can be like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Since he made no recordings before December 1920, and instrumental recordings at that, we cannot say with any real certainty what his conducting style was like during those years. We do know, from the complaints of Tito Ricordi, some of which reached Giuseppe Verdi’s ears, that Italian audiences hated much of what Toscanini was doing: conducting operas at the written tempos, not allowing most unwritten high notes (but not all, at least not then), refusing to encore well-loved arias and ensembles, and insisting in silence as long as the music was being played and sung. In short, he instituted the kind of audience decorum we come to expect today, although of course even now (particularly in Italy and America, not so much in England) we still have audiences interrupting the flow of an opera to inject their bravos and bravas when they should just let well enough alone. Ricordi complained to Verdi that Toscanini was ruining his operas, which led Verdi to ask Arrigo Boïto, whom he trusted, for an assessment. Boïto, as a friend and champion of the conductor, told Verdi that he was simply conducting the operas pretty much as he wrote them and not allowing excess high notes, repeats or breaks in the action. Verdi was pleased to hear this; it is well known that he detested slowly-paced performances of his operas and, worse yet, the interpolated high notes he did not write.
    [Show full text]
  • Memory of the World Register Nomination Form
    MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER NOMINATION FORM Uruguay – Original records of Carlos Gardel – Horacio Loriente Collection (1913-1935) Uruguay proposes that the Horacio Loriente Collection, the most complete in Uruguay, of original records by Carlos Gardel (Annex 1) be included in the Memory of the World Register. PART A – ESSENTIAL INFORMATION 1. Summary This collection of original records, some acoustic and some electronic, was produced between 1913 and 1935. Through the 770 pieces sung by Carlos Gardel, one can experience and appreciate the complete artistic career of the “zorzal criollo” (creole nightingale). The records, produced in Buenos Aires, Paris and New York, include the 29 musical genres and the different styles that made up Gardel’s repertoire. Thanks to its perfectly preserved state, the collection offers an excellent record of Carlos Gardel’s unique voice, with its highly unusual nuances. Gardel’s voice, in his own lifetime, bewitched people both from humble backgrounds (who felt they were portrayed in his songs and recognized him as “one of them”) and from the higher social classes who, following his successes in Paris and Barcelona and on account of the charm that radiated from him and his general manner, welcomed him into their salons and clubs, an environment as “snobbish” as they were themselves. Absolutely everyone who heard his concerts in Europe and in the various countries of the American continent was won over by his exceptional voice, which was different from those of other singers. Thanks to the sound revolution in the world of film, in which he was one of the pioneers in South America, and to the Spanish-language co-productions in France and the USA, Gardel’s image as a singer and actor spread all over the world (see Annex 5).
    [Show full text]
  • Andrea Chénier
    Synopsis France, late 18th century Act I A The Château de Coigny near Paris; spring, 1789 ER OP Act II AN Paris, along the Cours-la-Reine; spring, 1794 TROPOLIT Act III ME / The courtroom of the Revolutionary Tribunal; July 24, 1794 RD WA HO Act IV N St. Lazare Prison; July 25, 1794 KE 2013–14 A scene from Madama Butterfly Act I Preparations are under way for a party. Gérard, servant to the Countess de Coigny, is disgusted by the ways of the aristocracy. He riles against the servants’ life of slavery and prophesizes death to his masters. Maddalena, the countess’s daughter, appears and Gérard reflects on his secret love for her, while she complains to her servant, Bersi, about the discomfort of wearing fashionable e Metropolitan Opera is pleased clothes. Guests arrive, among them Fléville, a novelist, who has brought his friend, the poet Andrea Chénier. The latest distressing news from Paris is discussed, to salute Bank of America in then Fléville cheers the company with a pastorale he has written for the occasion. Maddalena teases a reluctant Chénier into improvising a poem. He responds recognition of its generous support with a rapturous description of the beauties of nature that turns into an appeal against tyranny and the suffering of the poor. The guests are offended but the during the 2013–14 season. countess begs their indulgence and commands a gavotte to begin. Just then, Gérard storms in with a group of starving peasants. Furious, the countess orders them out. Gérard takes off his livery, declaring he won’t have anything to do with the aristocracy any longer, and departs.
    [Show full text]
  • THE MENTOR 85 “The Magazine Ahead of Its Time”
    THE MENTOR 85 “The Magazine Ahead of its Time” JANUARY 1995 page 1 stepped in. When we stepped out at the Second floor we found three others, including Pauline Scarf, already waiting in the room. The other THE EDITORIAL SLANT lift hadn’t arrived. I took off my coat, unpacked my bags of tea-bags, coffee, sugar, cups, biscuits, FSS info sheets and other junk materials I had brought, then set about, with the others, setting up the room. At that point those from the other lift arrived - coming down in the second lift. by Ron Clarke They had overloaded the first lift. However the FSS Information Officer was not with them - Anne descended five minutes later in another lift. After helping set up the chairs in the room in a circle, I gave a quick run- down on the topic of discussion for the night - “Humour In SF” and asked who wanted to start. After a short dead silence, I read out short items from the Humour In SF section from the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SCIENCE FICTION and the meeting got into first gear. The meeting then There used to be a Futurian Society in New York. There used discussed what each attendee thought of humour in SF and gave to be a Futurian Society in Sydney. The New York Futurian Society is comments on the books they had brought illustrating their thoughts or long gone - the Futurian Society of Sydney lives again. what they had read. Those attending the meeting were Mark When I placed the advertisements in 9 TO 5 Magazine, gave Phillips, Graham Stone, Ian Woolf, Peter Eisler, Isaac Isgro, Wayne pamphlets to Kevin Dillon to place in bookshops and puts ads in Turner, Pauline Scarf, Ken Macaulay, Kevin Dillon, Anne Stewart, Gary GALAXY bookshop I wasn’t sure how many sf readers would turn up Luckman and myself.
    [Show full text]
  • CAMP ANINI DIES AMID the SCENES of HIS TRIUMPHS Famo.Us Impresario, Champion of Progress in Opera-Giv- Ing, Passes Away in Chicago After Long Battle with Death
    Vol. XXXI. No.9 NEW YORK EDITED l DECEMBER 27 ' 1919 15 Cents per Copy ------.-- . CAMP ANINI DIES AMID THE SCENES OF HIS TRIUMPHS Famo.us Impresario, Champion of Progress in Opera-Giv- ing, Passes Away in Chicago After Long Battle with Death-. Fortune Gallo Heads the List of Possible Successors - Campanini's Eventful Career as a Con- ductor in this Country and Abroad-Horatio W. Park- er, the American Composer, and Luigi Illica, the leading Italian Opera Librettist, Die Within the Week THREE fam~us hi.usical personalities passed away on three successive days last week. On Dec. 17 occurred the death of Luigi Illica, the most famous opera librettist inJtaly; on the next day, Horatio W. Parker, one of the foremost of American composers and among the first to receive~ European recognition, died after three months' poor health; and on Friday, Dec. 19, Cleofonte Camp- anini, world-famous impresario and con- ductor, succumbed to double pneumonia, following a prolonged illness that took its rise in nervous exhaustion from over- wo·rk. From his twenty-third year, the oper- atic wo:r\ds of tw:o continents knew the impress of Cleofonte Campanini's dy- namic vitality, his splendid vision, and his instant response to the stimulus of the new ide.a ; from the day that he took the conductor's desk at Parma, his birth- place, to the hours just before his pass- ing, whe~ his thought was still of the future of the company he had carried to fame, he labored unceasingly to ad- vance· the · art of opera-g·iving.
    [Show full text]
  • Forgotten Splendour
    FORGOTTEN SPLENDOUR A Chronology of the North Shore Music Festival 1909 to 1939 by Andrew Cottonaro Beginning in 1909 and lasting until 1939, the North Shore Music Festival of Northwestern University was a significant musical and social event in the Chicago area. For a few days each Spring, the campus hosted a diverse body of performers in a series of grand concerts. Naturally, some of that era’s most eminent singers could be heard there. Their presence certainly helped to sell tickets and their artistry helped to sustain the festival as a popular and critical success. Now, sixty years later, the festival hardly even counts as a faded memory. To date, two books (in part), offer a general outline of the festival’s history, but both lack any detailed analysis of who appeared and what was actually sung. This is the first attempt to present a chronology of the vocal offerings (quite distinct from the orchestral offerings) at the festival. Northwestern University, the official sponsor of the festival, is located in Evanston, Illinois (USA). The town is a suburb of Chicago, directly north of the city and on the banks of Lake Michigan. Because of this geographic position, Evanston and the other cities of the area are called the North Shore, hence the origin of the festival’s name. Northwestern University was incorporated in 1850 and gradually won recognition for its academic excellence. The establishment of musical studies, however, was a tangled web of many failed efforts. In a final and desperate attempt to salvage musical education, the university’s board of trustees in 1891 appointed Peter Christian Lutkin (1858-1931) to direct musical studies, a post that he held until his death.
    [Show full text]