| Name | Gigli |
|---|---|
| Caption | Theatrical release poster |
| Director | Martin Brest |
| Producer | Martin BrestCasey Silver |
| Writer | Martin Brest |
| Starring | Ben AffleckJennifer LopezJustin BarthaAl PacinoLainie Kazan |
| Music | John Powell |
| Cinematography | Robert Elswit |
| Editing | Julie MonroeBilly Weber |
| Studio | Revolution Studios |
| Distributor | Columbia Pictures |
| Released | |
| Runtime | 121 minutes |
| Country | |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $54 million |
| Gross | $7,266,209 |
Ricki's girlfriend (Crider) shows up at Gigli's apartment, accusing her of cheating. She slits both wrists and has to be rushed to the hospital. While at the hospital, Gigli goes to the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to his boss as Brian's thumb. Gigli and Ricki go back to his apartment and Gigli confesses his love, leading to a sexual encounter between them.
Afterwards, they are called to meet with the mob's boss. Starkman (Pacino) reveals that he didn't approve of the plan to kidnap a federal prosecutor's brother and scolds them because the thumb they sent won't match Brian's fingerprint. He fatally shoots Gigli's superior Louis. Starkman is about to kill Ricki and Gigli as well, but Ricki talks him out of it. They decide to take Brian back to where they found him. On the way, they discover Baywatch shooting an episode on the beach and leave a happy Brian there.
On the show Ebert and Roeper, critics Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper both gave the film thumbs down, although Ebert showed some sympathy towards the film, stating it had "clever dialogue", but was "... too disorganized for me to recommend it." Roeper called the film "a disaster" and "one of the worst movies I've ever seen". He then included Gigli on his 100 worst movies of the decade at #7.
Its title was named by the Global Language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood having an impact on the English language in 2003. Late night talk show hosts in particular lampooned the film in their monologues; Conan O'Brien said "The Mets are doing so badly that they will be renamed 'The New York Gigli.'" The film was withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only three weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1 million abroad. In the UK, the movie was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics panned it.
The film received six Razzies in the 2003 Golden Raspberry Awards – Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple. For a film to win the "Academy Awards grand slam", it must win the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Writing, Screenplay. Conversely, winning those awards' Razzie counterparts makes Gigli the only film ever to perform the "Razzie grand slam". A year later, the film won a seventh Razzie for "Worst Comedy of Our First 25 Years."
Currently, Yahoo! Movies rates Gigli number one on their Bottom Rated Movies of All Time, with a critics rating of D−. The Onion, a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die." Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli, while panning the film, were two of the very few critics to not write it off completely. Ebert ranked the film with two and a half stars, saying, "They didn't quite get to where they wanted to be, but the film is worth seeing for some very good scenes." Berardinelli ranked the film with two stars, saying, "This isn't a good film, but, when set alongside the likes of Dumb and Dumberer and Legally Blonde 2, Jen & Ben offer less pain." A rare positive, as opposed to less negative, review came from Amy Dawes of Variety. She wrote that the story was ludicrous and that the film would tank, but that on balance she found it a fun film with several good performances. Her review was the only positive one out of 37 reviews from notable critics according to Rotten Tomatoes. Although hers was the only positive one on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert's was the highest rated on Metacritic. Perhaps the only element of the film that received any noticeable positive attention was Justin Bartha's performance as the mentally handicapped younger brother. Even some of the critics who were completely panning the film gave a sliver of positivity when mentioning Bartha's performance, although others (particularly Roger Ebert and Richard Roeper) found the character manipulative and derivative of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Nonetheless, his performance did nothing to overshadow the film's nearly unanimous bad reviews.
Category:2003 films Category:American films Category:English-language films Category:2000s romantic comedy films Category:American LGBT-related films Category:American romantic comedy films Category:Columbia Pictures films Category:Films directed by Martin Brest Category:Mafia comedies Category:Revolution Studios films Category:Worst Picture Golden Raspberry Award winners Category:Worst Screenplay Golden Raspberry Award winners
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In 1914, he won first prize in an international singing competition in Parma. His operatic debut came on October 15, 1914 when he played Enzo in Amilcare Ponchielli's La Gioconda in Rovigo, following which he was in great demand.
Gigli made many important debuts in quick succession, and always in Mefistofele: Teatro Massimo di Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro San Carlo di Napoli (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan (November 26, 1920). Two other great Italian tenors present on the roster of Met singers during the 1920s also happened to be Gigli's chief contemporary rivals for tenor supremacy in the Italian repertory—namely, Giovanni Martinelli and Giacomo Lauri-Volpi.
Some of the roles with which Gigli became particularly associated during this period included Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème and the title role in Umberto Giordano's Andrea Chénier, both of which he would later record in full.
Gigli rose to true international prominence after the death of the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso in 1921. Such was his popularity with audiences he was often called "Caruso Secondo", though he much preferred to be known as "Gigli Primo." In fact, the comparison was not valid as Caruso had a bigger, darker, more heroic voice than Gigli's honey-toned lyric instrument.
Gigli left the Met in 1932, ostensibly after refusing to take a pay cut. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met's then general manager, was furious at his company's most popular male singer; he told the press that Gigli was the only singer not to accept the pay cut. There were in fact several others, Lily Pons and Rosa Ponselle among them; and it is well-documented that Gatti-Casazza gave himself a large pay increase in 1931, so that after the pay cut in 1932 his salary remained the same as it had been originally. Furthermore, Gatti was careful to hide Gigli's counter offer to the press, in which the singer offered to sing five or six concerts gratis, which in dollars saved was worth more than Gatti's imposed pay cut.
After leaving the Met, Gigli returned again to Italy, and sang in houses there, elsewhere in Europe, and in South America. He was criticized for being a favorite singer of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, and toward the end of World War II was able to give few performances. However he immediately returned to the stage when the war ended in 1945, and the audience acclaim was greater and more clamorous than ever.
In the last few years of his life, Gigli gave concert performances more often than he appeared on stage. Before his retirement in 1955, Gigli undertook an exhausting world tour of Farewell Concerts. This impaired his health in the two years that remained to him, during which time he helped prepare his Memoirs (based primarily on an earlier Memoir, fleshed out by a series of interviews). Gigli died in Rome in 1957.
On the other hand, Gigli's relationships with women were often tainted by scandal. He lied in his memoirs, saying that he was married six months earlier than he really was. This was to conceal that his wife Costanza was pregnant before reaching the altar. Gigli had two children with Costanza: Enzo and Rina. (The latter was a well-known soprano in her own right.) Later, Gigli is well-known to have had a second family with Lucia Vigarani, producing three children. Gigli is rumored to have had at least three other children with as many different women. Gigli's exact number of offspring will probably never be known.
However if you want to hear his recordings from his Italian years in the early thirties until just after the war including his rendition of the "Giovinezza" you will have to go to Italy. His leaving the Met following a pay cut meant he fell into the arms of Mussolini and allegedly became his favorite. This would have been fatal to most singers and for a while after the war he had to sing with his daughter Rina as many sopranos would not sing with him. This ended with a concert in Covent Garden when the world and the critics saw what they had been missing. He described himself as a simple man with a gift from God. He was a generous man and would always end every concert by remaining on stage with the offer he would sing any song the audience wanted for a fee with the money going to charity.
Gigli was the principal tenor of Metropolitan Opera for good reason and his version of Nessun Dorma will amaze many by its similarity to that made famous by Pavarotti many years later. He has what all great singers have, which is a voice easily recognisable and the ability to put a stamp on a song and make it his own. Like Bjorling he sings in an apparently effortless way, examples exist on u-tube which clearly shows how easy and marvellous his voice production was.
In addition to his opera skills he is considered by many to be the greatest exponent of Neapolitan singing, he has a sound which is so definitively Italian and he sings convincingly in all Italian dialects. The double CD from EMI called Ole Sole Mio ranks as one of the best collections of this style of music, his version of Mamma still stands the test of time and no one sings Santa Lucia like he does with all the power of a true opera tenor coupled to a rapier like sweet falsetto. Unlike many opera stars today who sing can belto not bel canto Gigli had the power of a truly great tenor coupled to a melting falsetto and tingling pianissimo. His emotional renditions complete with sobs which caused the critics so much concern were loved by the masses. Like Domingo, Alagna and Florez do now he could sell a song and he knew the way an audience liked it.
Described as foxy by his accompanist his recordings reflect this in some of the unusual songs in his repertoire. He also was prone to including unusual twists and endings to the standards. For example he sings Chopin and English songs and his version of In the depths of the temple from the Pearl Fishers by Bizet sung with Giuseppe de Luca contains such a unique ending. At the end of his career his voice may have lost its power but it retained its beauty till the end; listen to the Dream from Manon in the live recording of a concert he gave in Rio just prior to his death.
Category:1890 births Category:1957 deaths Category:People from the Province of Macerata Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian tenors Category:Operatic tenors
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Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (also called Giambattista Piazzetta or Giambattista Valentino Piazzetta) (February 13, 1682 or 1683 – April 28, 1754) was an Italian rococo painter of religious subjects and genre scenes.
Around 1710, he returned to Venice. There he won recognition as a leading artist despite his limited output and his unassuming nature, but he ultimately was less patronized, both in Venice and especially abroad, than two other eminent stars in Venetian late-Baroque/Rococo, Ricci and Tiepolo. These two painters had a luminous palette and facile ease that allowed them to carpet meters of ceiling with frescoes, although with a superficiality and glamor that is absent from Piazzetta's darker and more intimate depictions. Nonetheless,Tiepolo, who collaborated with Piazzetta on some projects, was greatly influenced by the older artist; in turn, the luminosity and brilliance of Tiepolo's palette would influence Piazzetta in his later years.
Piazzetta created an art of warm, rich color and a mysterious poetry. He often depicted peasantry, even if often in a grand fashion. He was highly original in the intensity of color he sometimes used in his shadows, and in the otherworldly quality he gave to the light which throws part of a composition into relief. The gestures and glances of his protagonists hint at unseen dramas, as in one of his best-known paintings, The Soothsayer(1740, now in Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice). He brought similar elusiveness to works of a religious nature, such as the Sotto in su Glory of St. Dominic in the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo.
Also notable are his many carefully rendered drawings of half-length figures or groups of heads. Usually in charcoal or black chalk with white heightening on gray paper, these are filled with the same spirit that animates his paintings, and were purchased by collectors as independent works. He also produced engravings.
In 1750 Piazzetta became the first director of the newly founded Scuola di Nudo, and he devoted himself in the last few years of his life to teaching. He was elected a member of the Bolognese Accademia Clementina in 1727. Among the painters in his studio were Domenico Maggiotto, Francesco Dagiu (il Capella), John Henry Tischbien the Elder, Egidio Dall'Oglio, and Antonio Marinetti. Among younger painters who emulated his style are Giulia Lama, Federico Bencovich, and Francesco Polazzo (1683–1753). He died in Venice in 1754.
Category:1682 births Category:1754 deaths Category:People from Venice (city) Category:Italian painters Category:Italian Baroque painters Category:Venetian painters
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| Name | Luciano Pavarotti |
|---|---|
| Caption | Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in Strelna, 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. |
| Birth date | October 12, 1935 |
| Birth place | Modena, Italy |
| Death date | September 06, 2007 |
| Death place | Modena, Italy |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupation | Opera singer (tenor) |
| Years active | 1961–2006 |
| Signature | Luciano Pavarotti Signature.svg |
| Website | www.lucianopavarotti.com |
Pavarotti began his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy. In 1961, he made his first international appearance in La traviata in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He sang in opera houses in addition to Italy, in the Netherlands, Vienna, London, Ankara, Budapest and Barcelona. The young tenor earned valuable experience and recognition while touring Australia at the invitation of soprano Joan Sutherland in 1965. He made his United States debut in Miami soon afterwards, also on Sutherland's recommendation. His position as a leading lyric tenor was consolidated in the years between 1966 and 1972, during which time he first appeared at Milan's La Scala and other major European houses. In 1968, he debuted at New York City's Metropolitan Opera as Rudolfo in Puccini's La bohème. At the Met in 1972, in the role of Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment he earned the title "King of the high Cs" when he sang the aria "Ah mes amis ... pour mon âme". He gained worldwide fame for the brilliance and beauty of his tone, especially into the upper register. He was at his best in bel canto operas, pre-Aida Verdi roles and Puccini works such as La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The late 1970s and 1980s saw Pavarotti continue to make significant appearances in the world's foremost opera houses.
Celebrity beyond the world of opera came to Pavarotti at the 1990 World Cup in Italy with performances of Puccini's "Nessun dorma", from Turandot, and as one of "The Three Tenors" in their famed first concert held on the eve of the tournament's final match. He sang on that occasion with fellow star tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras, bringing opera highlights to a wider audience. Appearances in advertisements and with pop icons in concerts furthered his international celebrity.
His final performance in an opera was at the Metropolitan Opera in March 2004. Later that year, the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) inducted him into its Italian American Hall of Fame in recognition of his lifetime of work. During a ceremony held at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala just four days after his 69th birthday, singer Faith Hill presented Pavarotti with a birthday cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to the opera legend.
The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, saw Pavarotti on stage for the last time, where he performed "Nessun dorma", with the crowd serving as the aria's chorus, and he received a thunderous standing ovation.
On 6 September 2007, he died at home in Modena from pancreatic cancer, aged 71.
After abandoning the dream of becoming a football goalkeeper, Pavarotti spent seven years in vocal training. Pavarotti's earliest musical influences were his father's recordings, most of them featuring the popular tenors of the day - Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Tito Schipa and Enrico Caruso. Pavarotti's favourite tenor and idol was Giuseppe Di Stefano. He was also deeply influenced by Mario Lanza, saying, "In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror". At around the age of nine he began singing with his father in a small local church choir.
After what appears to have been a normal childhood with a typical interest in sports — in Pavarotti's case football above all, he graduated from the Scuola Magistrale and faced the dilemma of a career choice. He was interested in pursuing a career as a professional football goalkeeper, but his mother convinced him to train as a teacher. He subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally allowed his interest in music to win out. Recognising the risk involved, his father gave his consent only reluctantly.
Pavarotti began the serious study of music in 1954 at the age of 19 with Arrigo Pola, a respected teacher and professional tenor in Modena who offered to teach him without remuneration. Not until he began these studies was Pavarotti aware that he had perfect pitch.
In 1955, he experienced his first singing success when he was a member of the Corale Rossini, a male voice choir from Modena that also included his father, which won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. He later said that this was the most important experience of his life, and that it inspired him to become a professional singer. At about this time Pavarotti first met Adua Veroni. They married in 1961.
When his teacher Arrigo Pola moved to Japan, Pavarotti became a student of Ettore Campogalliani, who at that time was also teaching Pavarotti's childhood friend, Mirella Freni, whose mother worked with Luciano's mother in the cigar factory. Like Pavarotti, Freni was destined to operatic greatness; they were to share the stage many times and make memorable recordings together.
During his years of musical study, Pavarotti held part time jobs in order to sustain himself - first as an elementary school teacher and then as an insurance salesman. The first six years of study resulted in only a few recitals, all in small towns and without pay. When a nodule developed on his vocal cords, causing a "disastrous" concert in Ferrara, he decided to give up singing. Pavarotti attributed his immediate improvement to the psychological release connected with this decision. Whatever the reason, the nodule not only disappeared but, as he related in his autobiography, "Everything I had learned came together with my natural voice to make the sound I had been struggling so hard to achieve".
Very early in his career, on 23 February 1963, he debuted at the Vienna State Opera with the same role. In March and April 1963 Vienna saw Pavarotti again as Rodolfo and as Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto. The same year saw his Royal Opera House debut, where he replaced an indisposed Giuseppe di Stefano as Rodolfo.
While generally successful, Pavarotti's early roles did not immediately propel him into the stardom that he would later enjoy. An early coup involved his connection with Joan Sutherland (and her conductor husband, Richard Bonynge), who in 1963 had sought a young tenor taller than herself to take along on her tour to Australia. At well over 6 feet tall and with his commanding physical presence, Pavarotti proved ideal. The two sang some forty performances over two months, and Pavarotti later credited Sutherland for the breathing technique that would sustain him over his career.
Pavarotti made his American début with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965, singing in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor opposite Joan Sutherland on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. The tenor scheduled to perform that night became ill with no understudy. As Sutherland was traveling with him on tour, she recommended the young Pavarotti as he was well acquainted with the role.
Shortly after, on 28 April, Pavarotti made his La Scala debut in the revival of the famous Franco Zeffirelli production of La Bohème, with his childhood friend Mirella Freni singing Mimi and Herbert von Karajan conducting. Karajan had requested the singer's engagement. After an extended Australian tour, he returned to La Scala, where he added Tebaldo from I Capuleti e i Montecchi to his repertoire on 26 March 1966, with Giacomo Aragall as Romeo. His first appearance as Tonio in Donizetti's La Fille du Régiment took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 2 June of that year. It was his performances of this role that would earn him the title of "King of the High Cs".
He scored another major triumph in Rome on 20 November 1969 when he sang in I Lombardi opposite Renata Scotto. This was recorded on a private label and widely distributed, as were various recordings of his I Capuleti e i Montecchi, usually with Aragall. Early commercial recordings included a recital of Donizetti (the aria from Don Sebastiano was particularly highly regarded) and Verdi arias, as well as a complete L'Elisir d'Amore with Sutherland.
His major breakthrough in the United States came on 17 February 1972, in a production of La Fille du Régiment at New York's Metropolitan Opera, in which he drove the crowd into a frenzy with his nine effortless high Cs in the signature aria. He achieved a record seventeen curtain calls.
Pavarotti sang his international recital début at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, on 1 February 1973, as part of the college's Fine Arts Program, now known as the Harriman-Jewell Series. Perspiring due to nerves and a lingering cold, the tenor clutched a handkerchief throughout the début. The prop became a signature part of his solo performances.
He began to give frequent television performances, starting with his performances as Rodolfo (La Bohème) in the first Live from the Met telecast in March 1977, which attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a televised opera. He won many Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances. In addition to the previously listed titles, his La Favorita with Fiorenza Cossotto and his I Puritani (1975) with Sutherland stand out.
In 1976, Pavarotti debuted at the Salzburg Festival, appearing in a solo recital on 31 July, accompanied by pianist Leone Magiera. Pavarotti returned to the festival in 1978 with a recital and as the Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier, in 1983 with Idomeneo, and both in 1985 and 1988 with solo recitals.
In 1979, he was profiled in a cover story in the weekly magazine Time. That same year saw Pavarotti's return to the Vienna State Opera after an absence of fourteen years. With Herbert von Karajan conducting, Pavarotti sang Manrico in Il Trovatore. In 1978, he appeared in a solo recital on Live from Lincoln Center.
In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Opera and La Scala. Vienna saw Pavarotti as Rodolfo in La Bohème with Carlos Kleiber conducting and again Mirella Freni was Mimi; as Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore; as Radames in Aïda conducted by Lorin Maazel; as Rodolfo in Luisa Miller; and as Gustavo in Un Ballo in Maschera conducted by Claudio Abbado. In 1996, Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in Andrea Chenier.
In 1985, Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video. His performance of the aria "Celeste Aïda" received a two-minute ovation on the opening night. He was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of La Bohème in 1988, also recorded on video. In 1992, La Scala saw Pavarotti in a new Zeffirelli production of Don Carlo, conducted by Riccardo Muti. Pavarotti's performance was heavily criticized by some observers and booed by parts of the audience.
Pavarotti became even better known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of Giacomo Puccini's aria, "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot was taken as the theme song of BBC's TV coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The aria achieved pop status and remained his trademark song. This was followed by the hugely successful Three Tenors concert, held on the eve of the World Cup final at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome with fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and conductor Zubin Mehta, which became the biggest selling classical record of all time. A highlight of the concert, in which Pavarotti hammed up a famous portion of di Capua's "O Sole Mio" and was mimicked by Domingo and Carreras to the delight of the audience, became one of the most memorable moments in contemporary operatic history. Throughout the 1990s, Pavarotti appeared in many well-attended outdoor concerts, including his televised concert in London's Hyde Park, which drew a record attendance of 150,000. In June 1993, more than 500,000 listeners gathered for his free performance on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park, while millions more around the world watched on television. The following September, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, he sang for an estimated crowd of 300,000. Following on from the original 1990 concert, the Three Tenors concerts were held during the Football World Cups: in Los Angeles in 1994, in Paris in 1998, and in Yokohama in 2002.
In 1995, Pavarotti's friends, the singer Lara Saint Paul (as Lara Cariaggi) and her husband showman Pier Quinto Cariaggi, who had produced and organised Pavarotti's 1990 FIFA World Cup Celebration Concert at the PalaTrussardi in Milan, produced and wrote the television documentary The Best is Yet to Come, an extensive biography about the life of Pavarotti. Lara Saint Paul was the interviewer for the documentary with Pavarotti, who spoke candidly about his life and career.
Pavarotti's rise to stardom was not without occasional difficulties, however. He earned a reputation as "The King of Cancellations" by frequently backing out of performances, and his unreliable nature led to poor relationships with some opera houses. This was brought into focus in 1989 when Ardis Krainik of the Lyric Opera of Chicago severed the house's 15-year relationship with the tenor. Over an eight-year period, Pavarotti had cancelled 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances at the Lyric, and the decisive move by Krainik to ban him for life was well-noted throughout the opera world, after the performer walked away from a season premiere less than two weeks before rehearsals began, saying pain from a sciatic nerve required two months of treatment.
On 12 December 1998, he became the first (and, to date, only) opera singer to perform on Saturday Night Live, singing alongside Vanessa L. Williams. He also sang with U2, in the band's 1995 song "Miss Sarajevo", and with Mercedes Sosa in a big concert at the Boca Juniors arena La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1999.
In 1998, Pavarotti was presented with the Grammy Legend Award. Given only on special occasions, as of 2007 it has only been awarded 15 times since its first presentation in 1990.
In late 2003, he released his final compilation - and his first and only "crossover" album, Ti Adoro. Most of the 13 songs were written and produced by the Michele Centonze who had already helped produce the "Pavarotti and Friends" concerts between 1998 and 2000. The tenor described the album as a wedding gift to Nicoletta Mantovani.
Pavarotti began his farewell tour in 2004, at the age of 69, performing one last time in old and new locations, after more than four decades on the stage. Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera on 13 March 2004, for which he received a long standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. On 1 December 2004, he announced a 40-city farewell tour. Pavarotti and his manager, Terri Robson, commissioned impresario Harvey Goldsmith to produce the Worldwide Farewell Tour. His last full-scale performance was at the end of a two-month Australasian tour in Taiwan, in December 2005.
In March 2005, Pavarotti underwent neck surgery to repair two vertebrae. In early 2006, he underwent further back surgery and contracted an infection while in the hospital in New York, forcing cancellation of concerts in the U.S., Canada and the UK.
On 10 February 2006, Pavarotti sang "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Turin, Italy at his final performance. In the last act of the opening ceremony, his performance received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd. Leone Magiera, who directed the performance, revealed in his 2008 memoirs, Pavarotti Visto da Vicino, that the performance was prerecorded weeks earlier. "The orchestra pretended to play for the audience, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing. The effect was wonderful," he wrote. Pavarotti's manager, Terri Robson, said that the tenor had turned the Winter Olympic Committee's invitation down several times because it would have been impossible to sing late at night in the sub-zero conditions of Turin in February. The committee eventually persuaded him to take part by pre-recording the song.
He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as the Spitak earthquake that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia in December 1988, and sang Gounod's Ave Maria with legendary French pop music star and ethnic Armenian Charles Aznavour.
He was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. They raised money for the elimination of land mines worldwide. He was invited to sing at her funeral service, but declined to sing, as he felt he could not sing well "with his grief in his throat". Nonetheless, he attended the service.
In 1998, he was appointed the United Nations Messenger of Peace, using his fame to raise awareness of UN issues, including the Millennium Development Goals, HIV/AIDS, child rights, urban slums and poverty.
In 1999, Pavarotti performed a charity benefit concert in Beirut, to mark Lebanon's reemergence on the world stage after a brutal 15 year civil war. The largest concert held in Beirut since the end of the war, it was attended by 20,000 people who travelled from countries as distant as Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria.
In 2001, Pavarotti received the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees for his efforts raising money on behalf of refugees worldwide. Through benefit concerts and volunteer work, he has raised more than any other individual.
Other honours he received include the "Freedom of London Award" and The Red Cross "Award for Services to Humanity", for his work in raising money for that organization, and the 1998 "MusiCares Person of the Year", given to humanitarian heroes by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.
According to several reports, just before he died, the singer had received both the sacraments of Penance and Anointing of the Sick from the Roman Catholic Church.
Pavarotti's funeral was held in Modena Cathedral. Romano Prodi and Kofi Annan attended. The Frecce Tricolori, the aerobatic demonstration team of the Italian Air Force, flew overhead, leaving green-white-red smoke trails. After a funeral procession through the centre of Modena, Pavarotti's coffin was taken the final ten kilometres to Montale Rangone, a village part of Castelnuovo Rangone, and interred in his parents' grave. The funeral, in its entirety, was also telecast live on CNN. The Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival Hall flew black flags in mourning. Tributes were published by many opera houses, such as London's Royal Opera House. The Italian football giant Juventus F.C., of which Pavarotti was a lifelong fan, was represented at the funeral and posted a farewell message on its website which said: "Ciao Luciano, black-and-white heart" referring to the team's famous stripes when they play on their home ground.
A tribute concert featuring many performers trained by Pavarotti himself was held on February 14, 2008 at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall.
Pavarotti's widow's lawyers Giorgio Bernini, Anna Maria Bernini and manager Terri Robson announced on 30 June 2008 that his family amicably settled his estate – 300 million euros ($ 474.2 million, including $15 million in U.S. assets). Pavarotti drafted two wills before his death: one divided his assets by Italian law, giving half to his second wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and half to his four daughters; the second gave his U.S. holdings to Mantovani. The judge confirmed the compromise by the end of July 2008. However, a Pesaro public prosecutor, Massimo di Patria, investigated allegations that Pavarotti was not of sound mind when he signed the will. Pavarotti's estate has been settled "fairly", a lawyer for Pavarotti's widow, Nicoletta Mantovani, said in statements after reports of a dispute between Ms. Mantovani and his three daughters from his first marriage.
"Penso che una vita per la musica sia una vita spesa bene ed è a questo che mi sono dedicato."
English translation: "I think a life for music is a well-spent one, and that's what I have dedicated mine to."
Category:1935 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Cancer deaths in Italy Category:Deaths from pancreatic cancer Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Italian opera singers Category:Italian Roman Catholics Category:Italian tenors Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Operatic tenors Category:People from Modena
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| Name | Justin Bartha |
|---|---|
| Birthname | Justin Lee Bartha |
| Birth date | July 21, 1978 |
| Birth place | Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. |
| Death date | |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Partner | Ashley Fuller-Olsen (2008-present) |
In 2006, Bartha had a supporting role in Failure to Launch and starred in the television sitcom Teachers which premiered on March 28, 2006 on NBC (it was cancelled on May 15, 2006 due to low ratings).
In November 2007, Bartha was cast in an indie comic-drama, Holy Rollers. His character lures a young Hasidic Jew (Jesse Eisenberg) into becoming an ecstasy dealer. Filming began in New York in the spring of 2008, and the film was released in 2010. Bartha also starred alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Bart Freundlich film, The Rebound. The romantic comedy is about a 25-year-old man who starts a romance with his older single mother neighbor. The film began shooting in April 2008 in New York and finished in June. Bartha then had a supporting role in the 2009 Golden Globe-winning film, The Hangover.
Bartha starred as Max in the Broadway revival of the play Lend Me a Tenor by Ken Ludwig. He performed alongside Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPaglia, Brooke Adams, and Jan Maxwell. The comic farce was directed by Stanley Tucci and started previews at the Music Box Theatre on March 11, 2010 with the official opening date on April 4, 2010.
Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:Actors from Michigan Category:American film actors Category:American Jews Category:American television actors Category:Jewish actors Category:New York University alumni Category:People from Fort Lauderdale, Florida Category:People from Oakland County, Michigan
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
, 1886]]
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of his themes have long since taken root in popular culture - such as "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto, "Va, pensiero" (The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" (The Drinking Song) from La traviata and the "Grand March" from Aida. Although his work was sometimes criticized for using a generally diatonic rather than a chromatic musical idiom and having a tendency toward melodrama, Verdi’s masterworks dominate the standard repertoire a century and a half after their composition.
When he was still a child, Verdi's parents moved from Piacenza to Busseto, where the future composer's education was greatly facilitated by visits to the large library belonging to the local Jesuit school. Also in Busseto, Verdi was given his first lessons in composition.
Verdi went to Milan when he was twenty to continue his studies. He took private lessons in counterpoint while attending operatic performances, as well as concerts of, specifically, German music. Milan's beaumonde association convinced him that he should pursue a career as a theatre composer. During the mid 1830s, he attended the Salotto Maffei salons in Milan, hosted by Clara Maffei.
Returning to Busseto, he became the town music master and, with the support of Antonio Barezzi, a local merchant and music lover who had long supported Verdi's musical ambitions in Milan, Verdi gave his first public performance at Barezzi’s home in 1830.
Because he loved Verdi’s music, Barezzi invited Verdi to be his daughter Margherita's music teacher, and the two soon fell deeply in love. They were married on 4 May 1836 and Margherita gave birth to two children, Virginia Maria Luigia (26 March 1837 - 12 August 1838) and Icilio Romano (11 July 1838 - 22 October 1839). Both died in infancy while Verdi was working on his first opera and, shortly afterwards, Margherita died on 18 June 1840. Verdi adored his wife and children, and he was devastated by their untimely deaths.
The production by Milan's La Scala of his first opera, Oberto in November 1839 achieved a degree of success, after which Bartolomeo Merelli, La Scala's impresario, offered Verdi a contract for two more works.
It was while he was working on his second opera, Un giorno di regno, that Verdi's wife died. The opera, given in September 1840, was a flop and he fell into despair and vowed to give up musical composition forever. However, Merelli persuaded him to write Nabucco and its opening performance in March 1842 made Verdi famous. Legend has it that it was the words of the famous Va pensiero chorus of the Hebrew slaves that inspired Verdi to write music again.
A large number of operas - 14 in all - followed in the decade after 1843, a period which Verdi was to describe as his "galley years". These included his I Lombardi in 1843, and Ernani in 1844. For some, the most original and important opera that Verdi wrote is Macbeth in 1847. For the first time, Verdi attempted an opera without a love story, breaking a basic convention in 19th century Italian opera.
In 1847, I Lombardi, which was revised and renamed Jerusalem, was produced by the Paris Opera. Due to a number of Parisian conventions that had to be honored (including extensive ballets), it became Verdi's first work in the French Grand opera style.
Sometime in the mid-1840s, after the death of Margherita Barezzi, Verdi began an affair with Giuseppina Strepponi, a soprano in the twilight of her career. Their cohabitation before marriage was regarded as scandalous in some of the places they lived, but Verdi and Giuseppina married on 29 August 1859 at Collonges-sous-Salève, near Geneva. While living in Busseto with Strepponi, Verdi bought an estate two miles from the town in 1848. Initially, his parents lived there, but, after his mother's death in 1851, he made the Villa Verdi at Sant'Agata in Villanova sull'Arda his home until his death.
As the "galley years" were drawing to a close, Verdi created one of his greatest masterpieces, Rigoletto, which premiered in Venice in 1851. Based on a play by Victor Hugo (Le roi s'amuse), the libretto had to undergo substantial revisions in order to satisfy the epoch's censorship, and the composer was on the verge of giving it all up a number of times. The opera quickly became a great success.
With Rigoletto, Verdi sets up his original idea of musical drama as a cocktail of heterogeneous elements, embodying social and cultural complexity, and beginning from a distinctive mixture of comedy and tragedy. Rigoletto's musical range includes band-music such as the first scene or the song La donna è mobile, Italian melody such as the famous quartet "Bella figlia dell'amore", chamber music such as the duet between Rigoletto and Sparafucile and powerful and concise declamatos often based on key-notes like the C and C# notes in Rigoletto and Monterone's upper register.
There followed the second and third of the three major operas of Verdi's "middle period": in 1853 Il Trovatore was produced in Rome and La traviata in Venice. The latter was based on Alexandre Dumas, fils' play The Lady of the Camellias, and became the most popular of all Verdi's operas, placing third in the Opera America's list of 20 most performed operas in North America.
Verdi's grand opera, Aida, is sometimes thought to have been commissioned for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, but, according to one major critic, Verdi turned down the Khedive's invitation to write an "ode" for the new opera house he was planning to inaugurate as part of the canal opening festivities. The opera house actually opened with a production of Rigoletto. Later in 1869/70, the organizers again approached Verdi (this time with the idea of writing an opera), but he again turned them down. When they warned him that they would ask Charles Gounod instead and then threatened to engage Richard Wagner's services, Verdi began to show considerable interest, and agreements were signed in June 1870.
Teresa Stolz was associated with both Aida and the Requiem (as well as a number of other Verdi roles). The role of Aida was written for her, and although she did not appear in the world premiere in Cairo in 1871, she created Aida in the European premiere in Milan in February 1872. She was also the soprano soloist in the first and many later performances of the Requiem. It was widely believed that she and Verdi had an affair after she left Angelo Mariani, and a Florence newspaper criticised them for this in five strongly worded articles. Whether there is any truth to the accusation may never be known with any certainty. However, after Giuseppina Strepponi's death, Teresa Stolz became a close companion of Verdi until his own death.
Verdi and Wagner, who were the leaders of their respective schools of music, seemed to resent each other greatly. They never met. Verdi's comments on Wagner and his music are few and hardly benevolent ("He invariably chooses, unnecessarily, the untrodden path, attempting to fly where a rational person would walk with better results"), but at least one of them is kind: upon learning of Wagner's death, Verdi lamented, "Sad, sad, sad! ... a name that will leave a most powerful impression on the history of art." Of Wagner's comments on Verdi, only one is well-known. After listening to Verdi's Requiem, the German, prolific and eloquent in his comments on some other composers, stated, "It would be best not to say anything."
Otello, based on William Shakespeare's play, with a libretto written by the younger composer of Mefistofele, Arrigo Boito, premiered in Milan in 1887. Its music is "continuous" and cannot easily be divided into separate "numbers" to be performed in concert. Some feel that although masterfully orchestrated, it lacks the melodic lustre so characteristic of Verdi's earlier, great, operas, while many critics consider it Verdi's greatest tragic opera, containing some of his most beautiful, expressive music and some of his richest characterizations. In addition, it lacks a prelude, something Verdi listeners are not accustomed to. Arturo Toscanini performed as cellist in the orchestra at the world premiere and began his friendship with Verdi (a composer he revered as highly as Beethoven). Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, whose libretto was also by Boito, was based on Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and Victor Hugo's subsequent translation. It was an international success and is one of the supreme comic operas which shows Verdi's genius as a contrapuntist.
In 1894, Verdi composed a short ballet for a French production of Otello, his last purely orchestral composition. Years later, Arturo Toscanini recorded the music for RCA Victor with the NBC Symphony Orchestra which complements the 1947 Toscanini performance of the complete opera.
In 1897, Verdi completed his last composition, a setting of the traditional Latin text Stabat Mater. This was the last of four sacred works that Verdi composed, Quattro Pezzi Sacri, which are often performed together or separately. The first performance of the four works was on 7 April 1898, at the Grande Opéra, Paris. The four works are: Ave Maria for mixed chorus; Stabat Mater for mixed chorus and orchestra; Laudi alla Vergine Maria for female chorus; and Te Deum for double chorus and orchestra.
On 29 July 1900, King Umberto I of Italy was assassinated, a deed that horrified the aged composer.
While staying at the Grand Hotel et de Milan in Milan, Verdi had a stroke on 21 January 1901. He grew gradually more feeble and died six days later, on 27 January. Arturo Toscanini conducted the vast forces of combined orchestras and choirs composed of musicians from throughout Italy at the state funeral for Verdi in Milan. To date, it remains the largest public assembly of any event in the history of Italy.
Music historians have long perpetuated a myth about the famous Va, pensiero chorus sung in the third act of Nabucco. The myth reports that, when the Va, pensiero chorus was sung in Milan, then belonging to the large part of Italy under Austrian domination, the audience, responding with nationalistic fervor to the exiled slaves' lament for their lost homeland, demanded an encore of the piece. As encores were expressly forbidden by the government at the time, such a gesture would have been extremely significant. However, recent scholarship puts this to rest. Although the audience did indeed demand an encore, it was not for Va, pensiero but rather for the hymn Immenso Jehova, sung by the Hebrew slaves to thank God for saving His people. In light of these new revelations, Verdi's position as the musical figurehead of the Risorgimento has been correspondingly downplayed.
On the other hand, during rehearsals, workmen in the theater stopped what they were doing during Va, pensiero and applauded at the conclusion of this haunting melody while the growth of the "identification of Verdi's music with Italian nationalist politics" is judged to have begun in the summer 1846 in relation to a chorus from Ernani in which the name of one of its characters, "Carlo", was changed to "Pio", a reference to Pope Pius IX's grant of an amnesty to political prisoners.
After Italy was unified in 1861, many of Verdi's early operas were re-interpreted as Risorgimento works with hidden Revolutionary messages that probably had not been intended by either the composer or librettist. Beginning in Naples in 1859 and spreading throughout Italy, the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used as an acronym for ''Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re
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The Chorus of the Hebrews (the English title for Va, pensiero) has another appearance in Verdi folklore. Prior to Verdi's body being driven from the cemetery to the official memorial service and its final resting place at the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti, Arturo Toscanini conducted a chorus of 820 singers in "Va, pensiero". At the Casa, the Miserere from Il trovatore was sung.
Verdi was elected as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in 1861 following a request of Prime Minister Cavour but in 1865 he resigned from the office. In 1874 he was named Senator of the Kingdom by King Victor Emanuel II.
Throughout his career, Verdi rarely utilised the high C in his tenor arias, citing the fact that the opportunity to sing that particular note in front of an audience distracts the performer before and after the note appears. However, he did provide high Cs to Duprez in Jérusalem and to Tamberlick in the original version of La forza del destino. The high C often heard in the aria Di quella pira does not appear in Verdi's score.
Some critics maintain he paid insufficient attention to the technical aspect of composition, lacking as he did schooling and refinement. Verdi himself once said, "Of all composers, past and present, I am the least learned." He hastened to add, however, "I mean that in all seriousness, and by learning I do not mean knowledge of music."
However, it would be incorrect to assume that Verdi underestimated the expressive power of the orchestra or failed to use it to its full capacity where necessary. Moreover, orchestral and contrapuntal innovation is characteristic of his style: for instance, the strings producing a rapid ascending scale in Monterone's scene in Rigoletto accentuate the drama, and, in the same opera, the chorus humming six closely grouped notes backstage portrays, very effectively, the brief ominous wails of the approaching tempest. Verdi's innovations are so distinctive that other composers do not use them; they remain, to this day, some of Verdi's signatures.
Verdi was one of the first composers who insisted on patiently seeking out plots to suit his particular talents. Working closely with his librettists and well aware that dramatic expression was his forte, he made certain that the initial work upon which the libretto was based was stripped of all "unnecessary" detail and "superfluous" participants, and only characters brimming with passion and scenes rich in drama remained.
Many of his operas, especially the later ones from 1851 onwards, are a staple of the standard repertoire. No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giacomo Puccini.
Verdi's name literally translates as "Joseph Green" in English (although verdi is the plural form of "green"). Musical comedian Victor Borge often referred to the famous composer as "Joe Green" in his act, saying that "Giuseppe Verdi" was merely his "stage name". The same joke-translation is mentioned in Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun by Patrick Redfern to Hercule Poirot — a prank which inadvertedly gives Poirot the answer to the murder.
Category:1813 births Category:1901 deaths Category:Giuseppe Verdi Category:People from Busseto Category:Opera composers Category:Italian composers Category:Romantic composers Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Category:Senators of the Kingdom of Italy Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society
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