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• 
  Alessandria
  Alessandria  listen (help·info) (Lissandria in Piedmontese) is a city and comune in Piedmont, Italy, and the capital of the Province of Alessandria. The city is sited on the alluvial plane between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, c. 90 km southeast of Turin.
  Alessandria is also a major railway hub.
  Alessandria was founded in 1168 with a charter as a free commune; it was sited upon a preexisting urban nucleus, to serve as a stronghold for the Lombard League, defending the traditional liberties of the communes of northern Italy against the Imperial forces of Frederick Barbarossa. Alessandria stood in the territories of the marchese of Montferrat, a staunch ally of the Emperor, with a name assumed in 1168 to honor the Emperor's opponent, Pope Alexander III. In 1174–75 the fortress was sorely tested by Imperial siege and stood fast. A legend (related in Umberto Eco's book Baudolino, and which recalls one concerning Bishop Herculanus’ successful defense of Perugia several centuries earlier) says it was saved by a quick-witted peasant, Gagliaudo: he fed his cow with the last grain remaining within the city, then took it outside the city walls until he reached the Imperial camp. Here he was captured, and his cow cut open to be cooked: when the Imperials found the cow's stomach filled with grain, Gagliaudo was asked the reason to waste such a rich meal. He answered that he was forced to feed his cow with grain because there was such a lot of it, and no room to place it within the city. The Emperor, fearing that the siege would last too long, left Alessandria free. (Malaria was probably the real cause of his departure.) A statue of Gagliaudo can be found on the left corner of the city cathedral.
  
  wn.com/Alessandria
• 
  Battle of Marengo
  The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. The French overcame General Michael von Melas's surprise attack near the end of the day, driving the Austrians out of Italy, and enhancing Napoleon's political position in Paris as First Consul of France in the wake of his coup d’état the previous November.
  Surprised by the Austrian advance toward Genoa in mid-April 1800, Bonaparte had hastily led his army over the Alps in mid-May and reached Milan on 2 June. After cutting Melas’s line of communications by crossing the river Po and defeating Feldmarschallleutnant (FML) Peter Karl Ott von Bátorkéz at Montebello on 9 June, the French closed in on the Austrian army, which had massed in Alessandria. Deceived by a local double agent, Bonaparte dispatched large forces to the north and south, but the Austrians launched a surprise attack on 14 June against the main French army under General Louis Alexandre Berthier.
  
  wn.com/Battle_of_Marengo
• 
  Kingdom of Naples
  The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of Naples to distinguish it from the island-based polity. During much of its existence, the realm was contested between French and Aragonese (Spanish) dynasties. In 1816, it again merged with island-based Kingdom of Sicily to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
  Following the rebellion, King Charles I of Sicily (Charles of Anjou) was forced to leave the island of Sicily by Peter III of Aragon's troops. Charles, however, maintained his possessions on the mainland, customarily known as the "Kingdom of Naples", after its capital city. Charles and his Angevin successors maintained a claim to Sicily, warring against the Aragonese until 1373, when Queen Joan I of Naples formally renounced the claim. Joan's reign was contested by Louis the Great, the Angevin King of Hungary, who captured the kingdom several times (1348–1352).
  
  wn.com/Kingdom_of_Naples
• 
  La Scala
  La Scala (Italian: Teatro alla Scala), is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala (Italian: Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala). The premiere performance was Antonio Salieri's Europa riconosciuta.
  Most of Italy's greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala during the past 200 years. Today, the theatre is still recognised as one of the leading opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet and La Scala Theatre Orchestra. The theatre also has an associate school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy (Italian: Accademia Teatro alla Scala), which offers professional training in music, dance, stage craft and stage management.
  La Scala's season traditionally opens on 7 December, Saint Ambrose's Day, the feast day of Milan's patron saint. All performances must end before midnight, and long operas start earlier in the evening when necessary.
  
  wn.com/La_Scala
• 
  Mexico City
  Mexico City ( /ˈmɛksɨkoʊ ˈsɪti/; Spanish: Ciudad de México [sjuˈðað ðe ˈmexiko], also known as México D.F., or simply D.F.) is the Federal District (Distrito Federal), capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole. Mexico City is the country's largest city as well as its most important political, cultural, educational and financial center.
  As an "alpha" global city Mexico City is one of the most important financial centers in North America. It is located in the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), a large valley in the high plateaus at the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 metres (7,350 ft). The city consists of sixteen boroughs.
  The 2009 estimated population for the city proper was around 8.84 million people, and has a land area of 1,485 square kilometres (573 sq mi). According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the Mexico City metropolitan area population is 21.2 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and the fifth largest agglomeration in the world.
  
  wn.com/Mexico_City
• 
  Palazzo Farnese
  Palazzo Farnese is one of the most important High Renaissance palaces in Rome. Owned by the Italian state, it was given to the French Government in 1936 for a period of 99 years, and currently serves as the French embassy in Italy.
  First designed in 1517 for the Farnese family, the building expanded in size and conception when Alessandro Farnese became Pope Paul III in 1534, to designs by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. Its building history involved some of the most prominent Italian architects of the 16th century, including Michelangelo, Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola and Giacomo della Porta.
  At the end of the 16th century, the important fresco cycle of The Loves of the Gods in the Farnese Gallery was carried out by the Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci, marking the beginning of two divergent trends in painting during the 17th century, the Roman High Baroque and Classicism. The famous Farnese sculpture collection, now in the National Archeological Museum of Naples, as well as other Farnese collections, now mostly in Capodimonte Museum in Naples, were accommodated in the palace.
  
  wn.com/Palazzo_Farnese
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  Papal States
  The Papal State(s), the State(s) of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States (Italian: Stato Pontificio, also Stato della Chiesa, Stati della Chiesa, Stati Pontifici, and Stato Ecclesiastico; Latin: Status Pontificius, also Dicio Pontificia) were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (after which the Papal States, in less territorially extensive form, continued to exist until 1870).
  The Papal States comprised territories under direct sovereign rule of the papacy, and at its height it covered most of the modern Italian regions of Romagna, Marche, Umbria and Lazio. This governing power is commonly called the temporal power of the Pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy.
  The plural Papal States is usually preferred; the singular Papal State (equally correct since it was not a mere personal union) tends to be used (normally with lower-case letters) for the modern State of Vatican City, an enclave within Italy's national capital, Rome. The Vatican City was founded in 1929, again allowing the Holy See the political benefits of territorial sovereignty.
  
  wn.com/Papal_States
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  Royal Opera House
  The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Originally called the Theatre Royal, it served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, Handel's first season of operas began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there.
  The current building is the third theatre on the site following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1857. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The Royal Opera House seats 2,256 people and consists of four tiers of boxes and balconies and the amphitheatre gallery. The proscenium is 12.20 m wide and 14.80 m high. The main auditorium is a Grade 1 listed building.
  
  wn.com/Royal_Opera_House
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  Vienna State Opera
  The Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper) is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera (Wiener Hofoper). In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian Republic, it was renamed the Vienna State Opera. The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from its orchestra.
  The building was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstraße commissioned by the controversial Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the building in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, who lived together in the 6. Bezirk. It was built in the Neo-Renaissance style.
  The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorfer Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch, whose colour was more appropriate than that of Kelheimerstein, for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois was used as a cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble.
  
  wn.com/Vienna_State_Opera

• 
  Adolfo Hohenstein
  Adolfo Hohenstein (Saint Petersburg, 18 March 1854 – Bonn, 12 April 1928) was a German painter, advertiser, illustrator, set designer and costume designer. He's considered the father of the Italian poster art and an exponent of the Stile Liberty, the Italian Art Nouveau. Together with Leonetto Cappiello, Giovanni Mario Mataloni, Leopoldo Metlicovitz and Marcello Dudovich, he's considered one of the most important Italian poster designers.
  Adolfo Hohenstein was born in the town of Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, to German parents, Julius and Laura Irack. His father was a forest engineer, whose career prompted him to travel extensively. Julius, forest engineer. Adolf moves to Vienna where he grows up and completes his studies. His travels take him to India, where he decorates the houses of the local nobility.
  In 1879, he settles down in Milan, Italy. He becomes a set and costume designer for La Scala and other theatres. There he meets the musical publisher Giulio Ricordi, and in 1889 begins to work for the Ricordi Graphical Workshops, where he shortly becomes the artistic director in charge of the graphical part. He'll create the posters for La Bohème and Tosca, as well as publicity for Campari, Buitoni and Corriere della Sera, numerous postcards, covers for scores and booklets. His work will continue to cover the theatrical dimension: scenarios and wardrobes for several works, among them Giuseppe Verdi's Falstaff (1893) and a major part of the works of Giacomo Puccini, from the sketches of the Villas to posters of Madama Butterfly (1904). At Ricordi's he has as colleague Giovanni Mario Mataloni and as students Leopoldo Metlicovitz and Marcello Dudovich.
  
  wn.com/Adolfo_Hohenstein
• 
  Alberto Franchetti
  Alberto Franchetti (18 September 1860 – 4 August 1942) was an Italian opera composer.
  Alberto Franchetti was born in Turin, a Jewish nobleman of independent means. He studied first in Venice, then in Dresden under Felix Draeseke, and finally at the Munich Conservatory under Josef Rheinberger. His first major success occurred in 1888 with his opera Asrael. His operatic style combined Wagnerianism and the traits of Meyerbeer with Italian verismo. During his life, critics sometimes referred to him as the "Meyerbeer of modern Italy."
  The words of music critic G. B. Nappi sum up Franchetti's primary talents: "His character is perhaps unsuitable for passionate dramas, but rather for those subjects, where the fantastic, romantic and epic are required in the symphonic texture and large choral pictures. In this regard Alberto Franchetti knows that he has no rival" (from "Orfeo" 6.3, 1915).
  Grove considers Cristoforo Colombo (1892) Franchetti's best work. However, his most popular opera was Germania (1902; libretto by Luigi Illica). It clung to the general operatic repertoire until the First World War; it was performed worldwide, and Arturo Toscanini (who conducted the work at La Scala) and Enrico Caruso held it high regard. Caruso included a few of the arias in his very first commercial recording session in 1902 and repeated one piece the following year for the Zonophone company, and two pieces with orchestra in 1910 when he appeared in a revival of the work in New York. But by the war, Germania had lapsed into obscurity. Mosco Carner notes that Illica's libretto of Tosca, or at least the sketch for a libretto, was first offered to Franchetti, who, too busy with other projects at the time, passed it on to his friend Puccini.
  
  wn.com/Alberto_Franchetti
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  Angela Gheorghiu
  Angela Gheorghiu (Romanian pronunciation: [anˈd͡ʒela ɡe̯orˈɡi.u] ( listen); born Angela Burlacu September 7, 1965) is a Romanian soprano. Since her professional debut in 1990, she has performed in the leading roles of several operas at New York's Metropolitan Opera, London's Royal Opera House, the Vienna State Opera, Milan's La Scala, and many other opera houses in Europe and the United States. She has a substantial discography primarily with EMI Classics and Decca.
  Gheorghiu was born in 1965 in Adjud, Romania. Along with her sister Elena Dan, she sang opera music from an early age. At age 14, Gheorghiu began to study singing at the National University of Music Bucharest, primarily under Mia Barbu. Her graduation in 1990 coincided with the overthrow and execution of Nicolae Ceaușescu the previous year, enabling her to seek an international career immediately. Her professional opera debut took place at the Cluj-Napoca Romanian National Opera as Mimì in La bohème in 1990, the same year she won the Belvedere International Competition.
  
  wn.com/Angela_Gheorghiu
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  Antonio Pappano
  Sir Antonio "Tony" Pappano (born 30 December 1959, Epping, England) is a British conductor and pianist of Italian parentage.
  Pappano's family relocated to England from Castelfranco in Miscano near Benevento, Italy in 1958 and at the time of his birth his parents worked in the restaurant business, but Pasquale Pappano, his father, was by vocation a singing teacher. When Antonio was 13 years old, he moved with his family to Connecticut, in the United States. After musical training in piano, composition, and conducting, he became a rehearsal accompanist at the New York City Opera by the age of 21. Pappano is the youngest conductor to lead the orchestra of the Royal Opera House in London, accompanying both the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet.
  A pianist as well as a conductor, he attracted the attention of fellow pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, whose assistant he became at the Bayreuth Festival. He worked in Barcelona and Frankfurt, and served as an assistant to Michael Gielen. His first conducting appearance at Den Norske Opera was in 1987, and he became music director there in 1990.
  
  wn.com/Antonio_Pappano
• 
  Antonio Scotti
  Antonio Scotti (January 25, 1866 – February 26, 1936) was an Italian baritone. He was a principal artist of the New York Metropolitan Opera for more than 33 seasons, but also sang with great success at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Milan's La Scala.
  Antonio Scotti was born in Naples, Italy. His family wanted him to enter the priesthood but he emarbarked instead on a career in opera. He received his early vocal training from Esther Trifari-Paganini and Vincenzo Lombardi. According to most sources, he made his debut at Malta's Theatre Royal in 1889, performing the role of Amonasro in Giuseppe Verdi's Aida. Engagements at various Italian operatic venues ensued and he later gained valuable stage experience singing in Spain, Portugal, Russia and South America.
  In 1898, he debuted at Italy's most renowned opera house, La Scala, Milan, as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger. This now seems a surprising choice of role for Scotti because his subsequent career did not encompass the operas of Richard Wagner.
  
  wn.com/Antonio_Scotti
• Apollo Granforte
  Apollo Granforte (July 20, 1886, Legnago - June 11, 1975, Milan) was an Italian opera singer and one of the leading baritones active during the inter-war period of the 20th century.
  Granforte emigrated as a young man to Argentina, where he studied voice with Guido Capocci in Buenos Aires. He made his stage debut in Rosario, as Germont, in 1913.
  After returning to Italy, he sang at the Rome Opera before making his debut at La Scala in Milan, as Amfortas, in 1921. In 1924, he went to Australia on a successful tour with Nellie Melba. During Granforte's subsequent tour of Australia in J. C. Williamson's 1932 Grand Opera season, Frank Thring senior's Melbourne-based Efftee Productions filmed him with the Williamson-Imperial Grand Opera Company in selections from Rossini's The Barber of Seville. This relatively brief footage was released on VHS in 1989 by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
  Granforte possessed a big, rich, vibrant voice and he quickly established himself in the great baritone roles of Verdi and the verismo composers. He sang some Wagner, too, and also took part in the creation of Nerone by Mascagni in 1935.
  
  wn.com/Apollo_Granforte
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  Arturo Toscanini
  Arturo Toscanini (Italian pronunciation: [arˈtuːro toskaˈniːni]; March 25, 1867 – January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory. As music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra he became a household name (especially in the United States) through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
  Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he studied the cello. He joined the orchestra of an opera company, with which he toured South America in 1886. While presenting Aida in Rio de Janeiro, Leopoldo Miguez, the locally hired conductor, reached the summit of a two-month escalating conflict with the performers due to his rather poor command of the work, to the point that the singers went on strike and forced the company's general manager to seek a substitute conductor. Carlo Superti and Aristide Venturi tried unsuccessfully to finish the work. In desperation, the singers suggested the name of their assistant Chorus Master, who knew the whole opera from memory. Although he had no conducting experience, Toscanini was eventually convinced by the musicians to take up the baton at 9:15 P.M., and led a performance of the two-and-a-half hour opera. The public was taken by surprise, at first by the youth and sheer aplomb of this unknown conductor, then by his solid mastery. The result was astounding acclaim. For the rest of that season Toscanini conducted eighteen operas, all with absolute success. Thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19.
  
  wn.com/Arturo_Toscanini
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  Beniamino Gigli
  Beniamino Gigli (pronounced: [benjaˈmiːno ˈdʒiʎʎi]) (March 20, 1890 – November 30, 1957) was an Italian opera singer. The most famous tenor of his generation, he was renowned internationally for the great beauty of his voice and the soundness of his vocal technique. Music critics sometimes took him to task, however, for what was perceived to be the over-emotionalism of his interpretations. Nevertheless, such was Gigli's talent, he is considered to be one of the very finest tenors in the recorded history of music.
  Gigli was born in Recanati, in the Marche, the son of a shoemaker who loved opera. His brother Lorenzo became a famous Italian painter.
  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 in Palermo (March 31, 1915), Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (December 26, 1915), Teatro Costanzi di Roma (December 26, 1916), La Scala, Milan (November 19, 1918), and finally the Metropolitan Opera, New York (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.
  
  wn.com/Beniamino_Gigli
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  Benjamin Britten
  Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten,OM CH (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist; and one of the central figures of 20th century British classical music. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to international fame. For the next fifteen years he devoted much of his compositional attention to writing operas, establishing him as one of the leading 20th century figures in this genre.
  Britten's interests as a composer were wide-ranging; he produced important music in such varied genres as orchestral, choral, solo vocal (much of it written for his life partner, tenor Peter Pears), chamber and instrumental, as well as film music. He also took a great interest in writing music for children and amateur performers, and was an outstanding pianist and conductor.
  Britten was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, on 22 November 1913, the youngest of four children. His father, Robert, was a dentist, and his mother Edith, a talented amateur musician who gave Britten his first lessons in piano and notation. He showed musical gifts very early in life, making his first attempts at composition aged five, and thereafter composing prolifically as a child. He started piano lessons with a teacher from his pre-prep school when aged 7, and viola lessons with Audrey Alston when 10 years old.
  
  wn.com/Benjamin_Britten
• Carlo Sabajno
  Carlo Sabajno (1874, Rosasco, Italy - 1938, Milan) was an Italian conductor. From 1904 to 1932 he was the Gramophone Company's chief conductor and artistic director in Italy. During his career, he conducted some of the earliest full-length opera recordings, most of them with the orchestra of La Scala, Milan.
  1907
  1915 - 1919
  1920 - 1930
  1930 - 1932
  
  
  
  wn.com/Carlo_Sabajno
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  Carmen Melis
  Carmen Melis (15 August 1885 – 19 December 1967) was an Italian operatic soprano who had a major international career during the first four decades of the 20th century. She was known, above all, as a verismo soprano, and was one of the most interesting singing actresses of the early 20th century. She made her debut in Novara in 1905 and her career rapidly developed in her native country over the next four years. From 1909-1916 she performed with important opera companies in the United States; after which she was busy performing at many of Europe's most important opera houses. From 1917 until her retirement from the stage in 1935 she was particularly active at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome and at La Scala in Milan. After her singing career ended, she embarked on a second career as a voice teacher. Her most notable student was soprano Renata Tebaldi.
  Born in Cagliari, Melis began her voice studies with dramatic soprano Teresina Singer in Florence. This was followed by further studies with baritone Antonio Cotogni in Rome and with Jean de Reszke in Paris. She made her professional opera debut in 1905 in the title role of Jules Massenet's Thaïs at the Teatro Coccia in Novara at the age of 20. She had her first major success in 1906 at the Teatro di San Carlo as the title heroine in Pietro Mascagni's Iris.
  
  wn.com/Carmen_Melis
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  Catherine Malfitano
  Catherine Malfitano (born 18 April 1948) is an American operatic soprano. She is generally considered to be one of America's leading operatic sopranos. Her vocal versatility, physical grace and dramatic abilities make her a sought-after performer in opera houses and concert halls.
  Malfitano was born in New York City, the daughter of a ballet dancer mother, Maria Maslova, and a violinist father, Joseph Malfitano. She attended the High School of Music and Art and studied at the Frank Corsaro Studio and the Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 1971.
  Malfitano made her professional singing debut in 1972 at the Central City Opera playing the role of Nannetta in Verdi's Falstaff. She soon appeared with Minnesota Opera, where she sang in the world premiere of Conrad Susa's Transformations and, in 1974 at New York City Opera, in La bohème, as Mimi. She then appeared with the Lyric Opera of Chicago (1975) and at the Royal Opera House (1976) and in other major European opera houses. In 1978, Malfitano achieved wider recognition in a telecast of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Saint of Bleecker Street from NYCO, playing Annina.
  
  wn.com/Catherine_Malfitano
• Deborah Burton
  Deborah Burton is an American music theorist, pianist, and academic. She is particularly known for her publications on Giacomo Puccini and his works, including the 2004 book Tosca's Prism: Three Moments of Western Cultural History. She has contributed articles to numerous music journals, including Nuova Rivista Musicale, Opera Quarterly, Studi Musicali, and Theoria.
  She earned a Diploma in Piano Performance from the Mannes College of Music, a Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, and a PhD from the University of Michigan in 1995 with a doctoral dissertion entitled An Analysis of Puccini's Tosca: A Heuristic Approach to the Unifying Elements of the Opera. She is Assistant Professor of Music, Composition and Theory at Boston University and is a former faculty member at Adrian College, Florida International University, Fordham University, Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the University of Michigan, and Yale University.
  Burton was one of the originators of the conference "Tosca 2000" in Rome, marking the centenary of Puccini's Tosca and the 2010 Boston conference "Fanciulla 100: Celebrating Puccini" (and its website fanciulla100.org), marking the centenary of Puccini's La fanciulla del West.
  
  wn.com/Deborah_Burton
• Edward Greenfield
  Edward Greenfield (born 1928, Westcliff-on-Sea, England) is an English music critic and broadcaster. He joined the Manchester Guardian in 1953, working as a lobby correspondent in the House of Commons. He has been a record critic for the newspaper since 1955, a music critic since 1964, and was chief music critic from 1977 until his retirement in 1993. He has contributed to Gramophone magazine since 1960, and has been joint editor of The Stereo Record Guide since 1960. A regular broadcaster on the BBC, he presented classical music programmes on the World Service, including The Greenfield Collection, and was a regular contributor to the 'Building a Library' feature of Radio 3's Record Review (now CD Review) for many years.
  He is the author of monographs on Puccini (1958), Joan Sutherland (1972) and André Previn (1973). He was awarded the OBE in 1994.
  Extracts from Edward Greenfield’s memoirs can be found here.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Greenfield
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  Emanuele Muzio
  Donnino Emanuele Muzio (24 August 1821 in Zibello – 27 November 1890 in Paris) was an Italian composer, conductor and vocal teacher. He was a lifelong friend and the only student of Giuseppe Verdi.
  Muzio studied with Ferdinando Provesi, from 1844 with Giuseppe Verdi, and also was a piano student of Verdi's first wife, Margherita Barezzi.
  In 1852, Muzio was conductor of the Italian Opera in Brussels. He later conducted in London and at the Academy of Music in New York City. In 1875, he settled in Paris as a vocal teacher. His students include Carlotta Patti and Clara Louise Kellogg.
  
  wn.com/Emanuele_Muzio
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  Emilio De Marchi
  Emilio De Marchi (January 6, 1861 – March 20, 1917) was an Italian operatic tenor. He had a significant career during the late 19th century and early 20th century, appearing at major theatres on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1900, he entered the annals of musical history as the creator of the role of Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. Today, however, he is largely forgotten because unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not leave a legacy of commercial gramophone or phonograph recordings.
  De Marchi came from Northern Italy's Lombardy region; he was born in Voghera. His voice was discovered during military service and he received professional singing lessons. In 1886, He made his operatic debut in Milan, at the Teatro Dal Verme, as Alfredo in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata. Over the next few years he appeared at leading houses throughout Italy and Spain and was a member of a distinguished Italian operatic company which visited Buenos Aires in 1890.
  He debuted at Italy's leading opera house, La Scala, Milan, in 1898 as Stolzing in an Italian-language version of Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger. He proved a success at La Scala and was chosen by the composer Puccini to sing the coveted role of Cavaradossi in the first performance of Tosca, which occurred at Rome's Teatro Costanzi on January 14, 1900. (A rising young tenor star named Enrico Caruso, 12 years De Marchi's junior, had hoped to create Cavaradossi; but in the end, Puccini, although greatly impressed by Caruso's voice, decided to entrust the part to the more experienced singer.)
  
  wn.com/Emilio_De_Marchi
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  Emmy Destinn
  Emmy Destinn (Ema Destinnová ([ˈɛma ˈdɛstɪnovaː] ( listen)); 26 February 1878 – 28 January 1930) was a Czech operatic soprano with a strong and soaring lyric-dramatic voice. She had a career both in Europe and at the New York Metropolitan Opera.
  Destinn was born Emílie Pavlína Věnceslava Kittlová ([ˈɛmiːlɪjɛ ˈpavliːna ˈvjɛntsɛslava ˈkɪtlovaː]) in Prague, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
  At first Destinn devoted herself to studying the violin, and intended to shine as a virtuoso on that instrument. When she was well on in her teens, however, her voice was so rich and full that she changed her mind and determined upon an operatic career.
  Her voice teacher since age 13 had been Marie Maria von Dreger Loewe-Destinn, and the young singer began using her teacher's surname as a tribute. She was let go after the short engagement at the Dresden Opera and declined by Prague National Theatre in 1897. Destinn debuted on 19 July 1898 at the Berlin Court Opera as Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana. She made such progress that the intendant of the Berlin Court Opera engaged her at once when she was brought to her notice. She was merely nineteen at the time, but her voice and her genius for acting soon won the Berlin public. Her engagement in Berlin lasted till 27 October 1909. She sang in 54 operas, including 12 premieres, the most famous of which was Salome by Richard Strauss (5 December 1906).
  
  wn.com/Emmy_Destinn
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  Enrico Caruso
  Enrico Caruso (Italian pronunciation: [enˈriːko kaˈruːzo]) (February 25, 1873 – August 2, 1921) was an Italian tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and North and South America, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Caruso also made approximately 290 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. All of these recordings, which span most of his stage career, are available today on CDs and as digital downloads.
  Caruso's 1904 recording of "Vesti la giubba" from Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci was the first sound recording to sell a million copies.
  Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died from an infection at the age of 48. His fame has lasted to the present day despite the limited marketing and promotional vehicles available during Caruso's era. (He was, nonetheless, a client of Edward Bernays, during the latter's tenure as a press agent in the United States.) Publicity in Caruso's time relied on newspapers, particularly wire services, along with magazines, photography and relatively instantaneous communication via the telephone and the telegraph, to spread a message and raise a performer's profile.
  
  wn.com/Enrico_Caruso
• Ernest Newman
  Ernest Newman (30 November 1868 – 7 July 1959) was an English music critic and musicologist. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century." His style of criticism, aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective approach of other critics, such as Neville Cardus, was reflected in his books on Richard Wagner, Hugo Wolf, Richard Strauss and others. He was music critic of The Sunday Times from 1920 until his death nearly forty years later.
  Newman was born William Roberts in Everton, a district of Liverpool, the only child of Seth Roberts, a Welsh tailor, and his second wife Harriet, née Spark, both of whom had children by their first marriages. He was educated at St Saviour's School, Everton, Liverpool College and University College, Liverpool, graduating in 1886, where he studied English literature, philosophy and art. He had no formal musical education but taught himself to play the piano "after a fashion", could read music as easily as books, studied vocal music, composition, harmony and counterpoint, and introduced himself to a wide range of music through reading scores. The young Roberts was intended to pursue a career in the Indian Civil Service, but his health broke down, and he was medically advised not to contemplate residence in India. He became a clerk in the Bank of Liverpool from 1889 to 1903. In his spare time he acquired complete or partial competence in nine foreign languages, wrote for a number of journals on music, literature, religion and philosophical subjects, and published his first two books, Gluck and the Opera, in 1895 and A Study of Wagner, in 1899.
  
  wn.com/Ernest_Newman
• Eugenio Giraldoni
  Eugenio Giraldoni (May 20, 1871, Marseille - June 23, 1924, Helsinki) was an Italian operatic baritone who enjoyed a substantial international career. In 1900, he created the role of Baron Scarpia.
  He was the son of another leading baritone, Leone Giraldoni, and the soprano and violinist Carolina Ferni. His mother gave him voice lessons and he made his opera debut in Barcelona, as Escamillo in Carmen, in 1891.
  Giraldoni consolidated his career by appearing at various operatic venues in Italy and, in 1898, visiting South America. Then, in 1900, he earned a place in operatic history when he created the part of Baron Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. He also appeared in the first performance of Ildebrando Pizzetti's La figlia di Jorio at Italy's foremost opera house, La Scala, Milan, in 1906.
  He sang in Russia and Poland from 1901 until 1907 and at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City during the 1904-05 season. In 1913, he appeared at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, as Scarpia and Sharpless.
  
  wn.com/Eugenio_Giraldoni
• Fernando De Lucia
  Fernando De Lucia (11 October 1860 or 1 September 1861 – 21 February 1925) was an Italian opera tenor and singing teacher who enjoyed an international career.
  De Lucia was admired in his lifetime as a striking exponent of verismo parts — particularly Canio in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci — and of certain roles written by Verdi and Puccini. Since then, however, he has acquired a great posthumous reputation among record-collectors for something different. They hail him as the exemplar of a type of graceful, ornamental tenor singing which originated prior to verismo and is now extinct. Especially valued are the recordings that De Lucia made of Almaviva's arias and duets from Rossini's bel canto comic opera Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville).
  De Lucia was born in Naples, where he studied at the Naples Music Conservatory with Vincenzo Lombardi and Beniamino Carelli. He made his debut at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, as Gounod's Faust in 1885. Over the next two or three years he sang in Spain, South America and in the smaller Italian opera houses, in Linda di Chamounix, Dinorah, L'elisir d'amore, Fra Diavolo and La sonnambula. While in Madrid he was hired by Augustus Harris and Herman Klein for his first London appearances in the Drury Lane season of 1887; but although Klein liked his Alfredo, he went comparatively unnoticed due to the British debut of the charismatic tenor Jean de Reszke. His Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia (a role later closely associated with him) was described as "truly detestable" by The Times newspaper.
  
  wn.com/Fernando_De_Lucia
• Francesco Cilea
  Francesco Cilea (also Cilèa) (July 23, 1866 – November 20, 1950) was an Italian composer. Today he is particularly known for his operas L'arlesiana and Adriana Lecouvreur.
  Born in Palmi near Reggio Calabria, Cilea gave early indication of an aptitude for music when at the age of four he heard a performance of Vincenzo Bellini's Norma and was greatly affected by it. He was sent to study music at the Conservatorio San Pietro a Maiella in Naples, where he quickly demonstrated his diligence and precocious talent, earning a gold medal from the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione (Department of Education).
  In 1889, for his final examination at the end of his course of study, he submitted his opera Gina, with a libretto by Enrico Golisciani which was adapted from the old French play Catherine, ou La Croix d'or by Baron Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville (1787—1865). This melodramma idilico was performed in the college theatre, and it attracted the attention of the publishers Sonzogno, who arranged for a second production, in Florence, in 1892.
  
  wn.com/Francesco_Cilea
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  Franco Alfano
  Franco Alfano (8 March 1875 – 27 October 1954) was an Italian composer and pianist. Best known today for his opera Risurrezione (1904) and above all for having completed Puccini's opera Turandot in 1926. He had considerable success with several of his own works during his lifetime.
  He was born in Posillipo, Naples. Until recent times, musical histories usually gave the year of Alfano's birth, incorrectly, as 1876. He attended piano privately under Alessandro Longo (1864–1946), and harmony and composition respectively under Camillo de Nardis (1857–1951) and Paolo Serrao (1830–1907) at the conservatory San Pietro a Majella in Naples. Later, after graduating, he pursued further composition studies with Hans Sitt (1850–1922) and Salomon Jadassohn (1831–1902) in Leipzig. While working there he met his idol, Edvard Grieg, and wrote numerous piano and orchestral pieces. He completed his first opera, Miranda, still unpublished, for which he also wrote the libretto after a novel by Antonio Fogazzaro, in 1896. His work La Fonte Di Enschir (libretto by Luigi Illica) was refused by Ricordi but was shown in Wrocław (then Breslau) as Die Quelle von Enschir on 8 November 1898, enjoying some success.
  
  wn.com/Franco_Alfano
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  Franco Zeffirelli
  Franco Zeffirelli, KBE (born 12 February 1923) is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator (1994–2001) for the Italian centre-right Forza Italia party.
  He is principally known for his 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, although his 1967 version of The Taming of the Shrew (with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) remains the most popular production of that play as well. His mini-series Jesus of Nazareth won acclaim and is still shown on Easter weekend in many countries.
  He was the first Italian national to receive an honorary knighthood from the British government when he was created a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
  He was awarded the Premio Colosseo in 2009 by the city of Rome.
  Zeffirelli was born in Florence as Gianfranco Corsi, the illegitimate son of a mercer, Ottorino Corsi, and his mistress, Adelaide Garosi, a dressmaker. When he was six years old, his mother died and he subsequently grew up under the auspices of the British expatriate community and was particularly involved with the so-called Scorpioni, who inspired his semi-autobiographical 1999 film Tea With Mussolini.
  
  wn.com/Franco_Zeffirelli
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  Gabriel Fauré
  Gabriel Urbain Fauré (pronounced: [ɡabʁiɛl yʁbɛ̃ fɔʁe]; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, nocturnes for piano, and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his greatest works in his later years, in a harmonically and melodically much more complex style.
  Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine he was sent to a music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865 Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.
  
  wn.com/Gabriel_Fauré
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  Giacomo Puccini
  Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (Italian pronunciation: [ˈdʒaːkomo putˈtʃiːni]; 22 December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire. Some of his arias, such as "O mio babbino caro" from Gianni Schicchi, "Che gelida manina" from La bohème, and "Nessun dorma" from Turandot, have become part of popular culture.
  Described by Encyclopædia Britannica Online as "one of the greatest exponents of operatic realism", he is regarded as one of the last major Italian opera composers. His repertoire is essentially rooted in verismo, or a post-Romantic operatic tradition and literary style. Whilst his work is essentially based on traditional late-19th century Italian opera, his music shows some influences from then-contemporary composers and movements such as Igor Stravinsky and Impressionism. Common themes within his operas include the important role, yet usually tragic end, of his heroines, as well as love; furthermore, there is a strong presence of exoticism in his operas, with several being set in faraway locations.
  
  wn.com/Giacomo_Puccini
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  Giovanni Paisiello
  Giovanni Paisiello (or Paesiello) (9 May 1740 – 5 June 1816) was an Neapolitan composer of the Classical era.
  Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and eventually became assistant master. For the theatre of the Conservatorio, which he left in 1763, he wrote some intermezzi, one of which attracted so much notice that he was invited to write two operas, La Pupilla and Il Mondo al Rovescio, for Bologna, and a third, Il Marchese di Tidipano, for Rome.
  His reputation now firmly established, he settled for some years at Naples, where, despite the popularity of Niccolò Piccinni, Domenico Cimarosa and Pietro Guglielmi, of whose triumphs he was bitterly jealous, he produced a series of highly successful operas, one of which, L'ldolo cinese, made a deep impression upon the Neapolitan public.
  In 1772 Paisiello began to write church music, and composed a requiem for Gennara di Borbone, of the reigning dynasty. In the same year he married Cecilia Pallini, and the marriage was a happy one. In 1776 Paisiello was invited by the empress Catherine II of Russia to St Petersburg, where he remained for eight years, producing, among other charming works, his masterpiece, Il barbiere di Siviglia, which soon attained a European reputation. The fate of this opera marks an epoch in the history of Italian art; for with it the gentle suavity cultivated by the masters of the 18th century died out to make room for the dazzling brilliance of a later period.
  
  wn.com/Giovanni_Paisiello
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  Giulio Ricordi
  Giulio Ricordi (December 19, 1840 - June 6, 1912) was an Italian editor and musician.
  Ricordi was born in Milan, where he also died.
  With the nickname Jules Burgmein, Ricordi contributed a very great deal to the prestige of the Casa Ricordi, publishing company of his family. This firm also produced several magazines (La gazzetta musicale, Musica e musicisti and Ars et labor), and various other once famous publications (La biblioteca del pianista, l'Opera Omnia di Frédéric Chopin, L'arte musicale in Italia, Le Sonate di Domenico Scarlatti).
  Ricordi was also publisher of the later operas by Giuseppe Verdi and had the good sense to promote younger composers of merit. These included Amilcare Ponchielli, Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, and, above all, Giacomo Puccini. To the last-named, in particular, he became something of a father-figure, feared (and often needing to be censorious over Puccini's dilatory work habits) but deeply trusted.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Giulio_Ricordi
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  Giuseppe Borgatti
  Giuseppe Borgatti (Cento, March 17, 1871 – Reno di Leggiuno, October 18, 1950) was an Italian dramatic tenor with an outstanding voice. (See Michael Scott, cited below, for a laudatory appraisal of his singing.) The creator of the title role in Umberto Giordano's verismo opera Andrea Chénier, he subsequently earned renown for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, becoming in 1904 the first Italian tenor to appear at the Bayreuth Festival. He sang a variety of leading roles at La Scala, Milan, from 1896 until 1914, but deteriorating eyesight caused by glaucoma put a premature end to his stage career, after which he turned successfully to teaching.
  Borgatti was born into a poor rural family from the Province of Ferrara in northern Italy and grew up illiterate, according to the music-performance historian John Rosselli. This handicap did not prevent Borgatti from finding work as a bricklayer/stone-cutter. He was also called up by the authorities to discharge a compulsory period of military service. Luckily, a wealthy patron happened to hear him sing. Struck by the inherent quality of Borgatti's voice, the patron arranged for him to have professional singing lessons and acquire basic educational skills. His voice teachers included Alessandro Busi in Bologna and, later, Carlo d'Ormeville.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Borgatti
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  Giuseppe Cremonini
  Giuseppe Cremonini (25 November 1866 – 9 May 1903) was an Italian operatic tenor who had a prominent opera career in Europe and the United States during the last decade of the nineteenth century.
  Cremonini was born and died in Cremona, Italy. Admired for his full lyric voice, he sang a wide repertoire that encompassed the bel canto works of Donizetti and Rossini, the Italian grand opera of Verdi, the verisimo operas of Mascagni, the French operas of Gounod and Massenet, and the German operas of Richard Wagner. He sang in several world premieres during his career, including creating the role of Chevalier des Grieux in the original 1893 production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. An immensely popular singer, Cremonini's career was cut short upon his sudden death in 1903 at the age of 36.
  Cremonini was born into an impoverished family with the name Giuseppe Bianchi. He studied under a teacher with the surname of Cima. Taking on the name Giuseppe Cremonini, he made his professional opera debut in 1889 at the Teatro Politeama in Genoa as Carlo in Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix. The following year he performed the role of Wilhelm Meister in Ambroise Thomas's Mignon at both the Teatro Filodrammatico in Milan and the Teatro Coccia in Novara. In 1891 he sang the role of Turiddu in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana opposite the famous primadonna Hariclea Darclée as Santuzza at the Romanian National Opera. That same year he had an enormous successes as the title hero in Mascagni's L'amico Fritz at the opera's premieres in Mantua, Faenza and Palermo. In 1892 he made his Covent Garden debut as Nadir in Bizet's Les pêcheurs de perles and sang the role of Alfredo in Verdi's La traviata with the company.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Cremonini
• Giuseppe Di Stefano
  Giuseppe Di Stefano (24 July 1921 – 3 March 2008) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang professionally from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. He was known as the "Golden voice" or "The most beautiful voice", as the true successor of Beniamino Gigli. He was also known for his long-term performance and recording association and brief romantic episode with the soprano Maria Callas.
  Giuseppe di Stefano was born in Motta Sant'Anastasia, a village near Catania, Sicily. He was the only son of a carabiniere turned cobbler and his dressmaker wife. Di Stefano was educated at a Jesuit seminary and briefly contemplated entering the priesthood.
  After serving in the Italian military (and briefly taking lessons from the Swiss tenor Hugues Cuénod), di Stefano made his operatic debut in 1946 in Reggio Emilia as Des Grieux in Massenet's Manon, the role in which he made his La Scala debut the following year. The great beauty of his lyric tenor voice quickly won him international attention and he was duly engaged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He made his New York debut in 1948 as the Duke of Mantua in Verdi's Rigoletto. He went on to perform regularly in New York for many years. In 1957, di Stefano made his British debut at the Edinburgh Festival as Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore and his Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, debut in 1961, as Cavaradossi in Tosca.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Di_Stefano
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  Giuseppe Giacosa
  Giuseppe Giacosa (21 October 1847 – 1 September 1906) was an Italian poet, playwright and librettist.
  He was born in Colleretto Parella, now Colleretto Giacosa, near Turin. His father was a magistrate. Giuseppe went to the University of Turin, studying in the University of Turin, Faculty of Law. Though he gained a degree in law, he did not pursue a legal career.
  He gained initial fame for his play Una Partita a Scacchi ("A Game of Chess") in 1871. His main field was playwriting, which he accomplished with both insight and simplicity, using subjects set in Piedmont and themes addressing contemporary bourgeois values. He wrote La Dame de Challant for noted French actress Sarah Bernhardt, which she produced in New York in 1891.
  He also wrote the librettos used by Giacomo Puccini in La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly in conjunction with Luigi Illica.
  See also Scapigliatura.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Giacosa
• Giuseppe Taddei
  Giuseppe Taddei (26 June 1916 – 2 June 2010) was an Italian baritone, who performed mostly the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Giuseppe Verdi.
  Taddei was born in Genoa, Italy, and studied in Rome, where he made his professional debut in 1936 as the Herald in Wagner's Lohengrin. He sang at the Rome Opera until he was conscripted into the army in 1942. After the war, he resumed his opera career and appeared for two seasons at the Vienna State Opera. He made his debut in London in 1947, at the Cambridge Theatre. The following year, 1948, saw his debut at the Salzburg Festival, La Scala in Milan, and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.
  His American debut took place at the San Francisco Opera in 1957, followed by his appearance with Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1959. He sang regularly at the Royal Opera House in London from 1960 to 1967.
  Taddei was equally effective in comedy and drama. His acting repertoire included the two Figaros, from The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville, both Leporello and Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni, both Belcore and Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore, as well as Ernani, Macbeth, Rigoletto, Amonasro in Aida, Iago in Otello, Falstaff, Barnaba in La Gioconda, Gérard in Andrea Chénier, and Scarpia in Tosca, among others.
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Taddei
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  Giuseppe Verdi
  Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 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.
  Verdi’s masterworks dominate the standard opera repertoire a century and a half after their composition.
  Verdi was born the son of Carlo Giuseppe Verdi and Luigia Uttini in Le Roncole, a village near Busseto, then in the Département Taro which was a part of the First French Empire after the annexation of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza. The baptismal register, on 11 October lists him as being "born yesterday", but since days were often considered to begin at sunset, this could have meant either 9 or 10 October. The next day, he was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church in Latin as Joseph Fortuninus Franciscus. The day after that (Tuesday), Verdi's father took his newborn the three miles to Busseto, where the baby was recorded as Joseph Fortunin François; the clerk wrote in French. "So it happened that for the civil and temporal world Verdi was born a Frenchman."
  
  wn.com/Giuseppe_Verdi
• Hariclea Darclée
  Hariclea Darclée (born Hariclea Haricli; June 10, 1860–January 12, 1939) was a celebrated Romanian operatic soprano. She possessed an agile, powerful, and beautiful voice that was wielded with a fine technique. An extremely beautiful woman, Darclée's stage presence was as elegant and refined as her singing. Although universally admired, she displayed a coldness of temperament that at times diminished her conviction in the more passionate verismo repertory. A singer of prodigous talent, her repertoire ranged from coloratura soprano roles to heavier Verdi roles, including many in the Franco-Italian lyric repertory. Throughout her career she participated in several world premieres, including originating the title roles in Puccini's Tosca, Mascagni's Iris, and Catalani's La Wally.
  Darclée was born in Brăila to a family with Greek roots. Her father, Ion Haricli, was a landlord in the Teleorman district. Her mother, born Aslan, was a relative of the noble Mavrocordatos family. The family lived for a while in the town of Turnu Măgurele in southern Romania. She began her studies at Conservatoire of music in Iaşi, making her professional appearances as a concert performer in 1884. She continued her studies in Paris under Jean-Baptiste Faure. She married a young officer, Iorgu Hartulari, and became known for a while as Hariclea Hartulari-Darclée, Darclée being the nom de théâtre she adopted when she made her debut at the Paris Opéra in 1888 as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust. In 1889, she replaced Adelina Patti as Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, to increasing acclaim.
  
  wn.com/Hariclea_Darclée
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  Herbert von Karajan
  Herbert von Karajan (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛɐbɛɐt fɔn ˈkaʁaˌjan]; 5 April 1908 – 16 July 1989) was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years. Although his work was not universally admired, he is generally considered to have been one of the greatest conductors of all time, and he was a dominant figure in European classical music from the 1960s until his death. Part of the reason for this was the large number of recordings he made and their prominence during his lifetime. By one estimate he was the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, having sold an estimated 200 million records.
  The Karajans were of Greek Macedonian or Aromanian ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Geòrgios Johannes Karajànnis, was born in Kozani, an Aromanian town in the Ottoman province of Rumelia (present West Macedonia in today's Greece), leaving for Vienna in 1767, and eventually Chemnitz, Saxony. He and his brother participated in the establishment of Saxony's cloth industry, and both were ennobled for their services by Frederick Augustus III on 1 June 1792, thus the prefix "von" to the family name. The surname Karajànnis became Karajan. Although traditional biographers ascribed a Serbian or simply a Slavic origin to his mother, Karajan's family from the maternal side, through his grandfather who was born in the village of Mojstrana, Duchy of Carniola (today in Slovenia), was Slovene. By this line, Karajan was related to Austrian composer of Slovene descent Hugo Wolf. Karajan seems to have known some Slovene.
  
  wn.com/Herbert_von_Karajan
• Ildebrando Pizzetti
  Ildebrando Pizzetti (20 September 1880 – 13 February 1968) was an Italian composer of classical music.
  Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions were not in opera. (The instrumental and a cappella traditions had never died in Italian music and had produced, for instance, the string quartets of Antonio Scontrino (1850-1922) and the works of Respighi's teacher Giuseppe Martucci; but with the "Generation of 1880" these traditions became stronger.)
  Ildebrando Pizzetti is the son of Odoardo Pizzetti, a pianist and piano teacher who was his son's first teacher. At first Pizzetti seemed headed for a career as a playwright—he had written several plays, two of which had been produced—before he decided in 1895 on a career in music and entered the Conservatorium of Parma.
  There he was taught from 1897 by Giovanni Tebaldini and gained the beginnings of his lifelong interest in the early music of Italy, reflected in his own music and his writings.
  
  wn.com/Ildebrando_Pizzetti
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  Jonathan Miller
  Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (born 21 July 1934) is a British theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor. Trained as a physician in the late 1950s, he first came to prominence in the early 1960s with his role in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with fellow writers and performers Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Despite having seen few operas and not knowing how to read music, he began stage-directing them in the 1970s and has since become one of the world's leading opera directors with several classic productions to his credit. His best-known production is probably his 1982 "Mafia"-styled Rigoletto set in 1950s Little Italy, Manhattan. In its early days he was an associate director at the Royal National Theatre and later he ran the Old Vic Theatre. He has also become a well-known television personality and familiar public intellectual in Britain and the United States of America.
  
  wn.com/Jonathan_Miller
• Joseph Kerman
  Joseph Wilfred Kerman (born April 3, 1924) is an American critic and musicologist. One of the leading musicologists of his generation, his 1985 book Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology (published in the UK as Musicology) was described by Philip Brett in The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians as "a defining moment in the field." He is Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of California, Berkeley.
  Kerman, the son of an American journalist, was born in London and educated at University College School there. He then attended New York University where he received his BA in 1943 and Princeton University where he received his PhD in 1950. While at Princeton he studied under Oliver Strunk, Randall Thompson and Carl Weinrich and wrote his doctoral thesis on the Elizabethan madrigal. From 1949 to 1951 he taught at Westminster Choir College in Princeton. Then he joined the faculty of University of California, Berkeley where he became a full professor in 1960 and was chairman of the music department from 1960 to 1963. In 1971, he was appointed Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University, a post he held until 1974, when he returned to Berkeley, where he again became chairman of the music department, from 1991 until his retirement in 1994.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Kerman
• Julian Budden
  Julian Medforth Budden, BA, BMus (9 April 1924, Hoylake, Wirral – 28 February 2007, Florence, Italy) was a British opera scholar, radio producer and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his three volumes on the operas of Giuseppe Verdi (published in 1973, 1978, & 1981), a single volume biography in 1982 and a single volume work on Giacomo Puccini and his operas in 2002. He is also the author of numerous entries in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
  His parents were the then professor of architecture at Liverpool University, Lionel Budden, and a poet, writer and journalist Maud, (née Fraser) who from 1938 until 1964 provided the rhymes for the strip 'Curly Wee and Gussie Goose', which was syndicated in newspapers throughout the world. He attended Stowe School and read Classics at Queen's College Oxford.
  The war interrupted his studies; he worked in the Friends' Ambulance Unit from 1943-46, serving in Austria and Italy. He completed his BA in 1948 and then studied piano (with Thornton Lofthouse) and bassoon (with Archie Camden) at the Royal College of Music.
  
  wn.com/Julian_Budden
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  Leo Slezak
  Leo Slezak (18 August 1873 – 1 June 1946) was a world-famous Moravian tenor. He was associated in particular with German opera as well as the title role in Verdi's Otello.
  Born in Šumperk (Mährisch-Schönberg), Slezak worked as a gardener, an engineer's fitter and served in the army before taking singing lessons with the first-class baritone and pedagogue Adolf Robinson. He made his debut in 1896 in Brno (Brünn) and proceeded to sing leading roles in Bohemia and Germany, appearing at Breslau and, in 1898-99, at Berlin. From 1901 onwards he was a permanent member of the Vienna State Opera's roster of artists, achieving star status.
  Slezak's international career commenced in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he sang Siegfried (a punishing role that he would soon drop from his repertoire) and Lohengrin in 1900. (He would return to Covent Garden in 1909 after undertaking further vocal studies in Paris the previous year with a great tenor of a previous era, Jean de Reszke.)
  Slezak secured a three-year contract with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1909. Met audiences acclaimed him in performances of works by Wagner and Verdi. Along with Italy's Giovanni Zenatello, he became the most famous Otello of his generation, famously performing the role at the Met with Arturo Toscanini conducting.
  
  wn.com/Leo_Slezak
• Leone Giraldoni
  Leone Giraldoni (born circa 1824, Paris; died September 19, 1897, Moscow) was a celebrated Italian operatic baritone. He created the title roles of Gaetano Donizetti's Il duca d'Alba (1882) and Verdi's Simon Boccanegra (1857) as well as the role of Renato in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera (1859).
  Giraldoni studied in Florence with Luigi Ronzi and made his début as the High Priest in Pacini's Saffò (Lodi, 1847). He made his La Scala début as Il Conte di Luna in Il trovatore in 1850 and during his long career sang throughout Europe with considerable success. His final performance was in Filippo Marchetti's Don Giovanni d'Austria at Rome's Teatro Costanzi in 1885. After his retirement he taught voice and singing, first in Milan, and from 1891 at the Moscow Conservatory.
  Contemporary accounts describe his voice as warm, smooth and evenly produced. He also was considered to be an effective actor, with a noble and dignified stage presence and beautiful phrasing, qualities which made him one of Verdi's favourite baritones.
  
  wn.com/Leone_Giraldoni
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  Leontyne Price
  Mary Violet Leontyne Price (born February 10, 1927) is an American soprano. Born and raised in the Deep South, she rose to international acclaim in the 1950s and 1960s, and was one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.
  One critic characterized Price's voice as "vibrant", "soaring" and "a Price beyond pearls", as well as "genuinely buttery, carefully produced but firmly under control", with phrases that "took on a seductive sinuousness." Time magazine called her voice "Rich, supple and shining, it was in its prime capable of effortlessly soaring from a smoky mezzo to the pure soprano gold of a perfectly spun high C."
  A lirico spinto (Italian for "pushed lyric") soprano, she was considered especially well suited to the roles of Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, as well as several in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Her voice ranged from A-flat below middle C to the E above high C. (She said she reached F "in the shower.")
  After her retirement from the opera stage in 1985, she continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts for another 12 years.
  
  wn.com/Leontyne_Price
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  Leopoldo Mugnone
  Leopoldo Mugnone (b. Naples, 29 September 1858; d. Capodichino, Naples 22 December 1941) was an Italian conductor, especially of opera, whose most famous work was done in the period 1890-1920, both in Europe and South America. He conducted various operatic premieres, and was also a composer of operas.
  The son of Antonio Mugnone, principal double-bass in the orchestra of the San Carlo Theatre in Naples, Mugnone studied from an early age at the Royal Conservatorio of San Pietro a Maiella under Paolo Serrao and Beniamino Cesi. He composed his first theatre work, a little opera buffa Il Dottor Bartolo Salsapariglia, at the age of 12, in which he wished to take part in the basso comico role, though he had then only an alto voice. At 16 he began conducting. A year later he was recruited as a chorus director for an operetta troupe at the Teatro Nuovo, run by F. Sadowsky. From there he went on to the Garibaldi Theatre, first as chorus master and later as concertatore. Two other early operettas by him, Don Bizzarro e le sue figlie (1 act), and Mamma Angot al serraglio di Costantinopoli (3 acts) were produced during the later 1870s at Naples.
  
  wn.com/Leopoldo_Mugnone
• Luca Ronconi
  Luca Ronconi (born 8 March 1933 in Sousse, Tunisia) is an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.
  After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, he graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. He acted in productions of Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni and others. In 1963, he directed his first play and since then has worked almost exclusively as a director.
  Ronconi is considered one of Europe's most influential theatrical directors. He has worked for renowned companies, such as the Burgtheater in Vienna (The Bacchae by Euripides, 1973; The Birds by Aristophanes, 1975; The Oresteia by Aeschylus, 1976), Teatro alla Scala in Milan (1974 Die Walküre and 1975 Siegfried by Wagner; Don Carlos by Verdi, 1978; Les Troyens by Berlioz, 1980, with Dunja Vejzovic as Didon), the Vienna State Opera (Il viaggio a Reims by Rossini, 1988), the Rossini Festival in Pesaro and the Salzburg Festival (Die Riesen vom Berge [I giganti della montagna] by Luigi Pirandello, 1994; Don Giovanni by Mozart, 1999).
  
  wn.com/Luca_Ronconi
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  Luciano Pavarotti
  Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (12 October 1935 – 6 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor, who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, and established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th century. He was one of The Three Tenors and became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others.
  Pavarotti began his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy. That same year, 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 Rodolfo 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.
  
  wn.com/Luciano_Pavarotti
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  Luigi Illica
  Luigi Illica (9 May 1857 – 16 December 1919) was an Italian librettist who wrote for Giacomo Puccini (usually with Giuseppe Giacosa), Alfredo Catalani, Umberto Giordano, Baron Alberto Franchetti and other important Italian composers. His most famous opera librettos are those for La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Andrea Chénier.
  Illica was born at Castell'Arquato. His personal life sometimes imitated his libretti. The reason he is always photographed with his head slightly turned is because he lost his right ear in a duel over a woman. When silent films based on Illica's operas were made, his name appeared in large letters on advertisements because distributors could only guarantee that his stories would be used, and not that they would be accompanied by the music of the appropriate composer.
  The dates given are those of creations.
  
  
  
  
  
  wn.com/Luigi_Illica
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  Luigi Pelloux
  Luigi Gerolamo Pelloux (La Roche-sur-Foron, 1 March 1839 – Bordighera, 26 October 1924) was an Italian general and politician, born of parents who retained their Italian nationality when Savoy was annexed to France.
  Pelloux was born in La Roche-sur-Foron, Savoy, then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Entering the army as lieutenant of artillery in 1857 he gained the medal for military valour at the battle of Custoza in 1866, and in 1870 commanded the brigade of artillery which battered the breach in the wall of Rome at Porta Pia. He was elected to the Chamber in 1881 as deputy for Livorno, which he represented until 1895, and joined the party of the Left. He had entered the war office in 1870, and in 1880 became general secretary, in which capacity he introduced many useful reforms in the army.
  After a succession of high military commands he received the appointment of chief of the general staff in 1896. He was minister of war in the Rudinì and Giolitti cabinets of 1891–1893. In July 1896 he resumed the portfolio of war in the Rudinì cabinet, and was appointed senator. In May 1897 he secured the adoption of the Army Reform Bill, fixing Italian military expenditure at a maximum of 9,560,000 a year, but in December of that year he was defeated in the Chamber on the question of the promotion of officers.
  
  wn.com/Luigi_Pelloux
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  Margherita of Savoy
  Margherita of Savoy (Margherita Maria Teresa Giovanna; 20 November 1851 – 4 January 1926), was the Queen consort of the Kingdom of Italy during the reign (1878–1900) of her husband, Umberto I.
  She was a daughter of Prince Ferdinand, Duke of Genoa and Princess Elisabeth of Saxony. Her paternal grandparents were Charles Albert, King of Sardinia and Maria Theresa of Austria. Her maternal grandparents were John, King of Saxony and Amalie Auguste, Princess of Bavaria.
  She married her first cousin Umberto, Prince of Piedmont on 21 April 1868. On 11 November 1869, Margherita gave birth to Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples, afterwards Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. He was their only child.
  On 9 January 1878, Umberto succeeded as the new King of Italy. She became his Queen consort and remained by his side for the rest of his reign. Umberto, after the attempted murders by anarchists Giovanni Passannante and Pietro Acciarito, was killed by another anarchist, Gaetano Bresci, on 29 July 1900.
  Margherita encouraged artists and writers and founded cultural institutions, notably the Società del Quartetto, and the Casa di Dante. She was a benefactor of many charities, especially the Red Cross.
  
  wn.com/Margherita_of_Savoy
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  Maria Callas
  Maria Callas, Commendatore OMRI (Greek: Μαρία Κάλλας) (December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts. An extremely versatile singer, her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini; further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her remarkable musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina.
  Born in New York City and raised by an overbearing mother, she received her musical education in Greece and established her career in Italy. Forced to deal with the exigencies of wartime poverty and with myopia that left her nearly blind onstage, she endured struggles and scandal over the course of her career. She turned herself from a heavy woman into a svelte and glamorous one after a mid-career weight loss, which might have contributed to her vocal decline and the premature end of her career. The press exulted in publicizing Callas's allegedly temperamental behaviour, her supposed rivalry with Renata Tebaldi and her love affair with Aristotle Onassis. Her dramatic life and personal tragedy have often overshadowed Callas the artist in the popular press. However, her artistic achievements were such that Leonard Bernstein called her "The Bible of opera"; and her influence was so enduring that, in 2006, Opera News wrote of her: "Nearly thirty years after her death, she's still the definition of the diva as artist—and still one of classical music's best-selling vocalists."
  
  wn.com/Maria_Callas
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  Maria Jeritza
  Maria Jeritza (October 6, 1887 – July 10, 1982), born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera (1912–1935) and the Metropolitan Opera (1921-1932 and 1951). Her sensational rise to fame and spectacular beauty and personality earned her the nickname The Moravian Thunderbolt.
  Jeritza was born in Brno. In 1910, she made her debut as Elsa, in Wagner's Lohengrin, at Olomouc. The Emperor Franz Josef heard her and immediately commanded that she be offered a contract at the Imperial Hofoper, Vienna. She created the roles of Blanchefleur in Kienzl's opera Der Kuhreigen (1911), Ariadne in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), the Empress in his Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919), and Marie/Marietta in Korngold's Die tote Stadt (1920), the latter also being the role of her debut with the Metropolitan Opera on November 19, 1921.
  On November 16, 1926, she starred in the title role of Puccini's Turandot in its North American premiere at the Metropolitan, where she also created the title or leading soprano roles in Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa (1924), Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna (1925), Korngold's Violanta (1927), Richard Strauss' Die Ägyptische Helena (1928), and Franz von Suppé's Boccaccio (1931) and Donna Juanita (1932.) Her popularity at the Metropolitan was, as in Vienna, immense, especially as Tosca, Carmen and Massenet's Thaïs.
  
  wn.com/Maria_Jeritza
• Mario Del Monaco
  Mario Del Monaco (July 27, 1915 – October 16, 1982) was an Italian tenor who is regarded as one of the greatest dramatic tenors of the 20th century.
  Del Monaco was born in Florence to a musical upper-class family. As a young boy he studied the violin but had a passion for singing. He graduated from the Rossini Conservatory at Pesaro, where he first met and sang with Renata Tebaldi, with whom he would form something of an operatic dream team of the 1950s. His early mentors as a singer included Arturo Melocchi, his teacher at Pesaro, and Maestro Raffaelli, who recognized his talent and helped launch his career.
  That career began in earnest with Del Monaco's debut on December 31, 1940, as Pinkerton at the Puccini Theater in Milan. (His initial appearance in an opera had occurred the previous year, however, in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana in Pesaro.) He sang in Italy during the Second World War and married, in 1941, Rina Filipini. In 1946, he appeared at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, for the first time. During the ensuing years he became famous not only in London but also across the operatic world for his powerful, metallic voice. It was almost heldentenor-like in scope but Del Monaco was no Wagnerian, confining his activities overwhelmingly to the Italian repertoire.
  
  wn.com/Mario_Del_Monaco
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  Mary Magdalene
  Mary Magdalene (original Greek Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνή), or Mary of Magdala, was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important female disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", ^{[Lu 8:2] [Mk 16:9]} sometimes interpreted as referring to complex illnesses. She became Jesus' close friend and most prominent during his last days, being present at the cross after the male disciples (excepting John the Beloved) had fled, and at his burial. She was the first person to see Jesus after his Resurrection, according to both John 20 and Mark 16:9.
  Mary Magdalene is considered by the Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran churches to be a saint, with a feast day of July 22. The Eastern Orthodox churches also commemorate her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers.
  Consistently in the four Gospels, Mary Magdalene seems to be distinguished from other women named Mary by adding "Magdalene" (η Μαγδαληνή) to her name. Traditionally, this has been interpreted to mean that she was from Magdala, a town thought to have been on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Luke 8:2 says that she was actually "called Magdalene." In Hebrew מגדל Migdal means "tower", "fortress"; in Aramaic, "Magdala" means "tower" or "elevated, great, magnificent".
  
  wn.com/Mary_Magdalene
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  Michael von Melas
  Michael Friedrich Benedikt Baron von Melas (12 May 1729 – 31 May 1806) was a Transylvanian-born field marshal of Greek descent for the Austrian Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.
  He was born in Radeln, Transylvania (nowadays Roadeş, part of Buneşti commune, Romania) in 1729 and joined the Austrian army at age 17. He served in the Seven Years' War as aide de camp for Leopold Josef Graf Daun. He was promoted to colonel in 1781. He fought on the lower Rhine in 1794 and the middle Rhine in 1795.
  He later led the Austrian army in Italy during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaigns in Italy, part of the War of the Second Coalition. Serving under Russian field marshal Alexander Suvorov, who commanded Second Coalition forces, he commanded Austrian forces in victories at the battles of Cassano, Trebbia and Novi and the Siege of Genoa, and came near another victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Marengo before his handing over control to a subordinate following injuries, and the arrival of General Louis Desaix, affected the outcome. The day after the battle he signed the Convention of Alexandria, ceding control of Italy up to the Mincio River to the French. The Austrians then withdrew.
  
  wn.com/Michael_von_Melas
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  Milka Ternina
  Milka Ternina (née Katarina Milka Trnina, pronounced [katarǐːna mîːlka tř̩nina]; December 19, 1863 – May 18, 1941) was a Croatian dramatic soprano who enjoyed a high reputation in major American and European opera houses. Praised by audiences and music critics alike for the electrifying force of her acting and the excellence of her singing in both German and Italian works, her career was curtailed at its peak in 1906 by a medical condition which paralyzed a nerve in her face.
  A native of Vezišće (part of Križ), the young Trnina (usually referred to as Milka Ternina in English-speaking countries) studied singing privately with Ida Winterberg in Zagreb and then with Joseph Gänsbacher at the conservatory in Vienna, graduating from his class in 1883 with a gold medal. She had made her operatic debut while still a student in Zagreb, singing Amelia in an 1882 production of Giuseppe Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.
  Ternina sang initially as a full-time professional performer in Leipzig and subsequently took up a position with the resident operatic company in Graz in 1884. She stayed there for two years, acquiring a useful knowledge of stagecraft and manifesting a burning devotion to opera as a serious art form.
  
  wn.com/Milka_Ternina
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  Pasquale Amato
  Pasquale Amato (21 March 1878 – 12 August 1942) was an outstanding Italian operatic baritone. Amato enjoyed an international reputation but attained the peak of his fame in New York City, where he sang with the Metropolitan Opera from 1908 until 1921.
  Amato was born in Naples and studied locally at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella under Beniamino Carelli and Vincenzo Lombardo (who also gave singing lessons to the great Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso). In 1900, he made his debut at the Teatro Bellini in Naples as Germont père in La traviata. Engagements followed in Genoa and Rome. Over the next few years he sang in Monte Carlo, Germany, parts of eastern Europe and Argentina. In 1904, he appeared at London's Royal Opera House with the Teatro di San Carlo Company; although well-received, he was not invited back.
  He was engaged by La Scala, Milan, and sang there in 1907 under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. His voice had matured by now into a top-class instrument and he was praised for his versatility and artistic integrity. In 1913 he was accorded the honour of taking part in the Verdi centenary commemoration at the Busseto Theatre. He appeared at the commemoration in La traviata and Falstaff with Toscanini conducting. Other important operatic roles which Amato sang in Italy prior to World War I included Amonasro in Aida, Marcello in La bohème, the title part in Rigoletto, as well as Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande, Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde, Scarpia in Tosca and Barnaba in La Gioconda.
  
  wn.com/Pasquale_Amato
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  Paul Dukas
  Paul Abraham Dukas (1 October 1865 – 17 May 1935) was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions. His best known work is the orchestral piece, L'apprenti sorcier (The Sorcerer's Apprentice), the fame of which has eclipsed that of his other surviving works. Among these are an opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariadne and Bluebeard), a symphony, two substantial works for solo piano, and a ballet, La Péri.
  At a time when French musicians were divided into conservative and progressive factions, Dukas adhered to neither but retained the admiration of both. His compositions were influenced by composers including Beethoven, Berlioz, Franck, d'Indy and Debussy.
  In tandem with his composing career, Dukas worked as a music critic, contributing regular reviews to at least five French journals. Later in his life he was appointed professor of composition at the Conservatoire de Paris and the École Normale de Musique; his pupils included Maurice Duruflé, Olivier Messiaen and Joaquín Rodrigo.
  
  wn.com/Paul_Dukas
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  Pietro Mascagni
  Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni (Italian pronunciation: [ˈpjɛːtro anˈtɔːnjo ˈsteːfano masˈkaɲɲi]; December 7, 1863 – August 2, 1945) was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music. Though it has been stated that Mascagni, like Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, this is inaccurate. L'amico Fritz and Iris have been popular in Europe since their respective premieres. In fact, Mascagni himself claimed that at one point Iris was performed in Italy more often than Cavalleria (cf. Stivender).
  Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, as well as songs and piano music. He enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, both as a composer and conductor of his own and other people's music. If he never repeated the international success of Cavalleria, it was probably because Mascagni refused to copy himself. The variety of styles in his operas — the Sicilian passion and warmth of Cavalleria, the exotic flavor of Iris, the idyllic breeze that ventilates the charming L'amico Fritz and Lodoletta, the Gallic chiaroscuro of Isabeau, the steely, Veristic power of Il piccolo Marat, the overripe postromanticism of the lush Parisina — demonstrate a versatility that surpasses even that of Puccini.
  
  wn.com/Pietro_Mascagni
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  Plácido Domingo
  Plácido Domingo (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈplaθiðo ðoˈmiŋɡo]; born 21 January 1941), born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. In March 2008, he debuted in his 128th opera role, and as of July 2011, his 136 roles give Domingo more roles than any other tenor.
  One of The Three Tenors, he has also taken on conducting opera and concert performances, and he is the General Director of the Los Angeles Opera in California.
  Plácido Domingo was born on January 21, 1941, in the distrito de Retiro section of Madrid, Spain, and in 1949 moved to Mexico with his family, who ran a zarzuela company. He studied piano at first privately and later at the National Conservatory of Music in Mexico City.
  In 1957, Domingo made his first professional appearance, performing with his mother in a concert at Mérida, Yucatán. He made his opera debut performing in Manuel Fernández Caballero's zarzuela, Gigantes y cabezudos, singing a baritone role. At that time, he was working with his parents' zarzuela company, taking baritone roles and as an accompanist for other singers. Among his first performances was a minor role in the first Mexican production of My Fair Lady where he was also the assistant conductor and assistant coach. The company gave 185 performances, which included a production of Lehár's The Merry Widow in which he performed alternately as either Camille or Danilo.
  
  wn.com/Plácido_Domingo
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  Renata Tebaldi
  Renata Tebaldi (Pesaro, Italy, 1 February 1922 – San Marino, 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved opera singers of all time, she primarily focused on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.
  Tebaldi was born Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi in Pesaro, the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and Giuseppina Barbieri, a gifted singer who had wanted a singing career but eventually became a nurse instead. Very soon, the parents split up and Renata, together with her mother, moved to the latter's home town, Langhirano in the Province of Parma.
  Stricken with polio at the age of three, Tebaldi was unable to take part in strenuous activities and instead became interested in music. She was a member of the church choir in Langhirano and her mother sent her to piano lessons with Signorina Passani in Parma at the age of thirteen; she worked with boundless diligence, practising four or five hours a day and dreaming of a career as a concert pianist. She also sang everything she heard. Her main source of inspiration was listening to the radio. It was not until her piano teacher took the initiative that Renata was sent to Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She began studying a short time later at the conservatory, taking lessons with Ettore Campogalliani for three years. Renata had to concentrate on scales and voice training for two years before she was allowed to learn the first songs towards the end of her second year of training.
  
  wn.com/Renata_Tebaldi
• 
  Richard Wagner
  Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( /ˈvɑːɡnər/; German pronunciation: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and polemicist primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as he later called them). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex texture, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his stage works. Perhaps the two best-known extracts from his works are the Ride of the Valkyries from the opera Die Walküre, and the Wedding March (Bridal Chorus) from the opera Lohengrin.
  Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works such as The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser which were broadly in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner transformed operatic thought through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"). This would achieve the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts and was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realized this concept most fully in the first half of the monumental four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. However, his thoughts on the relative importance of music and drama were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional operatic forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Wagner
• 
  Roberto Alagna
  Roberto Alagna (born 7 June 1963) is a French-Italian tenor. He was born in Clichy-sous-Bois, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.
  Alagna was born outside of the city of Paris in 1963 to a family of Sicilian (Italian) immigrants . As a teenager, the young Alagna began busking and singing pop in Parisian cabarets, mostly for tips. Influenced primarily by the films of Mario Lanza, but also from recordings of many historic tenors, he then switched to opera, but remained largely self-taught.
  After winning the Luciano Pavarotti Voice Competition, Alagna made his professional debut in 1988 as Alfredo Germont in La Traviata with the Glyndebourne touring company. This led to many engagements throughout the smaller cities in France and Italy, mainly again as Alfredo, a role he would eventually sing over 150 times. His reputation grew and he was soon invited to sing at major theaters such as La Scala in 1990, Covent Garden in 1992 and the Metropolitan Opera as Rodolfo in 1996. His performances of Roméo in Roméo et Juliette by Charles Gounod at Covent Garden in 1994 (opposite Leontina Vaduva) catapulted him to international stardom.
  
  wn.com/Roberto_Alagna
• Ruggero Galli
  Ruggero Galli was an Italian operatic bass who had an active career during the late 19th century and early 20 century. He created roles in several world premieres, including Menico in Antonio Smareglia's Nozze istriane (1895), Cesare Angelotti in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca (1900), and Pantalone De' Bisognosi in Pietro Mascagni's Le maschere (1901). In 1897 he portrayed Schaunard in La Scala's first staging of La bohème. He also appeared in the 1915 Italian film La reginetta delle rose.
  
  
  
  wn.com/Ruggero_Galli
• 
  Ruggero Raimondi
  Ruggero Raimondi (born 3 October 1941) is an Italian bass-baritone opera singer who has also appeared in motion pictures.
  Ruggero Raimondi was born in Bologna, Italy, during World War II. His voice matured early into its adult timbre, and at the age of 15, he auditioned for conductor Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, who encouraged him to pursue an operatic career. He began vocal studies with Ettore Campogalliani, and was accepted at age 16 as a student at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan. He then continued his studies in Rome, under the guidance of Teresa Pediconi and Armando Piervenanzi.
  After having won the National Competition for young opera singers in Spoleto, he made his debut in the same city in the role of Colline in La Bohème in the Festival dei Due Mondi. Subsequently an opportunity arose for him at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome when he was called upon to substitute in the role of Procida in Giuseppe Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani, and he received enormous success from the public and the critics. The young singer was very shy and stiff at first, but his early directors helped him, and he was soon an accomplished opera actor.
  
  wn.com/Ruggero_Raimondi
• 
  Sarah Bernhardt
  Sarah Bernhardt ("French pronunciation: [sa.ʁa bɛʁ.nɑʁt]"; c. 22/23 October 1844 — 26 March 1923) was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas. She developed a reputation as a serious dramatic actress, earning the nickname "The Divine Sarah".
  Bernhardt was born in Paris as Rosine Bernardt, the daughter of Julie Bernardt (1821, Amsterdam – 1876, Paris) and an unknown father. Julie was one of six children of a widely traveling Jewish spectacle merchant, "vision specialist" and petty criminal, Moritz Baruch Bernardt, and Sara Hirsch (later known as Janetta Hartog; c. 1797–1829). Julie's father remarried Sara Kinsbergen (1809–1878) two weeks after his first wife's death, and abandoned his family in 1835. Julie left for Paris, where she made a living as a courtesan and was known by the name "Youle". Sara would add the letter "H" to both her first and last names. Sarah's birth records were lost in a fire in 1871, but in order to prove French citizenship, necessary for Légion d'honneur eligibility, she created false birth records, on which she was the daughter of "Judith van Hard" and "Edouard Bernardt" from Le Havre, in later stories either a law student, accountant, naval cadet or naval officer.
  
  wn.com/Sarah_Bernhardt
• 
  Tito Gobbi
  Tito Gobbi (24 October 1913 – 5 March 1984) was an Italian operatic baritone with an international reputation.
  Tito Gobbi was born in Bassano del Grappa and studied law at the University of Padua before he trained as a singer. Giulio Crimi, a well-known Italian tenor of a previous generation, was Gobbi's teacher in Rome. He made his operatic debut in Gubbio in 1935 as Count Rudolfo in Bellini's La sonnambula. In 1942, he debuted at La Scala in Milan, in the role of Belcore in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. He also appeared at the Rome Opera and other significant Italian venues.
  Gobbi's international career blossomed after the Second World War, serving as a batman for Sergeant Major Frederick Davis of the Grenadiers. His career began with appearances in 1948 at the San Francisco opera. He performed for the first time at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1950 and sang with the Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1954 until 1974. The year 1974 also saw the last of Gobbi's numerous appearances at Covent Garden, where he had been much admired by the public and critics alike for his sensitive musicianship as well as for his acting talent and interpretive insights.
  
  wn.com/Tito_Gobbi
• 
  Victor de Sabata
  Victor de Sabata (April 10, 1892 – December 11, 1967) was an Italian conductor and composer. He is widely recognized as one of the most distinguished operatic conductors of the twentieth century, especially for his Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. He is also acclaimed for his interpretations of orchestral music. Like his near contemporary Wilhelm Furtwängler, de Sabata regarded composition as more important than conducting but achieved more lasting recognition for his conducting than his compositions. De Sabata has been praised by various authors and critics as a rival to Toscanini for the title of greatest Italian conductor of the twentieth century, and even as "perhaps the greatest conductor in the world".
  De Sabata was born in the city of Trieste, at the time part of Austria-Hungary, but now in Italy. His Roman Catholic father, Amedeo de Sabata, was a professional singing teacher and chorus master, and his mother, Rosita Tedeschi, a talented amateur musician, was Jewish. De Sabata began playing the piano at the age of four, and composed a gavotte for that instrument at the age of six. He composed his first work for orchestra at the age of twelve. His formal musical studies began after his family moved to Milan around 1900. In Milan, de Sabata studied at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory, excelling at piano, violin, theory, composition and conducting, and graduating cum laude in composition, piano and violin. He would remain a virtuoso pianist and violinist up until the end of his life. In 1911 he performed in an orchestra under the baton of Arturo Toscanini who influenced him to become a conductor. De Sabata's first opera, Il macigno, was produced at the opera house of La Scala on March 31, 1917 to a mixed reception. It was frequently performed during the next few years.
  
  wn.com/Victor_de_Sabata
• 
  Victorien Sardou
  Victorien Sardou (7 September 1831 – 8 November 1908) was a French dramatist. He is best remembered today for his development, along with Eugène Scribe, of the well-made play. He also wrote several plays that were made into popular 19th-century operas such as La Tosca (1887) on which Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca (1900) is based, and Fedora by Umberto Giordano, a work that popularized the fedora hat as well.
  Victorien was born in Paris on 7 September 1831. The Sardous were settled at Le Cannet, a village near Cannes, where they owned an estate, planted with olive trees. A night's frost killed all the trees and the family was ruined. Victorien's father, Antoine Léandre Sardou, came to Paris in search of employment. He was in succession a book-keeper at a commercial establishment, a professor of book-keeping, the head of a provincial school, then a private tutor and a schoolmaster in Paris, besides editing grammars, dictionaries and treatises on various subjects. With all these occupations, he hardly succeeded in making a livelihood, and when he retired to his native country, Victorien was left on his own resources. He had begun studying medicine, but had to desist for want of funds. He taught French to foreign pupils: he also gave lessons in Latin, history and mathematics to students, and wrote articles for cheap encyclopaedias.
  
  wn.com/Victorien_Sardou
• William Ashbrook
  William Ashbrook (28 January 1922 – 31 March 2009) was an American musicologist, writer, journalist, and academic. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his education including a BA in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 and a MA in musicology from Harvard University in 1947. Ashbrook began an academic career by teaching humanities and then, for nearly twenty years, was a member of the English Department at Indiana State University at Terre Haute, from which he retired in 1974 as Distinguished Professor Emeritus. From 1974 to 1984 he was professor of opera at the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts (now the University of the Arts).
  However, opera studies were his lifelong passions, especially the life and operas of 19th Century Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. One result was the "the town of Bergamo, inspired by the local Donizetti Foundation, did itself proud by proclaiming him an honorary citizen of Donizetti's birthplace." William Ashbrook died in Denver, Colorado at the age of 87.
  
  wn.com/William_Ashbrook
• 
  World War I
  World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.
  
  wn.com/World_War_I
• 
  Zubin Mehta
  Zubin Mehta (ज़ुबिन मेहता); pronounced [ˈzuːbɪn ˈmeːɦt̪aː] (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
  Zubin Mehta was born into a Parsi family in Bombay, British India, the son of Mehli and Tehmina Mehta. His father Mehli Mehta was a violinist and founding conductor of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. Mehta is an alumnus of St. Mary's School, Mumbai, and St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Mehta initially intended to study medicine, but eventually became a music student in Vienna at the age of 18, under Hans Swarowsky. Also at the same academy along with Mehta were conductor Claudio Abbado and conductor–pianist Daniel Barenboim.
  Mehta's first marriage was to Canadian soprano Carmen Lasky in 1958. They have a son, Mervon and a daughter, Zarina. In 1964, they divorced. Two years after the divorce, Carmen married Zubin's brother, Zarin Mehta, now the Executive Director of the New York Philharmonic. In July 1969, Mehta married Nancy Kovack, a former American film and television actress. Mehta is a permanent resident of the United States, but retains his Indian citizenship.
  
  wn.com/Zubin_Mehta

• Springer (Smith & Mudd Version)
• Birthday (Grant Phabao Version)
• My First (Nicola Conte Version)
• Elitsa (Kotey Extra Band Disco Version)
• Rosa (Rodney Hunter Version)
• Elektra Bregenz (Bottin's Disco Spritzer Mix)
• Joe Si Ha (Spirit Catcher Version)
• Joe Si Ha (Reverso 68 Version)
• Oysters In May (Kalabrese Version)
• Rosa (K&K; Streichquartett Version)

• My First
• Elitsa
• Springer
• Birthday
• Oysters in May
• Joe Si Ha
• Elektra Bregenz
• Fondue
• Rosa
• Raymondo
• Mrs. Bongo
• No Hassle

• John Lee Huber (feat. Theo Altenberg) (Burnt Friedman mix)
• Superrob (Frost & Wagner mix)
• Heidi Bruehl (Plantlife's Love Philosophy mix)
• Rondo Acapricio (DSL mix)
• The Big Sleep (Señor Coconut mix)
• Zueri (Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Nordic Flavour mix)
• Superrob (Henrik Schwarz mix)
• John Lee Huber (Rodney Hunter mix)
• Pyjama (Stereotyp mix #1)
• Heidi Bruehl (Makossa & Megablast mix)
• Pyjama (feat. Sandra Kurzweil) (Stereotyp Need No PJ's mix)
• Superrob (feat. Ras Donovan) (Haaksman & Haaksman mix)
• Naschkatze (AGF Katzengedanken)
• Souvenir
• Forte (Urbs mix)
• Damentag (Madrid de Los Austrias mix)

• Rondo Acapricio
• Heidi Bruehl
• Superrob
• John Lee Huber
• Pyjama
• The Big Sleep
• Damentag
• Naschkatze
• Züri
• Sala
• Forte
• No More Olives

• Oscar (feat. Anna Clementi)
• Me & Yoko Ono (feat. Anna Clementi)
• Gute Laune (feat. Tweed)
• Mango di Bango
• Wonderful (feat. Earl Zinger)
• Every Day & Every Night (feat. Sugar B.)
• Dave Dudley
• Rolf Royce (feat. Stephan Graf Hadik Wildner)
• Sperl
• La Vendeuse des Chaussures des Femmes, Part 1

• Piano (intro)
• Honey (Markus Kienzl dub)
• Honey (Masai dub)
• Honey (Funky Lowlives dub)
• Honey (Faze Action dub)
• Honey (Biggabush dub)
• Honey (Supatone 1 dub)
• Honey (Only Child dub)
• Honey (Organic Audio dub)
• Honey (Shelter Avenue dub)
• Honey (Kieser Velten dub)
• Honey (Azoia dub)
• Honey (Freedom Satellite dub)
• Honey (Supatone 2 dub)
• Piano End

• Suzuki (Burnt Friedman/Nonplace dub)
• Orozco (Dubphonic dub)
• Busenfreund (Walkner.Moestl dub)
• Annanas (Cosmic Rocker dub)
• Busenfreund (dZihan & Kamien dub)
• Annanas (Uko dub)
• Busenfreund (Philippe Lussan dub)
• Boss on the Boat (Deadbeats version)
• Busenfreund (Baby Mammoth version 3)
• Annanas (G-Corporation dub)
• Zula Dub

• Pearl In
• Suzuki
• Annanas
• Orozco
• Busenfreund
• Honey
• Boss on the Boat
• John Tomes
• Ocean Beat
• The Key
• Doris Dub
• Pearl Off

• Babylon to Vienna Voiceover (By Farda P.)
• Boozoo Bajou Soul Sufferer Version (By Boozoo Bajou)
• Baby Mammoth Version 3 (By Baby Mammoth)
• Rockers Hifi Vocal Version (By Rockers Hi-Fi)
• Uptight Version (By Rodney Hunter and Demon Flowers. Uptight Productions)
• Au Version (By Tosca)
• Bullitnuts Version 2 (By Bullitnuts)
• Baby Mammoth Version 1+2 (By Baby Mammoth)
• Quant Version (By Jonas Quant)
• Bullitnuts Version 1 (By Bullitnuts)
• Baby Mammoth Graceland Dub (By Baby Mammoth)

• Fuck Dub, Parts 1 & 2
• Amalienbad
• Worksong
• Gimmi Gimmi
• Ladies+Gentlemen
• Chocolate Elvis
• Ambient Emely
• Postgirl
• Listen My Friend
• Buona Sarah

• Fucked Up (intro)
• Fuck Dub (Shantel mix)
• Worksong (Uptight mix)
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 1)
• Fuck Dub (Haaksman mix)
• Fuck Dub (Fila Brazilia mix)
• Fuck Dub (Fauna Flash "The Night Before the Morning After" mix)
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 2)
• Fuck Dub (Fuck Electro Beanfield mix)
• Fucked Up Voices
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 3)
• Worksong (Rue D'Irlande mix)
• Fuck Dub (Gambusa mix)
• Fuck Dub (Pulsinger / Tunakan mix)
• Fuck Dub (Auinger mix)

• Nel respiro più grande
• La differenza
• Pane vino e lacrime
• Facendo i conti
• Chi è che bussa
• Mai dire mai
• Noi soli
• Sono tre mesi che non piove
• Guarda la vita che fa
• Di più
• Josephine

• Springer (Smith & Mudd Version)
• Birthday (Grant Phabao Version)
• My First (Nicola Conte Version)
• Elitsa (Kotey Extra Band Disco Version)
• Rosa (Rodney Hunter Version)
• Elektra Bregenz (Bottin's Disco Spritzer Mix)
• Joe Si Ha (Spirit Catcher Version)
• Joe Si Ha (Reverso 68 Version)
• Oysters In May (Kalabrese Version)
• Rosa (K&K; Streichquartett Version)

• My First
• Elitsa
• Springer
• Birthday
• Oysters in May
• Joe Si Ha
• Elektra Bregenz
• Fondue
• Rosa
• Raymondo
• Mrs. Bongo
• No Hassle

• John Lee Huber (feat. Theo Altenberg) (Burnt Friedman mix)
• Superrob (Frost & Wagner mix)
• Heidi Bruehl (Plantlife's Love Philosophy mix)
• Rondo Acapricio (DSL mix)
• The Big Sleep (Señor Coconut mix)
• Zueri (Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Nordic Flavour mix)
• Superrob (Henrik Schwarz mix)
• John Lee Huber (Rodney Hunter mix)
• Pyjama (Stereotyp mix #1)
• Heidi Bruehl (Makossa & Megablast mix)
• Pyjama (feat. Sandra Kurzweil) (Stereotyp Need No PJ's mix)
• Superrob (feat. Ras Donovan) (Haaksman & Haaksman mix)
• Naschkatze (AGF Katzengedanken)
• Souvenir
• Forte (Urbs mix)
• Damentag (Madrid de Los Austrias mix)

• Rondo Acapricio
• Heidi Bruehl
• Superrob
• John Lee Huber
• Pyjama
• The Big Sleep
• Damentag
• Naschkatze
• Züri
• Sala
• Forte
• No More Olives

• Oscar (feat. Anna Clementi)
• Me & Yoko Ono (feat. Anna Clementi)
• Gute Laune (feat. Tweed)
• Mango di Bango
• Wonderful (feat. Earl Zinger)
• Every Day & Every Night (feat. Sugar B.)
• Dave Dudley
• Rolf Royce (feat. Stephan Graf Hadik Wildner)
• Sperl
• La Vendeuse des Chaussures des Femmes, Part 1

• Piano (intro)
• Honey (Markus Kienzl dub)
• Honey (Masai dub)
• Honey (Funky Lowlives dub)
• Honey (Faze Action dub)
• Honey (Biggabush dub)
• Honey (Supatone 1 dub)
• Honey (Only Child dub)
• Honey (Organic Audio dub)
• Honey (Shelter Avenue dub)
• Honey (Kieser Velten dub)
• Honey (Azoia dub)
• Honey (Freedom Satellite dub)
• Honey (Supatone 2 dub)
• Piano End

• Suzuki (Burnt Friedman/Nonplace dub)
• Orozco (Dubphonic dub)
• Busenfreund (Walkner.Moestl dub)
• Annanas (Cosmic Rocker dub)
• Busenfreund (dZihan & Kamien dub)
• Annanas (Uko dub)
• Busenfreund (Philippe Lussan dub)
• Boss on the Boat (Deadbeats version)
• Busenfreund (Baby Mammoth version 3)
• Annanas (G-Corporation dub)
• Zula Dub

• Pearl In
• Suzuki
• Annanas
• Orozco
• Busenfreund
• Honey
• Boss on the Boat
• John Tomes
• Ocean Beat
• The Key
• Doris Dub
• Pearl Off

• Babylon to Vienna Voiceover (By Farda P.)
• Boozoo Bajou Soul Sufferer Version (By Boozoo Bajou)
• Baby Mammoth Version 3 (By Baby Mammoth)
• Rockers Hifi Vocal Version (By Rockers Hi-Fi)
• Uptight Version (By Rodney Hunter and Demon Flowers. Uptight Productions)
• Au Version (By Tosca)
• Bullitnuts Version 2 (By Bullitnuts)
• Baby Mammoth Version 1+2 (By Baby Mammoth)
• Quant Version (By Jonas Quant)
• Bullitnuts Version 1 (By Bullitnuts)
• Baby Mammoth Graceland Dub (By Baby Mammoth)

• Fuck Dub, Parts 1 & 2
• Amalienbad
• Worksong
• Gimmi Gimmi
• Ladies+Gentlemen
• Chocolate Elvis
• Ambient Emely
• Postgirl
• Listen My Friend
• Buona Sarah

• Fucked Up (intro)
• Fuck Dub (Shantel mix)
• Worksong (Uptight mix)
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 1)
• Fuck Dub (Haaksman mix)
• Fuck Dub (Fila Brazilia mix)
• Fuck Dub (Fauna Flash "The Night Before the Morning After" mix)
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 2)
• Fuck Dub (Fuck Electro Beanfield mix)
• Fucked Up Voices
• Fuck Dub (Baby Mammoth mix 3)
• Worksong (Rue D'Irlande mix)
• Fuck Dub (Gambusa mix)
• Fuck Dub (Pulsinger / Tunakan mix)
• Fuck Dub (Auinger mix)

• Nel respiro più grande
• La differenza
• Pane vino e lacrime
• Facendo i conti
• Chi è che bussa
• Mai dire mai
• Noi soli
• Sono tre mesi che non piove
• Guarda la vita che fa
• Di più
• Josephine

• timeline:
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• 2001

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001