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Category:Operas by Antonio Vivaldi Category:1730 operas Category:Italian-language operas
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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (March 4, 1678 – July 28, 1741), nicknamed ("The Red Priest"), was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe. Vivaldi is known mainly for composing instrumental concertos, especially for the violin, as well as sacred choral works and over 40 operas. His best known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.
Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage for poor and illegitimate children where Vivaldi worked between 1703 and 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna hoping for preferment. The Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and the composer died a pauper, without a steady source of income.
Though Vivaldi's music was well received during his lifetime, it later declined in popularity until its vigorous revival in the first half of the 20th century. Today, Vivaldi ranks among the most popular and widely recorded Baroque composers.
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was born in Venice, the capital of the Republic of Venice in 1678. He was baptized immediately after his birth at his home by the midwife, which led to the belief that his life was somehow in danger. Though not known for certain, the immediate baptism was most likely due either to his poor health or to an earthquake that shook the city that day. In the trauma of the earthquake, Vivaldi's mother may have dedicated him to the priesthood. Vivaldi's official church baptism (the rites that remained other than the baptism itself) did not take place until two months later.
Vivaldi's parents were Giovanni Battista Vivaldi and Camilla Calicchio, as recorded in the register of San Giovanni in Bragora. Vivaldi had five siblings: Margarita Gabriela, Cecilia Maria, Bonaventura Tomaso, Zanetta Anna, and Francesco Gaetano. Giovanni Battista, a barber before becoming a professional violinist, taught Antonio to play the violin, and then toured Venice playing the violin with his young son. He probably taught him at an early age, judging by Vivaldi's extensive musical knowledge at the age of 24 when he started working at the Ospedale della Pietà. Giovanni Battista was one of the founders of the Sovvegno dei musicisti di Santa Cecilia, an association of musicians. The president of the Sovvegno was Giovanni Legrenzi, a composer of the early Baroque and maestro di cappella at St. Mark's Basilica. It is possible that Legrenzi gave the young Antonio his first lessons in composition. The Luxembourg scholar Walter Kolneder has discerned in the early liturgical work Laetatus sum (RV Anh 31, written in 1691 at the age of 13) the influence of Legrenzi's style. Vivaldi's father may have been a composer himself: in 1689, an opera titled La Fedeltà sfortunata was composed by a Giovanni Battista Rossi, and this was the name under which Vivaldi's father had joined the Sovvegno di Santa Cecilia: "Rosso" is Italian for "Red", and would have referred to the colour of his hair, a family trait.
Vivaldi's health was problematic. His symptoms, strettezza di petto ("tightness of the chest"), have been interpreted as a form of asthma. He was ordained in 1703, aged 25. He was soon nicknamed il Prete Rosso, "The Red Priest", because of his red hair. Not long after his ordination, in 1704, he was given a reprieve from celebrating the Holy Mass because of his ill health. Vivaldi only said mass as a priest a few times. He appears to have withdrawn from priestly duties, but he remained a priest.
Shortly after Vivaldi's appointment, the orphans began to gain appreciation and esteem abroad, too. Vivaldi wrote concertos, cantatas and sacred vocal music for them. These sacred works, which number over 60, are varied: they included solo motets and large-scale choral works for soloists, double chorus, and orchestra. In 1704, the position of teacher of viola all'inglese was added to his duties as violin instructor. The position of maestro di coro, which was at one time filled by Vivaldi, required a lot of time and work. He had to compose an oratorio or concerto at every feast and teach the orphans both music theory and how to play certain instruments.
His relationship with the board of directors of the Ospedale was often strained. The board had to take a vote every year on whether to keep a teacher. The vote on Vivaldi was seldom unanimous, and went 7 to 6 against him in 1709. After a year as a freelance musician, he was recalled by the Ospedale with a unanimous vote in 1711; clearly during his year's absence the board realized the importance of his role. when he was promoted to maestro di' concerti (music director) in 1716.
In 1705, the first collection (Connor Cassara) of his works was published by Giuseppe Sala: his Opus 1 is a collection of 12 sonatas for two violins and basso continuo, in a conventional style. A real breakthrough as a composer came with his first collection of 12 concerti for one, two, and four violins with strings, L'estro armonico Opus 3, which was published in Amsterdam in 1711 by Estienne Roger, dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinand of Tuscany. The prince sponsored many musicians including Alessandro Scarlatti and Handel. He was a musician himself, and Vivaldi probably met him in Venice. L'estro armonico was a resounding success all over Europe. It was followed in 1714 by La stravaganza Opus 4, a collection of concerti for solo violin and strings, dedicated to an old violin student of Vivaldi's, the Venetian noble Vettor Dolfin.
In February 1711, Vivaldi and his father traveled to Brescia, where his setting of the Stabat Mater (RV 621) was played as part of a religious festival. The work seems to have been written in haste: the string parts are simple, the music of the first three movements is repeated in the next three, and not all the text is set. Nevertheless, perhaps in part because of the forced essentiality of the music, the work is one of his early masterpieces.
Despite his frequent travels from 1718, the Pietà paid him 2 sequins to write two concerti a month for the orchestra and to rehearse with them at least five times when in Venice.]]
In early 18th century Venice, opera was the most popular musical entertainment. It proved most profitable for Vivaldi. There were several theaters competing for the public's attention. Vivaldi started his career as an opera composer as a sideline: his first opera, Ottone in villa (RV 729) was performed not in Venice, but at the Garzerie Theater in Vicenza in 1713. The following year, Vivaldi became the impresario of the Teatro Sant'Angelo in Venice, where his opera Orlando finto pazzo (RV 727) was performed. The work was not to the public's taste, and it closed after a couple of weeks, being replaced with a repeat of a different work already given the previous year. In 1715, he presented Nerone fatto Cesare (RV 724, now lost), with music by seven different composers, of which he was the leader. The opera contained eleven arias, and was a success. In the late season, Vivaldi planned to put on an opera composed entirely by him, Arsilda regina di Ponto (RV 700), but the state censor blocked the performance. The main character, Arsilda, falls in love with another woman, Lisea, who is pretending to be a man.
Also in 1716, Vivaldi wrote and produced two more operas, L'incoronazione di Dario (RV 719) and La costanza trionfante degli amori e degli odi (RV 706). The latter was so popular that it performed two years later, re-edited and retitled Artabano re dei Parti (RV 701, now lost). It was also performed in Prague in 1732. In the following years, Vivaldi wrote several operas that were performed all over Italy.
His progressive operatic style caused him some trouble with more conservative musicians, like Benedetto Marcello, a magistrate and amateur musician who wrote a pamphlet denouncing him and his operas. The pamphlet, Il teatro alla moda, attacks Vivaldi without mentioning him directly. The cover drawing shows a boat (the Sant'Angelo), on the left end of which stands a little angel wearing a priest's hat and playing the violin. The Marcello family claimed ownership of the Teatro Sant'Angelo, and a long legal battle had been fought with the management for its restitution, without success. The obscure writing under the picture mentions non-existent places and names: ALDIVIVA is an anagram of A. Vivaldi.
In a letter written by Vivaldi to his patron Marchese Bentivoglio, he makes reference to his "94 operas". Only around 50 operas by Vivaldi have been discovered, and no other documentation of the remaining operas exists. Vivaldi may have exaggerated, but it is possible that he did write 94 operas. While Vivaldi certainly composed many operas in his time, he never reached the prominence of other great composers like Alessandro Scarlatti, Leonardo Leo, and Baldassare Galuppi, as evidenced by his inability to keep a production running for any period of time in any major opera house. His most successful operas were La constanza trionfante and Farnace which garnered six revivals each. He moved there for three years and produced several operas, among which was Tito Manlio (RV 738). In 1721, he was in Milan, where he presented the pastoral drama La Silvia (RV 734, 9 arias survive). He visited Milan again the following year with the oratorio L'adorazione delli tre re magi al bambino Gesù (RV 645, also lost). In 1722 he moved to Rome, where he introduced his operas' new style. The new pope Benedict XIII invited Vivaldi to play for him. In 1725, Vivaldi returned to Venice, where he produced four operas in the same year.
During this period Vivaldi wrote the Four Seasons, four violin concertos depicting scenes appropriate for each season. Three of the concerti are of original conception, while the first, "Spring", borrows motifs from a Sinfonia in the first act of his contemporaneous opera "Il Giustino". The inspiration for the concertos was probably the countryside around Mantua. They were a revolution in musical conception: in them Vivaldi represented flowing creeks, singing birds (of different species, each specifically characterized), barking dogs, buzzing mosquitoes, crying shepherds, storms, drunken dancers, silent nights, hunting parties from both the hunters' and the prey's point of view, frozen landscapes, ice-skating children, and warming winter fires. Each concerto is associated with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi, describing the scenes depicted in the music. They were published as the first four concertos in a collection of twelve, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Opus 8, published in Amsterdam by Le Cène in 1725.
During his time in Mantua, Vivaldi became acquainted with an aspiring young singer Anna Tessieri Giro who was to become his student, protégée, and favorite prima donna. Anna, along with her older half-sister Paolina, became part of Vivaldi's entourage and regularly accompanied him on his many travels. There was speculation about the nature of Vivaldi's and Giro's relationship, but no evidence to indicate anything beyond friendship and professional collaboration. Although Vivaldi's relationship with Anna Giro was questioned, he adamantly denied any romantic relationship in a letter to his patron Bentivoglio dated November 16, 1737.
Accompanied by his father, Vivaldi traveled to Vienna and Prague in 1730, where his opera Farnace (RV 711) was presented. Some of his later operas were created in collaboration with two of Italy's major writers of the time. L'Olimpiade and Catone in Utica were written by Pietro Metastasio, the major representative of the Arcadian movement and court poet in Vienna. La Griselda was rewritten by the young Carlo Goldoni from an earlier libretto by Apostolo Zeno.
Like many composers of the time, the final years of Vivaldi's life found him in financial difficulties. His compositions were no longer held in such high esteem as they once were in Venice; changing musical tastes quickly made them outmoded. In response, Vivaldi chose to sell off sizeable numbers of his manuscripts at paltry prices to finance his migration to Vienna. The reasons for Vivaldi's departure from Venice are unclear, but it seems likely that, after the success of his meeting with Emperor Charles VI, he wished to take up the position of a composer in the imperial court. On his way to Vienna, Vivaldi may have stopped in Graz to see Anna Giro. It is also likely that Vivaldi went to Vienna to stage operas, especially since he took up residence near the Kärntnertortheater. Shortly after Vivaldi's arrival in Vienna, Charles VI died, a stroke of bad luck that left the composer without royal protection or a steady source of income. Vivaldi died a pauper not long after the emperor, on the night between July 27 and 28, 1741 at the age of 63, of "internal infection", in a house owned by the widow of a Viennese saddlemaker. On July 28 he was buried in a simple grave at the Hospital Burial Ground in Vienna. Vivaldi's funeral took place at St. Stephen's Cathedral, where the young Joseph Haydn was then a choir boy. The cost of his funeral included a Kleingeläut (pauper's peal of bells). He was buried next to Karlskirche, in an area now part of the site of the Technical Institute. The house Vivaldi lived in while in Vienna was torn down; the Hotel Sacher is built on part of the site. Memorial plaques have been placed at both locations as well as a Vivaldi "star" in the Viennese Musikmeile and a monument at the Rooseveltplatz.
Only three portraits of Vivaldi are known to survive: an engraving, an ink sketch and an oil painting. The engraving, by Francois Morellon La Cave, was made in 1725 and shows Vivaldi holding a sheet of music. The ink sketch was done by Ghezzi in 1723 and shows only Vivaldi's head and shoulders in profile. The oil painting found in the Liceo Musicale of Bologna gives us possibly the most accurate picture and shows Vivaldi's red hair under his blond wig.
Johann Sebastian Bach was deeply influenced by Vivaldi's concertos and arias (recalled in his St John Passion, St Matthew Passion, and cantatas). Bach transcribed six of Vivaldi's concerti for solo keyboard, three for organ, and one for four harpsichords, strings, and basso continuo (BWV 1065) based upon the concerto for four violins, two violas, cello, and basso continuo (RV 580).
In the early 20th century, Fritz Kreisler's Vivaldi-styled concerto (which he passed off as an original Vivaldi work) helped revive Vivaldi's reputation. This impelled the French scholar Marc Pincherle to begin an academic study of Vivaldi's oeuvre. Many Vivaldi manuscripts were rediscovered, and were acquired by the National University of Turin Library with generous sponsorship of Turinese businessmen Roberto Foa and Filippo Giordano, in memory of their sons. This led to renewed interest in Vivaldi by, among others, Mario Rinaldi, Alfredo Casella, Ezra Pound, Olga Rudge, Desmond Chute, Arturo Toscanini, Arnold Schering, and Louis Kaufman. These figures were instrumental in the Vivaldi revival of the 20th century.
In 1926, in a monastery in Piedmont, researchers discovered 14 folios of Vivaldi's work, previously thought lost during the Napoleonic wars. Some volumes in the numbered set were missing; these turned up in the collections of the descendants of the Grand Duke Durazzo who had acquired the monastery complex in the 18th century. The volumes contained 300 concertos, 19 operas and over 100 vocal-instrumental works.
The resurrection of Vivaldi's unpublished works in the 20th century is mostly due to the efforts of Alfredo Casella, who in 1939 organised the historic Vivaldi Week, in which the rediscovered Gloria (RV 589) and l'Olimpiade were first revived. Since World War II, Vivaldi's compositions have enjoyed wide success. In 1947, the Venetian businessman Antonio Fanna founded the Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, with the composer Gian Francesco Malipiero as its artistic director, having the purpose of promoting Vivaldi's music and publishing new editions of his works. Historically informed performances seem to have increased Vivaldi's fame further. Unlike many of his contemporaries, whose music is rarely heard outside an academic or special-interest context, Vivaldi is popular among modern audiences.
Recent rediscoveries of works by Vivaldi include two psalm settings of Nisi Dominus (RV 803, in eight movements) and Dixit Dominus (RV 807, in eleven movements), identified in 2003 and 2005, respectively, by the Australian scholar Janice Stockigt. Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot called RV 803 "arguably the best nonoperatic work from Vivaldi's pen to come to light since... the 1920s". Vivaldi's lost 1730 opera Argippo (RV 697) was re-discovered in 2006 by harpsichordist and conductor Ondřej Macek, whose Hofmusici orchestra performed the work at Prague Castle on May 3, 2008, its first performance since 1730.
A movie titled Vivaldi, a Prince in Venice was completed in 2005 as an Italian-French co-production under the direction of Jean-Louis Guillermou, featuring Stefano Dionisi in the title role and Michel Serrault as the bishop of Venice. Another film inspired by the life of the composer was in a preproduction state for several years and has the working title Vivaldi. Filming was scheduled to begin in 2007, but was canceled and tentatively rescheduled for 2009.
The music of Vivaldi, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and Corelli, has been included in the theories of Alfred Tomatis on the effects of music on human behaviour and used in music therapy.
A Vivaldi work is identified by RV number, which refers to its place in the "Ryom-Verzeichnis" or "Répertoire des oeuvres d'Antonio Vivaldi", a catalog created in the 20th century by musicologist Peter Ryom.
Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) of 1723 is his most famous work. It is part of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest between Harmony and Invention"). It depicts moods and scenes from each of the four seasons. This work has been described as an outstanding instance of pre-19th Century program music.
Vivaldi wrote more than 500 other concertos. About 350 of these are for solo instrument and strings, of which 230 are for violin, the others being for bassoon, cello, oboe, flute, viola d'amore, recorder, lute, or mandolin. About 40 are for two instruments and strings, and about 30 are for three or more instruments and strings.
As well as about 46 operas, Vivaldi composed a large body of sacred choral music. Other works include sinfonias, about 90 sonatas, and chamber music.
Some sonatas for flute, published as Il Pastor Fido, have been erroneously attributed to Vivaldi, but were composed by Nicolas Chédeville.
Category:1678 births Category:1741 deaths Category:Baroque composers Category:Composers for cello Category:Composers for violin Category:Italian composers Category:Italian classical violinists Category:Italian Roman Catholic priests Category:Opera composers Category:People from Venice (city)
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Name | Philippe Jaroussky |
---|---|
Background | solo_singer |
Born | February 13, 1978Maisons-Laffitte, France |
Instrument | Counter-Tenor, Violin |
Genre | Classical |
Occupation | Musician |
Years active | fl. ca. 1996-present |
Philippe Jaroussky (born 13 February 1978 in Maisons-Laffitte, France) is a French sopranist countertenor. He began his musical career with the violin, winning an award at the Versailles conservatory and then took up the piano before turning to singing. He is noted for a virtuosic coloratura technique and for compelling and enlivened interpretations of baroque cantatas and operas.
Jaroussky was inspired to sing by the Martinique-born countertenor Fabrice di Falco. He received his diploma from the Early Music Faculty of the Conservatoire de Paris. Since 1996, he has studied singing with Nicole Fallien. He has formed his own ensemble called Artaserse, and also often performs with the Ensemble Matheus under Jean-Christophe Spinosi and with L'Arpeggiata under Christina Pluhar.
== References ==
Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:French male singers Category:Operatic countertenors
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Name | Saint Marina |
---|---|
Birth date | 119 AD |
Death date | 139 AD |
Feast day | July 18 |
Caption | Santa Marina, by Francisco de Zurbarán. |
Disobeying her mistress, Sila, secretly a Christian, left Calsia's daughters in the care of several families. Marina and her sisters were baptized by the bishop Saint Ovidius (Ovid, Ovidio) and brought up in the Christian faith. When they were twenty, they were accused of being Christians and brought before their father the governor. He recognized them as his own daughters, and asked them to renounce their faith, promising them luxuries.
The sisters refused and were imprisoned. They managed to escape and were ultimately martyred for their faith. A spring of water gushed out of the spot where they were beheaded; the spot was called Aguas Santas ("Holy Waters").
The saint is no longer included in the Roman Martyrology, but previous versions —Baronius introduced her in the second edition—describe her as: Gallaeciae in Hispania sanctue Marinae virginis et martyris.
The spread of her cult is attested by the fact that many churches were dedicated to her not only in Galicia and Astorga, but also at Córdoba and Seville.
Popular devotion traditionally places the date of death for Marina and Liberata (one of her sisters) on January 18, 139. The feast of Marina is celebrated on July 18. Liberata's feast day is celebrated on July 20, which is the date for the translation of her relics from the city of Sigüenza to Baiona in 1515. Liberata (in Spanish Librada) is the patron saint of Sigüenza, after bishop Bernard of Toledo brought her relic from his native Aquitaine. The chapel dedicated to her in the transept of the city's cathedral, with a splendid reredos and the relics of the saint, was constructed at the expense of Bishop Fadrique de Portugal.
Category:119 births Category:139 deaths Category:Spanish saints Category:Spanish Roman Catholic saints
Category:2nd-century Christian female saints Category:2nd-century Christian martyr saints
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.