Alberto Erede

Alberto Erede (8 November 1909 – 12 April 2001) was an Italian conductor, particularly associated with operatic work.

Born in Genoa, Erede studied there before studying in Milan, then with Felix Weingartner at Basle, and after this with Fritz Busch at Dresden. He made his debut in Turin in 1935, conducting Der Ring des Nibelungen. He also conducted at the Salzburg Festival. Fritz Busch invited him to Glyndebourne in England, where he conducted several performances before the war. He went back to England after the war, in 1946, to become music director of the New London Opera Company. From 1950 to 1955 he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York. From 1956 he was at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and was the musical director there from 1958 to 1962. He conducted Wagner's Lohengrin at Bayreuth in 1968, being the first Italian to appear there since Arturo Toscanini. In 1985 he made guest appearances in Sydney with the Australian Opera; a video recording of Puccini's Tosca, with Erede conducting, was made at the Sydney Opera House during that year.

The Barber of Seville

The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution (Italian: Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione [il barˈbjɛːre di siˈviʎʎa osˈsiːa l iˈnuːtile prekautˈtsjoːne]) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione) took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome.

Rossini's Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". Even after two hundred years, it remains a popular production.

Composition history

Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro. Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro, composed 30 years earlier in 1786, is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy. The first Beaumarchais play was originally conceived as an opéra comique, but was rejected as such by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was premiered in 1775 by the Comédie-Française at the Théâtre des Tuileries in Paris.

Orchestra

An orchestra (/ˈɔːrkᵻstrə/ or US /ˈɔːrˌkɛstrə/; Italian: [orˈkɛstra]) is a large instrumental ensemble used in classical music that contains sections of string (violin, viola, cello and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes be grouped into a fifth section such as a keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for 20th and 21st century compositions, electric and electronic instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ὀρχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus. The orchestra grew by accretion throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but changed very little in composition during the course of the 20th century.

Renata Tebaldi

Renata Tebaldi (pronounced [reˈnaːta teˈbaldi]; 1 February 1922 – 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period. Among the most beloved opera singers, she has been said to have possessed one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century which was focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires.

Early years and education

Tebaldi was born Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi in Pesaro on 1 February 1922. She was the daughter of a cellist, Teobaldo Tebaldi, and Giuseppina Barbieri, a nurse. Her parents separated before her birth and Tebaldi grew up with her mother in the home of her maternal grandparents in Langhirano.

Stricken with polio at the age of three, Tebaldi became interested in music and was a member of the church choir in Langhirano. At the age of thirteen her mother sent her for piano lessons with Giuseppina Passani in Parma, who took the initiative that Tebaldi study voice with Italo Brancucci, a singing teacher at the conservatory of Parma. She was admitted to the conservatory at the age of 17, taking lessons with Brancucci and Ettore Campogalliani, and later transferred to Liceo musicale Rossini in Pesaro taking lessons with Carmen Melis, and on her suggestion with Giuseppe Pais. She later studied with Beverley Peck Johnson in New York City.

London Symphony

London Symphony may refer to: