1492 Up to Date or Very Near It (sometimes titled 1492 [1] ) is a burlesque extravaganza created in 1892 in observance of the quadricentennial of Columbus's expedition to the New World. The libretto is by R. A. Barnet. [2] with music by Carl Pflueger. [3] Its Broadway production was presented by Edward E. Rice's "Surprise Party" in 1893. The plot centers on Columbus, but in burlesque style, it has little to do with his historical story. [4]
The show has been described as "a musical, historical, mellow drama [ sic ] that threw together bits of opera comique, comic opera, stereopticon projections, extravaganza, farce-comedy, vaudeville, local comedy, burlesque, and even minstrelsy." [5]
It was originally written for and presented by the Boston Independent Corps of Cadets in February 1892. [4] The show opened in New York City on May 15, 1893, at Palmer's Theatre, to a sold-out and overflowing audience, produced by Rice's Surprise Party. The New York Times called the show "wild nonsense" that provoked "wholesome laughter" with "manifest intelligence and abundant humor" and noted that, by the end, the audience was calling for half a dozen encores of each song. [6] It ran over two seasons, and in two different houses, for 452 performances. After this, it was performed in revival and toured for several years, with alterations and additional characters. During an 1895 revival, Queen Isabella was portrayed by Marie Dressler. [7]
King Ferdinand's treasurer complains that the kingdom is short of funds. The king has been out having too much fun all night. Queen Isabella and Columbus arrive, and both go mad. Soon Columbus is in front of the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York amidst a crowd of colorful New York types, such as newsboys, chorus girls, vagabonds and vendors. Columbus and his entourage of Old World Spaniards are amazed at the behavior of the New Yorkers. When Columbus returns to Spain, the royal family is living in poverty, doing their own washing. The royal family is amazed and amused by the explorers' stories of the New World. All ends happily.
Many of the original performance materials are housed in the library of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Year 1492 (MCDXCII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.
The Catholic Monarchs were Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, whose marriage and joint rule marked the de facto unification of Spain. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; to remove the obstacle that this consanguinity would otherwise have posed to their marriage under canon law, they were given a papal dispensation by Sixtus IV. They married on October 19, 1469, in the city of Valladolid; Isabella was 18 years old and Ferdinand a year younger. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the unification of Spain can essentially be traced back to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella. Their reign was called by W.H. Prescott "the most glorious epoch in the annals of Spain".
Diego Columbus was a navigator and explorer under the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He served as the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indies and 4th Governor of the Indies as a vassal to the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He was the eldest son of Christopher Columbus and his wife Filipa Moniz Perestrelo.
John, Prince of Asturias and Girona, was the only son of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, and heir apparent to both their thrones for nearly his entire life.
Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca (1451–1524) was a Spanish archbishop, a courtier and bureaucrat, whose position as royal chaplain to Queen Isabella enabled him to become a powerful counsellor to Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Monarchs. He controlled the Casa de Contratación, an agency which managed expeditions to the New World on behalf of the Spanish crown. He later served as the president of the Council of the Indies, when it was founded in 1521. He managed the administration of a number of significant Spanish expeditions including voyages by Christopher Columbus and Magellan's circumnavigation of the earth.
The Crown of Castile was a medieval polity in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and, some decades later, the parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then Castilian king, Ferdinand III, to the vacant Leonese throne. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta decrees by Philip V in 1716.
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery is a 1992 historical adventure film directed by John Glen. It was the last project developed by the father and son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind. The film follows events after the fall of the Emirate of Granada, and leads up to the voyage of Columbus to the New World in 1492.
Little Christopher Columbus is a burlesque opera in two acts, with music by Ivan Caryll and Gustave Kerker and a libretto by George R. Sims and Cecil Raleigh. It opened on 10 October 1893 at the Lyric Theatre in London and then transferred to Terry's Theatre, running for a total of 421 performances, which was a very successful run at the time. May Yohé created the title role, and Furneaux Cook and E. J. Lonnen were in the cast. Mabel Love, Geraldine Ulmar and Florence St. John joined the cast as replacements.
Between 1492 and 1504, the Italian navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus led four transatlantic maritime expeditions in the name of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to the Caribbean and to Central and South America. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World. This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and trans-Atlantic trade. These events, the effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.
Ruy Blas and the Blasé Roué is a burlesque written by A. C. Torr and Herbert F. Clark with music by Meyer Lutz. It is based on the Victor Hugo drama Ruy Blas. The piece was produced by George Edwardes. As with many of the Gaiety burlesques, the title is a pun.
Luis de Santángel was a third-generation converso in Spain during the late fifteenth century. Santángel worked as escribano de ración to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain which left him in charge of the Royal finance. Santángel played an instrumental role in Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492, for he managed to convince the Catholic monarchs to fund Columbus's expedition and provided a large sum of the money himself.
Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando or simply Tanto monta, monta tanto was the alleged motto of a prenuptial agreement made by the Spanish Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon. During their joint reign they did in fact support each other effectively in accordance with their motto of equality. Still, the wording "Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando" is actually a popular saying invented many centuries later, not the real motto. Besides, and contrary to popular belief, Tanto monta was only the motto of King Ferdinand of Aragon, and never used by Isabella.
A letter written by Christopher Columbus on February 15, 1493, is the first known document announcing the results of his first voyage that set out in 1492 and reached the Americas. The letter was ostensibly written by Columbus himself, aboard the caravel Niña, on the return leg of his voyage. A postscript was added upon his arrival in Lisbon on March 4, 1493, and it was probably from there that Columbus dispatched two copies of his letter to the Spanish court.
The Columbus Monument is a 60 m (197 ft) tall monument to Christopher Columbus at the lower end of La Rambla, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was constructed for the Exposición Universal de Barcelona (1888) in honor of Columbus' first voyage to the Americas. The monument serves as a reminder that Christopher Columbus reported to Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand V in Barcelona after his first trip to the new continent.
Ferdinand II was King of Aragon from 1479 until his death in 1516. As the husband of and co-ruler with Queen Isabella I of Castile, he was also King of Castile from 1475 to 1504. He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand is considered the de facto first king of Spain, and was described as such during his reign, even though, legally, Castile and Aragon remained two separate kingdoms until they were formally united by the Nueva Planta decrees issued between 1707 and 1716.
Isabella I, also called Isabella the Catholic, was Queen of Castile and León from 1474 until her death in 1504. She was also Queen of Aragon from 1479 until her death as the wife of King Ferdinand II. Reigning together over a dynastically unified Spain, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs.
Robert Ayres Barnet was an American musical theatre lyricist from New York City, active in New York and Boston in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is most remembered for his collaborations with the Boston Men's Army Cadets.
Christopher Columbus's journal (Diario) is a diary and logbook written by Christopher Columbus about his first voyage. The journal covers events from 3 August 1492, when Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera, to 15 March 1493 and includes a prologue addressing the sovereigns. Several contemporary references confirm Columbus kept a journal of his voyage as a daily record of events and as evidence for the Catholic Monarchs. Upon his return to Spain in the spring of 1493, Columbus presented the journal to Isabella I of Castile. She had it copied, retained the original, and gave the copy to Columbus before his second voyage. The whereabouts of the original Spanish text have been unknown since 1504.
The Columbus Murals are a series of twelve murals depicting Christopher Columbus, painted in the 1880s by Luigi Gregori and displayed in the Main Building at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, US. The murals have been a source of controversy in recent decades for their romanticized portrayal of Columbus and his relationship with Native Americans.
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