| Falstaff | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Michael William Balfe | |
 | |
| Librettist | Manfredo Maggioni |
| Premiere | |
Falstaff is an Italian-language opera by Michael William Balfe, written to a libretto by Manfredo Maggioni, given at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, 19 July 1838. [1]
| Falstaff | |
|---|---|
| Opera by Michael William Balfe | |
| | |
| Librettist | Manfredo Maggioni |
| Premiere | |
Falstaff is an Italian-language opera by Michael William Balfe, written to a libretto by Manfredo Maggioni, given at Her Majesty's Theatre, London, 19 July 1838. [1]
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king.
Falstaff is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from the play The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan.
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek βαρύτονος (barýtonos), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, Kavalierbariton, Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, baryton-noble baritone, and the bass-baritone.
Michael William Balfe was an Irish composer, best remembered for his operas, especially The Bohemian Girl.
The Merry Wives of Windsor or Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor is a comedy by William Shakespeare first published in 1602, though believed to have been written in or before 1597. The Windsor of the play's title is a reference to the town of Windsor, also the location of Windsor Castle, in Berkshire, England. Though nominally set in the reign of Henry IV or early in the reign of Henry V, the play makes no pretence to exist outside contemporary Elizabethan-era English middle-class life. It features the character Sir John Falstaff, the fat knight who had previously been featured in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. It has been adapted for the opera at least ten times. The play is one of Shakespeare's lesser-regarded works among literary critics. Tradition has it that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth I. After watching Henry IV Part I, she asked Shakespeare to write a play showing Falstaff in love.
Luis Ernesto Alva y Talledo, better known as Luigi Alva is a Peruvian operatic tenor. A Mozart and Rossini specialist, Alva achieved fame with roles such as Don Ottavio, Count Almaviva and Fenton. He retired from the stage in 1989.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Salomon Hermann Mosenthal based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare.
Juan Diego Flórez is a Peruvian operatic tenor, particularly known for his roles in bel canto operas. On June 4, 2007, he received his country's highest decoration, the Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Sun of Peru.
Giovanni Battista Rubini was an Italian tenor, as famous in his time as Enrico Caruso in a later day. His ringing and expressive coloratura dexterity in the highest register of his voice, the tenorino, inspired the writing of operatic roles which today are almost impossible to cast. As a singer Rubini was the major early exponent of the Romantic style of the bel canto era of Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti.
Tenore di grazia, also called leggero tenor, is a lightweight, flexible tenor voice type. The tenor roles written in the early 19th-century Italian operas are invariably leggero tenor roles, especially those by Rossini such as Lindoro in L'italiana in Algeri, Don Ramiro in La Cenerentola, and Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia; and those by Bellini such as Gualtiero in Il pirata, Elvino in La sonnambula and Arturo in I puritani. Many Donizetti roles, such as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore and Ernesto in Don Pasquale, Tonio in La fille du régiment, are also tenore di grazia roles. One of the most famous leggero tenors of that period was Giovanni Battista Rubini, for whom Bellini wrote nearly all his operas.
Ramón Vargas is a Mexican operatic tenor. Since his debut in the early '90s, he has developed to become one of the most acclaimed tenors of the 21st century. Known for his most expressive and agile lyric tenor voice, he is especially successful in the bel canto repertoire.
Bülent Bezdüz is a Turkish operatic tenor.
Adam Flowers is an American lyric tenor who is based in San Francisco, California. Flowers sings major lyric tenor roles in opera houses across the western United States.
Falstaff, ossia Le tre burle is a dramma giocoso in two acts by Antonio Salieri, set to a libretto by Carlo Prospero Defranceschi after William Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor.
The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is one of the two full-time professional radio orchestras in Ireland that are part of RTÉ, the national broadcasting station. Since its formation as the Radio Éireann Light Orchestra in 1948, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, has grown from a small studio-based recording group to become an active 45-strong orchestra performing over eighty concerts annually. It is part of RTÉ Performing Groups. The orchestra performs classical, popular and big band evening and lunchtime concerts, covering a range of music from baroque to contemporary.
Sir John in Love is an opera in four acts by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The libretto, by the composer himself, is based on Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and supplemented with texts by Philip Sidney, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. The music deploys English folk tunes, including "Greensleeves". Originally titled The Fat Knight, the opera premiered at the Parry Opera Theatre, Royal College of Music, London, on 21 March 1929. Its first professional performance was on 9 April 1946 at Sadler's Wells Theatre.
Barry Banks is an English lyric tenor who, after a long association with The Metropolitan Opera and English National Opera, has achieved acclaim as one of finest interpreters of the Italian bel canto repertoire.
Marcus Haddock is an American opera singer and voice teacher who in the course of his 25-year stage career sang leading tenor roles throughout the United States and Europe. Born in Fort Worth, Texas and trained at the Boston University College of Fine Arts under Phyllis Curtin, Haddock began his career in the United States after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1984. From the late 1980s to the late 1990s he was primarily based in Europe where he sang in all the major opera houses, sometimes performing under the name Marcus Jerome-Haddock. He increasingly sang in American opera houses from 1998 and made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2003 in the title role of Faust. His early roles were those of the tenore di grazia repertoire, but as his career progressed he also took on heavier lyric and spinto tenor roles such as Rodolfo in La bohème and Don José in Carmen, both of which he has recorded. Haddock retired from the stage in 2009 after suffering two serious strokes, and began a new career as a voice teacher in 2012.
I briganti is an opera (melodramma) in three acts by Saverio Mercadante, first performed on 22 March 1836 by the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, with an Italian libretto by Jacopo Crescini based on Schiller's Die Räuber. The lead roles were written for bass Luigi Lablache, tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini, baritone Antonio Tamburini and soprano Giulia Grisi. The opera did not do well in Paris, and the cast departed for London.