La bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830 and shows the Bohemian lifestyle of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.
Mario Del Monaco was an Italian operatic tenor.
Renata Tebaldi was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period, and especially prominent as one of the stars of La Scala, San Carlo and, especially, the Metropolitan Opera. Often considered among the great opera singers of the 20th century, she focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini called her voice "la voce d'angelo", and La Scala music director Riccardo Muti called her "one of the greatest performers with one of the most extraordinary voices in the field of opera."
Renata Scotto was an Italian soprano, opera director, and voice teacher. Recognised for her sense of style, her musicality, and as a remarkable singer-actress, Scotto is considered to have been one of the preeminent opera singers of her generation.
Alfredo Catalani was an Italian operatic composer. He is best remembered for his operas Loreley (1890) and La Wally (1892). La Wally was composed to a libretto by Luigi Illica, and features Catalani's most famous aria "Ebben? Ne andrò lontana." This aria, sung by American soprano Wilhelmenia Fernandez, was at the heart of Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 film Diva. Catalani's other operas were much less successful.
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. It was first performed on 6 November 1902 at the Teatro Lirico in Milan.
Elena Souliotis was a Greek operatic soprano.
The Fiery Angel, Op. 37, is an opera by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. The opera was composed between 1919 - 1927. It was premiered posthumously in 1955 in Venice, in Italian language. The work was not presented to Russian audiences until the 1990s, most notably by the Mariinsky Theatre, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Fedora is an opera in three acts by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the 1882 play Fédora by Victorien Sardou. Along with Andrea Chénier and Siberia, it is one of the most notable works of Giordano.
Piero Cappuccilli was an Italian operatic baritone. Best known for his interpretations of Verdi roles, he was widely regarded as one of the finest Italian baritones of the second half of the 20th century. He was enormously admired within the field of opera for his rich and abundant voice, fine vocal technique and exceptional breath control. In the great Italian tradition he fused words and music into elegant phrases. He focused on Italian repertory, particularly the operas of Verdi, singing 17 major roles.
Loreley is an opera in three acts composed by Alfredo Catalani to a libretto by Angelo Zanardini, Carlo D'Ormeville and others. It premiered on 16 February 1890 at the Teatro Regio in Turin. Based on the German legend of the Lorelei, the opera is an extensive reworking of Catalani's four-act opera Elda which had premiered in Turin ten years earlier.
Aria is a 1987 British anthology film produced by Don Boyd that consists of ten short films by ten different directors, each showing the director's choice of visual accompaniment to one or more operatic arias. There is little or no dialogue from the actors, with most words coming from the libretto of the operas in Italian, French, or German.
Natasha Jane Marsh is a Welsh soprano singer. A highly regarded performer in both opera and oratorio, her debut album, Amour, topped the classical album charts in 2007. She has toured with artists such as G4, Russell Watson, Il Divo and Paul Potts. Her love of football was confirmed when she sang at the 2008 League Cup Final and she has recorded Mozart's "Queen of the Night" aria for ITV's coverage of UEFA Euro 2008. Natasha has three boys, Harley and twins Ollie and Leo and Talia.
Fausto Cleva was an Austro-Hungarian Empire-born American operatic conductor.
"Un bel dì, vedremo" is a soprano aria from the opera Madama Butterfly (1904) by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It is sung by Cio-Cio San (Butterfly) on stage with Suzuki, as she imagines the return of her absent love, Pinkerton. It is the most famous aria in Madama Butterfly, and one of the most popular pieces in the entire soprano repertoire.
Wilhelmine von Hillern was a German actress and novelist.
Diva is a 1981 French thriller film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, adapted from the novel Diva by Daniel Odier. It eschewed the realist mood of 1970s French cinema and instead adopted a colourful, melodic style, later described as cinéma du look.
"O soave fanciulla" is a romantic duet from the first act of Giacomo Puccini's 1896 opera La bohème It is sung as the closing number in act 1 by Rodolfo (tenor) and Mimì (soprano) where they realise they have fallen for each other.
La Wally is a 1932 Italian musical drama film directed by Guido Brignone and starring Germana Paolieri, Isa Pola and Carlo Ninchi. It is an adaptation of the 1892 opera La Wally by Alfredo Catalani. It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Gastone Medin and Ivo Perilli.
Anna Stainer-Knittel was an Austrian portrait and flower painter. An incident from her life served as the basis for the novel Die Geier-Wally by Wilhelmine von Hillern; an early example of feminist literature.
