- 行业: Internet
- Number of terms: 16478
- Number of blossaries: 4
- Company Profile:
Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
Dolores Claiborne is a 1992 psychological thriller novel by Stephen King. The novel is narrated by the title character. Atypically for a King novel, it has no chapters, double-spacing between paragraphs, or other section breaks; thus the text is a single continuous narrative which reads like the transcription of a spoken monologue. It was the best selling novel of 1992 in the United States.
The book is dedicated to King's mother: "For my mother, Ruth Pillsbury King."
While being interrogated, Dolores Claiborne wants to make clear to the police that she did not kill her wealthy employer, an elderly woman named Vera Donovan whom she has looked after for years. She does, however, confess to the murder of her husband, Joe St. George, almost 30 years before, after finding out that he sexually molested their fourteen-year-old daughter, Selena. Dolores's "confession" develops into the story of her life, her troubled marriage, and her relationship with her employer.
Unlike many other works by King, there is little focus on the supernatural; the only such event in the book are two telepathic visions, which, along with the solar eclipse backdrop, form a link to King's novel Gerald's Game. However, reviewer Sean Piccoli observed the novel otherwise contains "vintage bone-yard King: the tiny town, the secret lives. Murder and mayhem lurk reliably behind the tranquil veneer."
Industry:Drama
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (Don Carlos, Infante of Spain) by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, it has been noted by David Kimball that the Fontainebleau scene and auto da fé "were the most substantial of several incidents borrowed from a contemporary play on Philip II by Eugène Cormon".
Given its premiere at the Salle Le Peletier on 11 March 1867, the opera's story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568), after his betrothed Elisabeth of Valois was married instead to his father Philip II of Spain as part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–1559 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra (Paris Opera).
When performed in one of its several Italian versions, the opera is generally called Don Carlo. The first Italian version given in Italy was in Bologna in March 1867. Revised again by Verdi, it was given in Naples in November/December 1872. Finally, two other versions were prepared: the first was seen in Milan in January 1884 (in which the four acts were based on some original French text which was then translated). It is now known as the "Milan version". The second, also sanctioned by the composer, was the "Modena version" and presented in that city in December 1886. It added the "Fontainebleau" first act to the Milan four-act version.
Over the following twenty years, cuts and additions were made to the opera, resulting in a number of versions being available to directors and conductors. No other Verdi opera exists in so many versions. At its full length (including the ballet and the cuts made before the first performance), it contains about four hours of music and is Verdi's longest opera.
Industry:Drama
Don Giovanni (K. 527; complete title: Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni, literally The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni) is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It is based on the legends of Don Juan, a fictional libertine and seducer. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (now called the Estates Theatre) on October 29, 1787. Da Ponte's libretto was billed, like many of its time, as dramma giocoso, a term that denotes a mixing of serious and comic action. Mozart entered the work into his catalogue as an opera buffa. Although sometimes classified as comic, it blends comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements.
A staple of the standard operatic repertoire, Don Giovanni is currently tenth on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide. It has also proved a fruitful subject for writers and philosophers.
Industry:Drama
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti with an Italian libretto by Giovanni Ruffini and the composer, after a libretto by Angelo Anelli (it) for Stefano Pavesi's opera Ser Marcantonio (1810). Donizetti's opera was first performed on 3 January 1843 by the Théâtre-Italien at the Salle Ventadour in Paris.
At the time of the opera's composition in 1842, Donizetti had just been appointed music director and composer for the imperial court of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.
In the tradition of opera buffa, the opera makes reference to the stock characters of the commedia dell'arte. Pasquale is recognizable as the blustery Pantalone, Ernesto as the lovesick Pierrot, Malatesta as the scheming Scapino, and Norina as a wily Columbina. The false Notary echoes a long line of false officials as operatic devices.
At its premiere Don Pasquale was performed by four of the most celebrated singers of the day and was an immediate success. It was recognized at the time as, and is still considered, Donizetti's comic masterpiece, and remains one of the most popular of his 66 operas, as well as one of the three most popular Italian comic operas, the other two being Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's own L'elisir d'amore.
The first performance in Italy was at La Scala, Milan on 17 April 1843 with Ottavia Malvani (Norina), Napoleone Rossi (Pasquale), Leone Corelli (Ernesto), and Achille De Bassini (Malatesta). Its first performance in Vienna was at the Kärtnertortheater (in Italian) on 14 May 1843, a production in which Donizetti participated and added the comic baritone duet "Cheti, cheti, immantinente" from a discarded portion of his unperformed opera L'ange de Nisida. In England it was first presented on 29 June 1843 at Her Majesty's Theatre in London (in Italian).
The opera was translated into French by Gustave Vaëz and Alphonse Royer and given in Brussels on 11 August 1843, Lille on 9 November 1843, and at the Théâtre d'Orléans in New Orleans on 7 January 1845. The first Australian performance was presented in Sydney on 12 October 1854 at the Royal Victoria Theatre.
Industry:Drama
Don Rodrigo is an opera in three acts by Alberto Ginastera, the composer's first opera, to an original Spanish libretto by Alejandro Casona. Ginastera composed the opera on commission from the Municipality of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The first performance was at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 24 July 1964 with Carlo Cossutta in the title role. The production was directed by Jorge Petraglia and conducted by Bruno Bartoletti.
On February 22, 1966, Plácido Domingo had his international breakthrough by singing the title role of this opera at the US premiere of the work by the New York City Opera. Other cast members included Jeannine Crader as Florinda, Spiro Malas as Teudiselo, the king's tutor, and David Clatworthy as Don Julian, Florinda's father. Julius Rudel conducted, and the opera received 9 performances at New York City Opera. A year later, the production was also shown, still with Plácido Domingo, on tour at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Ginastera prepared from the opera a concert work for soprano and orchestra, which received its own first performance in October 1964.
Malena Kuss has published a detailed study of Ginastera's use of motives and of Argentine musical idioms in the opera. Pola Suares Urtubey has published an analysis of the dramatic structure of the opera.
Industry:Drama
Don Sanche, ou Le château de l'amour (English: Don Sanche, or The Castle of Love), S.1, is an opera in one act composed in 1824-25 by Franz Liszt, with French libretto by Théaulon and de Rancé, based on a story by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. For 30 years it was believed to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1903. The first modern performance took place in 1977, 74 years after its rediscovery.
The opera appears to have been ready as early as September 1824. It is known that on 20 June 1825, Liszt presented an overture in his second Birmingham concert. This is probably the one from Don Sanche since no other overture exists from this period. The manuscript contains many passages that are reminiscent of the style of his compositions teacher Ferdinando Paer, who admittedly helped Liszt with orchestration. Liszt received a mere 170 francs for his opera. Later in the 1840s, Liszt tried to pursue a career as an opera composer. He planned, sketched, but never completed several other operas. Among them a work in the Italianate style known as Sardanapale, of which 111 sketched pages exists.
Industry:Drama
Le donne curiose (English: The Inquisitive Women) is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a text by Luigi Sugana after Carlo Goldoni's play.
The first dramatic work by Wolf-Ferrari to achieve more than local notice, it was first performed in Munich on 27 November 1903 in a German translation as Die neugierigen Frauen. The first performance in Italian was in New York on 3 January 1912 with a distinguished cast led by Arturo Toscanini, including Geraldine Farrar and Hermann Jadlowker. Tullio Serafin conducted the first performance in Milan on 16 January 1913.
Industry:Drama
Donnerstag aus Licht (Thursday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, three acts, and a farewell, and was the first of seven to be composed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche (Light: The Seven Days of the Week). It was written between 1977 and 1980, with a libretto by the composer.
Donnerstag was given its staged premiere on 15 March 1981 by the La Scala Opera in the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, but without the third act, which had to be omitted due to a strike by the opera chorus of La Scala. They had demanded soloists' bonuses because of one brief passage in act 3, and had been turned down by the management. Further performances without the third act followed on 18, 21, 24, and 27 March. An agreement was finally reached and the complete opera was finally performed on 3 April, with two further performances on 5 and 7 April (Kurtz 1992, 213). The stage direction was by Luca Ronconi, with costume and stage design by Gae Aulenti. Scenic realisation was by Giorgio Cristini, lighting by Vannio Vanni, light compositions (act 3) by Mary Bauermeister. Péter Eötvös conducted, and played the Hammond organ in act 3, scene 2. Karlheinz Stockhausen was the sound projectionist.
On 19 December 1981, Donnerstag was awarded the Premio Critica Musicale F. Abbiati for "best new work of contemporary music" (Stockhausen 1989a, 189).
A second staging was given by the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in London, on 16, 18, 20, 24, and 26 September 1985. The stage direction was by Michael Bogdanov, designed by Mari Bjornson, lighting and light compositions by Chris Ellis. Péter Eötvös conducted, and Stockhausen was the sound projectionist.
The second act, Michaels Reise um die Erde (Michael's Journey Around the Earth) was staged separately in 2008, by Carlus Padrissa (es) of La Fura dels Baus, with stage direction by Roland Olbeter. It was performed by Marco Blaauw (trumpet), Nicola Jürgensen (basset horn), and musikFabrik, directed by Peter Rundel. Video was by Franc Aleu, dramaturgy by Thomas Ulrich, lighting by Frank Sobotta, and sound direction by Paul Jeukendrup. This was initially a production of the Wiener Taschenoper in collaboration with the Wiener Festwochen. In 2013, this production was revived for three performances at Avery Fisher Hall in New York as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, beginning appropriately on Thursday, 18 July (Tommasini 2013).
Donnerstag is an opera for 14 performers (3 voices, 8 instrumentalists, 3 dancers) plus a choir, an orchestra, and tapes. It was composed between 1977 and 1980. In the larger context of Licht, Thursday is Michael's day. Thursday's exoteric (primary) colour is bright blue, and its esoteric (secondary) colours are purple and violet (Stockhausen 1989a, 182; Stockhausen 1989b, 200). Thursday is also the day of plants (Stockhausen 1989b, 201).
Industry:Drama
I due Foscari (The Two Foscari) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on a historical play, The Two Foscari by Lord Byron.
After his success with Ernani, Verdi received a commission from Rome's Teatro Argentina and he went to work with Piave in considering two subjects, one of which eventually became this opera. I due Foscari was given its premiere performance in Rome on 3 November 1844 and was generally quite successful, although not on the scale of Ernani, which remained Verdi's most popular opera until Il trovatore in 1853.
Today, Foscari is revived occasionally and its fortunes have been helped by the interest taken by tenor Plácido Domingo in singing baritone roles. He has already performed the role of the Doge in Los Angeles in 2012, in Valencia in early 2013, and he will do so again in Vienna in 2014.
Industry:Drama
