Year: 2019

Oberto (opera)

Jovan Stosic March 24, 2019

Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio is an opera in two acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on an existing libretto by Antonio Piazza probably called Rocester.

It was Verdi’s first opera, written over a period of four years, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 17 November 1839. The La Scala production enjoyed “a fair success” and the theatre’s impresario, Bartolomeo Merelli, commissioned two further operas from the young composer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberto_(opera)

Oberto (opera) was last modified: March 24th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Italian unification – Risorgimento

Jovan Stosic March 23, 2019

Italian unification (Italian: Unità d’Italia [uniˈta ddiˈtaːlja]), or the Risorgimento ([risordʒiˈmento], meaning “the Resurgence”), was the political and social movement that consolidated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of the Kingdom of Italy in the 19th century. The process began in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna and was completed in 1871 when Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

The term, which also designates the cultural, political and social movement that promoted unification, recalls the romantic, nationalist and patriotic ideals of an Italian renaissance through the conquest of a unified political identity that, by sinking its ancient roots during the Roman period, “suffered an abrupt halt [or loss] of its political unity in 476 AD after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire“. However, some of the terre irredente did not join the Kingdom of Italy until 1918 after Italy defeated Austria–Hungaryin World War I. For this reason, sometimes the period is extended to include the late 19th-century and the First World War (1915–1918), until the 4 November 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti, which is considered the completion of unification. This view is followed, for example, at the Central Museum of Risorgimento at the Vittoriano.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_unification

Italian unification – Risorgimento was last modified: March 23rd, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Arrigo Boito

Jovan Stosic March 23, 2019

Arrigo Boito (Italian: [arˈriːɡo ˈbɔito]; 24 February 1842 – 10 June 1918) (whose original name was Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito and who wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio), was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi‘s operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele. Along with Emilio Praga, and his own brother Camillo Boito he is regarded as one of the prominent representatives of the Scapigliatura artistic movement

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrigo_Boito

Arrigo Boito was last modified: March 23rd, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Teresa Stolz

Jovan Stosic March 23, 2019

Teresa Stolz (born 2 June 1834, Elbekosteletz (Czech: Kostelec nad Labem), Bohemia – died 23 August 1902, Milan) was a Bohemian soprano, long resident in Italy, who was associated with significant premieres of the works of Giuseppe Verdi, and may have been his mistress. She has been described as “the Verdian dramatic soprano par excellence, powerful, passionate in utterance, but dignified in manner and secure in tone and control”.[

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_Stolz

Teresa Stolz was last modified: March 23rd, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour

Jovan Stosic March 20, 2019

Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (10 August 1810 – 6 June 1861), generally known as Cavour(Italian: [kaˈvur]), was an Italian statesman and a leading figure in the movement toward Italian unification. He was one of the leaders of the Historical Right, and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a position he maintained (except for a six-month resignation) throughout the Second Italian War of Independence and Garibaldi’s campaigns to unite Italy. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as the first Prime Minister of Italy; he died after only three months in office, and thus did not live to see Venetia or Rome added to the new Italian nation. Cavour put forth several economic reforms in his native region of Piedmont in his earlier years, and founded the political newspaper Il Risorgimento. After being elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he quickly rose in rank through the Piedmontese government, coming to dominate the Chamber of Deputies through a union of left-center and right-center politicians. After a large rail system expansion program, Cavour became prime minister in 1852. As prime minister, Cavour successfully negotiated Piedmont’s way through the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, and Garibaldi’s expeditions, managing to maneuver Piedmont diplomatically to become a new great power in Europe, controlling a nearly united Italy that was five times as large as Piedmont had been before he came to power.

English historian Denis Mack Smith says Cavour was the most successful parliamentarian in Italian history but he was not especially democratic. Cavour was often dictatorial, ignored his ministerial colleagues and parliament, and interfered in parliamentary elections. He also practiced trasformismo and other policies which were carried over into post-Risorgimento Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillo_Benso,_Count_of_Cavour

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour was last modified: March 20th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic