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Vols. for 1837-52 include the Companion to the Almanac, or Year-book of general information.
During the Golden Age of Italian opera, Luigi Lablache triumphed as one of the most admired and accomplished international superstars. Born in Naples in 1795, his unprecedented forty-five year singing career dominated the glorious bel canto period when opera flourished as the principal form of entertainment. Now his direct descendant, Clarissa Lablache Cheer, puts forth this remarkable and long overdue biography of Lablache – the first ever to be written in English. Page by page, Lablache’s extraordinary story unfolds as the author guides the reader through the hectic and glamorous era of Italian opera and European high society. We follow Lablache as he conquers the dazzling nineteenth c...
Drama in the Romantic period underwent radical changes affecting theatre performance, acting, and audience. Theatres were rebuilt and expanded to accommodate larger audiences, and consequently acting styles and the plays themselves evolved to meet the expectations of the new audiences. This book examines manifestations of change in acting, stage design, setting, and the new forms of drama. Actors exercised a persistent habit of stepping out of their roles, whether scripted or not. Burwick traces the radical shifts in acting style from Garrick to Kemble and Siddons, and to Kean and Macready, adding a new dimension to understanding the shift in cultural sensibility from early to later Romantic literature. Eye-witness accounts by theatre-goers and critics attending plays at the major playhouses of London, the provinces, and on the Continent are provided, allowing readers to identify with the experience of being in the theatre during this tumultuous period.
Giovanni Battista Rubini (1794-1854) was a legendary tenor and the first 19th-century non-castrati male singer to become an international star of opera. The previous two centuries had been the era of the castrati, with tenors and basses relegated to character and supporting roles in the operas of their time. Rubini stood apart because he not only matched the castrati in coloratura and pathos, but he also had an extraordinarily high voice. With Rubini’s rise, and in his wake, several tenors came to sing roles written specifically for them by Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and many other lesser-known bel canto composers. Signaling the end of the dominance of castrati on stage, this period woul...