The characters in the opera The Visitors are escaping the Black Death by sheltering in a villa outside what city
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The Visitors (opera) The Visitors is an opera in three acts and a prologue composed by Carlos Chávez to an English libretto by the American poet Chester Kallman. The work was Chávez's only opera. Its first version, with the title "Panfilo and Lauretta", premiered in New York City in 1957. The final version with the title "The Visitors" was premiered in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1999, twenty years after the composer's death. The story is set in 14th century Tuscany during the time of the Black Death. The libretto (like those for "Pagliacci" and "Ariadne auf Naxos") uses the device of a play within a play to reflect and intensify the relationships between the protagonists, who in this case are loosely based on characters in "The Decameron".
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The Decameron The Decameron (Italian: "Decameron" ] or "Decamerone" ] ), subtitled "Prince Galehaut" (Old Italian: "Prencipe Galeotto" ] ), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. Boccaccio probably conceived the "Decameron" after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. The various tales of love in "The Decameron" range from the erotic to the tragic. Tales of wit, practical jokes, and life lessons contribute to the mosaic. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence (for example on Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"), it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose.
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Servilia (opera) Servilia (Russian: Сервилия , "Serviliya", the name of a main character), is an opera in five acts by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The work was completed in 1901, and was first performed in 1902 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on the drama by Lev Alexandrovich Mey. The story is set in Ancient Rome during Nero's reign.
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Requiem (Michael Haydn) Michael Haydn wrote the Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo, or more generally Missa pro Defunctis, Klafsky I:8, MH 155, following the death of the Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach in Salzburg in December 1771. Haydn completed the Requiem before the year was over, signing it "S[oli] D[eo] H[onor] et G[loria.] Salisburgi 31 Dicembre 1771." At the beginning of that year, his daughter Aloisia Josefa died. Historians believe "his own personal bereavement" motivated the composition. Contemporary materials which have survived to the present day include the autograph score found in Berlin, a set of copied parts with lots of corrections in Haydn's hand in Salzburg and another set at the Esterházy castle in Eisenstadt, and a score prepared by the Salzburg copyist Nikolaus Lang found in Munich.
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Villa Giulia The Villa Giulia is a villa in Rome, Italy. It was built by Pope Julius III in 1551-1553 on what was then the edge of the city. Today it is publicly owned, and houses the Museo Nazionale Etrusco, a collection of Etruscan art and artifacts.
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Opera Opera (] ; English plural: "operas"; Italian plural: "opere" ] ) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing: recitative, a speech-inflected style and arias, a more melodic style, in which notes are sung in a sustained fashion. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor.
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Dux (Vassalli novel) Dux. Casanova in Boemia is a 2002 Italian novel by the Italian writer Sebastiano Vassalli. It deals with Giacomo Casanova’s last years, spent in the castle of Dux under the protection of the count of Waldstein.
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Farsa Farsa (Italian, literally: "farce", plural: "farse") is a genre of opera, associated with Venice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is also sometimes called "farsetta".
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Piazza Verdi, Palermo Piazza Verdi, commonly known as Piazza Massimo, is a square of Palermo. At its centre is the somptuous Teatro Massimo, the biggest opera house of Italy, and the third of Europe after the Opéra National de Paris and the K. K. Hof-Opernhaus in Vienna. The square is located in the heart of the city, near the central Via Maqueda, in the quarter of the Seralcadio, within the historic centre of Palermo.
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La Foce La Foce is a large estate that lies close to the towns of Montepulciano, Chiusi, and Chianciano Terme in the Southern Tuscan region of Val d'Orcia. The estate's late-15th-century villa was restored by Iris Origo and Antonio Origo in the 1920s. The gardens, considered amongst the finest in Italy are designed by the English architect, Cecil Pinsent, who also designed the gardens at Villa Le Balze. The book "War in Val d'Orcia" by Iris Origo is set in this estate, which at the time contained 57 farms in 7,000 acres. Castelluccio, a medieval castle on the property, is the venue of an international music festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena, held in memory of Iris and Antonio Origo each July.
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Villa Parisi Villa Parisi - Borghese is a villa in Frascati, now in Monte Porzio Catone municipal territory, Italy. It was built between 1604 and 1605 by Mons. Fernando Taverna. In 1615 it was acquired by Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Later a nymphaeum and the stately portal were built together villa's extension work on project of architect Girolamo Rainaldi. Camillo Borghese in 1729 promoted further renovations.
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La cena delle beffe La cena delle beffe ("The Jesters' Supper") is an opera in four acts composed by Umberto Giordano to an Italian libretto by Sem Benelli adapted from his 1909 play of the same name. The opera premiered on 20 December 1924 at La Scala. Milan. The story, set in Florence at the time of Lorenzo de' Medici, recounts the rivalry between Giannetto Malespini and Neri Chiaramantesi for the affections of the beautiful Ginevra and Giannetto's thirst for revenge over a cruel joke played on him by Neri and his brother Gabriello. Giannetto's revenge "joke" ultimately leads Neri to murder both Ginevra and (by mistake) his own brother. The opera ends with Neri's descent into madness.
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William Tell (opera) Guillaume Tell (English: William Tell , Italian: Guglielmo Tell ) is a French opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Étienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis. Based on Friedrich Schiller's play "William Tell," which drew on the William Tell legend, the opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly forty more years. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for "William Tell" to be his last opera even as he composed it. The overture, in four sections and featuring a depiction of a storm as well as a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers," is often played.
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Il burbero di buon cuore Il burbero di buon cuore ("The Good-Hearted Curmudgeon") is an opera dramma giocoso in two acts by Vicente Martín y Soler. The Italian libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte is based on the French comedy "Le bourru bienfaisant" by Carlo Goldoni. The opera premiered on January 4, 1786 in Vienna at the Burgtheater with a cast that included three well known Viennese singers of the day: Nancy Storace as Angelica, Francesco Benucci as Ferramondo, and Maria Mandini as Marina. The opera premiered in the same year and at the same house as Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro", and both operas enjoyed revivals at the Burgtheater three years later — each boasting two new arias for new leading ladies. The new arias for "Il burbero di buon cuore" (""Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia"" K. 582 in Act I and ""Vado, ma dove?"" K. 583 in Act II, both for Lucilla) were actually composed by Mozart, as Martín y Soler had left Vienna to work at the court of Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg. The opera recently received its first modern revival in 2007 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, a performance which was videotaped live and released on DVD in 2009.
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Il Bellerofonte Il Bellerofonte is an 18th-century Italian opera in three acts by the Czech composer Josef Mysliveček. It conforms to the serious type (opera seria) that was typically set in the distant past. The libretto, based on the Greek legend of Bellerophon, was written by Giuseppe Bonecchi. The work was dedicated to King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and was first performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 20 January 1767, the birthday of his father, King Charles III of Spain. The cast featured two stellar singers of the time, Caterina Gabrielli and Anton Raaff, in the leading roles. The opera was only the composer's second one, and the first that permitted him the opportunity to write music for first-rate vocal artists. The production was highly successful, indeed responsible for a meteoric rise in his reputation as an operatic composer. From the time of the premiere of "Bellerofonte" until his death in 1781, Mysliveček succeeded in having more new "opere serie" brought into production than any other composer in Europe. During the same time span, he also had more new operas staged at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples than any other composer.
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August Heat A grueling, relentless sun is the background to this episode: and the most fiery heat of this hottest summer month in Sicily is paralleled by the fervour and passion that inflames Montalbano. It's August, his deputy Mimì Augello had to anticipate his holidays, and Montalbano is forced to remain at Vigata, taking care of police business. Fiancée Livia would join him, but not to be alone with Montalbano's always working, she brings along a friend (with husband and baby) and asks Salvo to rent a beach house for them. All is well as the holiday develops nicely, but one day the couple's little boy disappears. Montalbano rushes into the garden to help in the search and discovers a tunnel that will reveal sensational surprises, including a trunk with the body of a missing girl who disappeared six years before.
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The Flame (novel) The Flame (Italian: Il fuoco ) is a 1900 novel by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. It is set in 1883 Venice and tells the story of a young artist and his mistress, a famous but quickly aging actress. The story was inspired by D'Annunzio's relationship with the actress Eleonora Duse. The novel contains expositions of many of D'Annunzio's theories about drama, largely inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner.
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Vanni Fucci Vanni Fucci di Pistoia is a minor character in "Inferno", the first part of Dante Alighieri's epic poem the "Divine Comedy", appearing in Cantos 24 and 25. He was a thief who lived in Pistoia, as his name ("di Pistoia" meaning "of Pistoia") indicates; when he died, he was sent to the eighth circle of Hell in the seventh bolgia (round; in Italian, "ditch" or "pouch"), where thieves are punished. In that bolgia his punishment was to be stung by a serpent, reduced to ashes, and then restored to his former shape for more torturing. Dante and Virgil meet him and ask him why he was there. He replied that he stole a treasure from the Church of St. James in his hometown; he had wrongly accused an innocent man, Vanni della Nona, with the crime, for which della Nona was executed. Fucci says he was not caught but he still went to Hell. He then predicts the overthrow of the Florentine Whites to spite Dante and then insults God by making obscene gestures at him, and is attacked by numerous nearby serpents and by the monster Cacus, who was put in the bolgia for stealing Hercules's cattle.
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Der Sturm (opera) Der Sturm (The tempest) is a German-language opera in three acts by the Swiss composer Frank Martin to a libretto based on the Schlegel/Tieck German translation of Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". It was premiered at the Vienna State Opera in 1955. The role of Prospero was originally conceived for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but illness prevented him participating.
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Teatro Regio Ducal The Teatro Regio Ducal (Italian, "Royal Ducal Theatre") was the opera house in Milan from 26 December 1717 until 25 February 1776, when it was burned down following a carnival gala. Many famous composers and their operas are associated with it, including the premieres of Mozart's "Ascanio in Alba", "Mitridate, re di Ponto", and "Lucio Silla". The opera house also saw the premiere of Maria Teresa Agnesi Pinottini's "Ciro in Armenia" in 1753; one of the earliest successfully received operas by a female composer. Variant forms such as "Regio-Ducal Teatro" and "Teatro Regio Ducale" are also seen.
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Il segreto di Susanna Il segreto di Susanna (English: "Susanna's Secret", German: "Susannens Geheimnis") is an intermezzo in one act by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by Enrico Golisciani. The premiere of the opera was in German, in a translation by Max Kalbeck, at the Hoftheater in Munich on 4 December 1909.
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Piombi Piombi ("The Leads" in English) is a former prison in the Doge's Palace in Venice. The name of the prison refers to its position directly under the roof of the palace, which was covered with slabs of lead. In winter, these slabs let the cold pass and they acted as a catalyst in the summer heat, imposing harsh conditions for inmates.