Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
During the season of 1860 she added fresh laurels to those which she had already attained, and sang several new parts, among which maybe mentioned Flotow's pretty ballad opera of "Martha" and Rossini's "Semiramide." Her performance in the latter work created an almost indescribable sensation, so great was her singing, so strong and picturesque the dramatic effects which she produced.
The "Donna del Lago," based upon Walter Scott's "Lady of the Lake," was produced at Naples in 1819. The same year he opened the Carnival in Milan with "Bianca e Faliero," and before its close he produced "Maometto secondo" at Naples. During the next two or three years his muse was very prolific, and in 1823 appeared another of his great works, "Semiramide," which made a furor at Venice.
Their resemblance is simply one of those imaginary things which the critics too often mistake for a reality. The critics once found local color in Rossini's Semiramide! Hans de Bülow once said to me in the course of a conversation, "After all Meyerbeer was a man of genius." If we fail to recognize Meyerbeer's genius, we are not only unjust but also ungrateful.
Musical London was electrified, and Grisi, who sang in "Semiramide," sulked, because in the great duet, "Giorno d'orrore," the thunders of applause evidently concerned themselves with her young rival rather than with herself.
I said as much to the master, and he consented to give me "Bel raggio," of "Semiramide." It is as good as an exercise, anyway, because it is nothing but cadenzas. Then he allowed me to sing "Una voce poco fa." I told him that mama had put on a pound of flesh since I was permitted to roam in these fresh pastures. This made him laugh.
A fine applause greeted Miss Bargarny, who executed the overture to Semiramide quite as well as it deserved. After the clapping was over and she had obligingly given an encore, she remained at the piano, and Mr. Stewart, a young man with red hair and complexion, in kilts and pink knees, emerged from the curtains, and sang in a thundering voice several of Burns's tenderest songs.
Singers who could never execute the roulades of Semiramis, Assur, and Arsaces in Rossini's Semiramide, could sing the parts of Brynhild, Wotan and Erda without missing a note. Any Englishman can understand this if he considers for a moment the difference between a Cathedral service and an Italian opera at Covent Garden. The service is a much more serious matter than the opera.
One night, singing together the duet from "Semiramide," each was so overcome at the beauty of the other's voice and art, that they embraced and became friends. De Bériot had an equally strange experience with the two women. He fell madly in love with Sontag, slight, blue-eyed and blonde as she was, and then only twenty-five.
It pleased, as did his next work, "Semiramide Riconosciuta," produced at Turin, though neither was so successful as his "Emma di Risburgo," first heard at Venice, and for some time a rival in popularity to "Tancredi." At this period Meyerbeer adopted the name of Giacomo, the Italian translation of Jacob, which he ever after retained.
In the interval before the second act of Semiramide he walked up and down in the lobby, and along the corridors, leaving his box, which he had not yet entered, to look after itself. The instinct of property was dead within him already. Like all invalids, he thought of nothing but his own sufferings. He was leaning against the chimney-piece in the greenroom.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking