"Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (; 22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian opera composer who has been called ""the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi"". Puccini's early work was rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera. Later, he successfully developed his work in the realistic ""verismo"" style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. Puccini's most renowned works are ""La bohème"" (1896), ""Tosca"" (1900), ""Madama Butterfly"" (1904), and ""Turandot"" (1924), all of which are among the important operas played as standards. Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria"
"The composer tried to reflect the Chinese setting of the story in the music. The opera was first performed in England on 14 December 1835 at the Covent Garden Theatre in London, and in the United States on 15 April 1836 at the Théâtre d'Orléans in New Orleans. In March 2012 a production was staged by the Komische Oper Berlin (German version by Bettina Bartz und Werner Hintze) and later broadcast by Deutschlandradio Kultur. Péki is due to be married against her will to the mandarin Tsing-Sing, who already has four wives. Péki meets Prince Yang and tells him she"
"produced the text for the libretto. Baron Fassini Camossi, the former Italian diplomat to China, gave Puccini as a gift a music box which played a number of Chinese melodies. Puccini used three of these in the opera, including the national anthem (heard during the appearance of the Emperor Altoum) and, most memorably, the folk melody ""Mo Li Hua"" (Jasmine Flower) which is first heard sung by the children's chorus after the invocation to the moon in act 1, and becomes a sort of 'leitmotif' for the princess throughout the opera. Puccini commissioned a set of 13 gongs constructed by"
"includes: ""White-Haired Girl"", ""Zan Yuen"" (""broad grasslands""), ""Fangcaoxin"" (""Fangfang, heart of grass""), ""Red Guards on Honghu Lake"", ""Sister Jiang"", ""Leiyu"" (based on Cao Yu's play ""Thunderstorm""), ""Shangshi"" (""Mourning"" 1981 folk opera based on a story by Lu Xun) and ""The Savage Land"". Shanghai Opera Theater Shanghai Opera House Shanghai Opera House (; Shanghainese: Zånhae Gujihyu) is the official government-funded western-style opera company of Shanghai, China, and the resident opera company at the new Shanghai Grand Theatre (上海大剧院 ""Shanghai Da Juyuan""). Although the term ""Opera House"" is often applied to the building, both in English and Chinese texts, officially the building"
"to 1988 the American composer Janet Maguire, convinced that the whole ending is coded in the sketches left by Puccini, composed a new ending, but this has never been performed. In 2001 Luciano Berio made a new completion sanctioned by Casa Ricordi and the Puccini estate, using Puccini's sketches but also expanding the musical language. It was subsequently performed in the Canary Islands and Amsterdam conducted by Riccardo Chailly, Los Angeles conducted by Kent Nagano, at the Salzburg Festival conducted by Valery Gergiev in August 2002. However, its reception has been mixed. ""In front of the imperial palace"" In China,"
"first book to codify tea production and preparation in China. The third and final act, ""Ceramic, Stones"", depicts the death of the protagonist's love. Percussionists play on pitched flowerpots, referred to as ""Ceramic chimes"" in the score. Tan Dun's most recent opera, ""The First Emperor"" (2006), was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera with the title role created for Plácido Domingo. Co-authored by Tan Dun and Chinese novelist Ha Jin, the opera focuses on the unification of China under Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, and his relationship with the musician Gao Jianli. Like Tan Dun's previous operas,"
"Wu Jingzi's ""Rulin waishi"" (1750) and Li Ruzhen's ""Flowers in the Mirror"" (1827). In drama, Kong Shangren's Kunqu opera ""The Peach Blossom Fan"", completed in 1699, portrayed the tragic downfall of the Ming dynasty in romantic terms. The most prestigious form became the so-called Peking opera, though local and folk opera were also widely popular. Cuisine aroused a cultural pride in the richness of a long and varied past. The gentleman gourmet, such as Yuan Mei, applied aesthetic standards to the art of cooking, eating, and appreciation of tea at a time when New World crops and products entered everyday"
"seat of the Chinese government. Peking opera was born when the 'Four Great Anhui Troupes' brought Anhui opera, or what is now called ""Huiju"", in 1790 to Beijing, for the eightieth birthday of the Qianlong Emperor on 25 September. It was originally staged for the court and only made available to the public later. In 1828, several famous Hubei troupes arrived in Beijing and performed jointly with Anhui troupes. The combination gradually formed Peking opera's melodies. Peking opera is generally regarded as having fully formed by 1845. Although it is called Peking opera (Beijing theatre style), its origins are in"
"of the Beijing Music Festival – the first major production of a baroque opera in the People's Republic of China. In May 2012 this production moved to the Canadian Opera Company, receiving generally poor reviews for having excised Handel's finale and haphazardly introducing Buddhist themes in an incongruent manner to the source material. Precis: Jupiter, King of the gods, takes the mortal Princess Semele to a secret hiding place on a mountain to be his mistress. When Jupiter's wife, Juno, hears of her husband's adultery she is enraged, and plots to ensure Semele's downfall. In disguise, Juno appeals to the"
"Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre The Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre (), located on a hutong in the Xuanwu District of Beijing, is one of the best-known Beijing opera theatres. It is also one of the oldest wooden theatres in China. Zhengyici means a temple (""ci"") for Zhengyi Xuantan Laozu (正乙玄坛老祖). The theatre was built in 1688, during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. It was built on the ruin site of a Buddhist temple. It has a rich history that includes performances by the grandmaster of Peking Opera, Mei Lanfang. After the Cultural Revolution, the theatre fell"
"in that the Chinese character ""Yuan"" (院) applies primarily to a school or institute or dramatic troupe rather than the building in which a school, institute or dramatic company resides. The offices, practice rooms and small rehearsal theatre are located at No.10 100-lòng Changshu Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai. The repertoire of the opera company includes various western works: ""Aida, L'Elisir d'Amore, Orfeo ed Euridice, Eugene Onegin (opera), Otello, Pelléas et Mélisande (opera), The Nose (opera), Die Fledermaus, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Samson et Dalila, La Traviata, I Pagliacci, L'amour des Trois Oranges."" Its repertoire of Chinese-language western-style operas (""dangdai geju"")"
"Qinqiang Qinqiang (秦腔, pinyin: Qínqiāng) or Luantan (亂彈, pinyin: Luàntán) is the representative folk Chinese opera of the northwest Province of Shaanxi, China, where it was called Qin thousands of years ago. Its melodies originated from rural areas of ancient Shaanxi and Gansu. The word itself means ""the tune or sound of Qin."" The genre uses the ""bangzi"" (woodblock) as one of the accompanying instruments, from which it derives its other name, ""Bangzi opera"". Bangzi tune is the oldest, most affluent opera tune in China's Four Great Characteristic Melodies. Qinqiang is the representative of the Bangzi opera and the most"
"in China. He falls in love with a beautiful Chinese opera singer, Song Liling. Gallimard is unaware that all female roles in traditional Beijing opera were actually played by males, as females were banned from the stage. The first act ends with Gallimard returning to France in shame and living alone after his wife, Helga, finds out about his affair with Song and leaves him. Act two begins with Song coming to France as a spy and resuming the affair with Gallimard. They stay together for 20 years until the truth is revealed, and Gallimard is convicted of treason and"
"entire complex was renovated in 2004. The palace was the actual setting in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 biographical film of Puyi, ""The Last Emperor"", depicting Puyi's reign as Emperor of Manchukuo. The Manchurian Imperial Palace was designed as a miniature version of the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was divided into an inner court and outer court. The outer or front court was used for administrative purposes and the inner or rear court as the royal residence. The palace covers an area of 43,000 square meters. The inner court includes the private living quarters for Puyi and his family. Its main"
"and Bao uses the Lantern Festival for an opportunity to tell him the story. Then, Bao tricks Guo to the Kaifeng court but Guo stubbornly refuses to confess. Playing on Guo's fear of the supernatural, Bao invokes the ""Ghost of Kou Zhu"" to finally get a confession. Liu is ordered to commit suicide while Renzong welcomes his mother back to the palace. Inside the Forbidden City Inside The Forbidden City is a 1965 Hong Kong Huangmei opera musical film. Depicted is the famous tale known as ""Civet for Crown Prince"" which allegedly took place in China's Song Dynasty. While passing"
"The Qing Ding Pearl The Qing Ding Pearl (《慶頂珠》, simplified 庆顶珠) is a Chinese play. It dates to the Song Dynasty and is still performed in adapted forms in the Beijing Opera. The play is known by other titles: Two sections (折 zhe) of the main play are sometimes performed separately as The Fisherman's Revenge《漁夫恨》 or A Fisherman Kills a Family (《打漁殺家》, simplified 打渔杀家 dayu sha jia) also Collecting the Fishing Tax (《討漁稅》 ""taoyushui""). The play tells the story of Xiao En (whose real identity is Ruan Xiaoqi from ""Water Margin""), a poor fisherman and his daughter who seeks bloody"
"of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and continues to exist in 368 different forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which assumed its present form in the mid-nineteenth century and was extremely popular in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) court. In Beijing Opera, traditional Chinese string instrument and percussion instruments provide a strong rhythmic accompaniment to the acting. The acting is based on allusion: gestures, footwork, and other body movements express such actions as riding a horse, rowing a boat, or opening a door. Spoken dialogue is divided into recitative and Beijing colloquial speech, the former employed by serious characters"
"revival of the full opera was produced at the Berlin Sophiensaelen in 2012. ""The satirical plot envisages bored Chinese gods amusing themselves by exchanging the identities of two of the characters. The eponymous duck brings matters to a happy resolution."" The duck-breeder Yang is taking a duck to the palace when he falls for the charms of Li, the wife of the mandarin. The duck is meanwhile stolen, and the mandarin condemns Yang to death. However, the gods transpose their brains; Yang (now the mandarin) commutes the sentence which would now fall on the mandarin (in Yang's body), and also"
"works started on the buildings. The mansion reopened as ""Prince Kung's Mansion"" on 24 August 2008. It showcases the lives of Manchu nobles and aspects of the Qing dynasty. The Beijing opera house inside the mansion not only stages Beijing operas, but also other prominent forms of Chinese opera. In August 2008, the kunqu performance group from the ""Jiangsu Kunqu House"" performed at Prince Gong's Mansion for a week with their programme ""Floating Dreams"". It is included on the World Monuments Fund's 2018 list of monuments at risk. Prince Gong's Mansion Prince Gong's Mansion, also known as the Prince Kung"
"Fan Wenxian (范聞賢). Over the years the opera series was only performed 3 times due to its length. Later, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered its modification into the Peking opera version, a huge project that lasted from 1898 until 1900 when it was interrupted by the Boxer Rebellion and subsequent foreign invasions. In addition to the plays shown in the Forbidden City, ""qinqiang"", ""yuju"", ""pingju"" and many other local Chinese opera forms have all throughout the centuries developed their own stories about generals of the Yang family. Many of the stories aren't found in novels and have vastly enriched the legends."
"between the Metropolitan Opera and the Los Angeles Opera and was described to be the most elaborate Metropolitan opera production since ""War and Peace"". The protagonist is the real-life emperor Qin Shi Huang, who unified China with force, erected part of the Great Wall, and was buried with his terracotta army. The story of the opera is based on the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (c.145 – 90 BC) and the screenplay of ""The Emperor’s Shadow"" by Wei Lu. Tan Dun was first approached by the Met in 1996 to write an opera. After seeing the film"
"Princess Yu. On June 10, 2012, the theater played host to American comedian Louis CK, who taped an episode of his show ""Louie"" there to an invitation-only audience. Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre The Zhengyici Peking Opera Theatre (), located on a hutong in the Xuanwu District of Beijing, is one of the best-known Beijing opera theatres. It is also one of the oldest wooden theatres in China. Zhengyici means a temple (""ci"") for Zhengyi Xuantan Laozu (正乙玄坛老祖). The theatre was built in 1688, during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. It was built on the ruin"
"of Chinese ""Xìqǔ"" (literally, ""theater of song""), often referred to as Chinese Opera. Notes Citations Sources Turandot (Gozzi) Turandot (1762) is a ""commedia dell'arte"" play by Count Carlo Gozzi after a supposedly Persian story from the collection ""Les Mille et un jours"" (1710–1712) by François Pétis de la Croix (not to be confused with ""One Thousand and One Nights""). Gozzi's ""Turandot"" was first performed at the Teatro San Samuele, Venice, on 22 January 1762. Gozzi's play has given rise to a number of subsequent artistic endeavours, including combinations of: versions/translations by Schiller, Karl Vollmoeller and Brecht; theatrical productions by Goethe,"
"forms like the ""Zaju"" (, variety plays), which acts based on rhyming schemes plus the innovation of having specialized roles like ""Dan"" (旦, female), ""Sheng"" (生, male) and ""Chou"" (丑, Clown), were introduced into the opera. Cantonese opera, which originated from the north and developed over time since, contains many well-known programs such as ""The Purple Hairpin"" and ""Rejuvenation of the Red Plum Flower"", originated from the Yuan Dynasty. The best-known form of Chinese opera is Beijing or Peking opera, which assumed its present form in the mid-19th century and was extremely popular in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). In Beijing"
"Kunqu Kunqu (), also known as Kunju (崑劇), Kun opera or Kunqu Opera, is one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera. It evolved from the Kunshan melody, and dominated Chinese theatre from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The style originated in the Wu cultural area. It is listed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO since 2001. Kunqu singing techniques are said to have been developed during the Ming Dynasty by Wei Liangfu in the port of Taicang, but linked to the songs of nearby Kunshan. Kunqu performance is"
"in both male and female roles. Other important opera traditions include Yongju (of Ningbo), Shaoju (of Shaoxing), Ouju (of Wenzhou), Wuju (of Jinhua), Taizhou Luantan (of Taizhou) and Zhuji Luantan (of Zhuji). Longjing tea (also called dragon well tea), originating in Hangzhou, is one of the most prestigious, if not ""the"" most prestigious Chinese tea. Hangzhou is also renowned for its silk umbrellas and hand fans. Zhejiang cuisine (itself subdivided into many traditions, including Hangzhou cuisine) is one of the eight great traditions of Chinese cuisine. Since ancient times, north Zhejiang and neighbouring south Jiangsu have been famed for their"
"London, 1700–1701. Thomas Arne composed a highly successful score to the same libretto in 1742. The opera ""Le Cinesi"" (""The Chinese Women"") by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1754) concludes with a ballet, ""The Judgement of Paris"", sung as a vocal quartet. Francesco Cilea's 1902 opera ""Adriana Lecouvreur"" also includes a ""Judgement of Paris"" ballet sequence. The story is the basis of an earlier opera, ""Il pomo d'oro"", in a prologue and five acts by the Italian composer Antonio Cesti with a libretto by Francesco Sbarra (1611-1668). It was first performed before the imperial court in a specially constructed open-air theatre Vienna"
"the King's Theatre on 25 November 1766 with Gaetano Guadagni, Savi, Lovattini, Morigi, Quercioli, Piatti, and Michele; and at Covent Garden in English as ""The Accomplish'd Maid"" on 3 December 1866. It was revived as ""La Cecchina"" (with alterations) on 7 February 1928 in Bari (the composer's native city), as part of a celebration of the bicentenary of Piccinni's birth. This opera is said to have been performed by Jesuits in China in 1778, namely at the court of the Qianlong Emperor. The marquis of Conchiglia has fallen in love with Cecchina who is a maid. Shocked by the social"
"opera based on the novel in two acts was composed by Chinese American composer Bright Sheng, with libretto by Sheng and David Henry Hwang. The three-hour opera had its world premiere on September 10, 2016, by the San Francisco Opera. Dream of the Red Chamber Dream of the Red Chamber, also called The Story of the Stone, composed by Cao Xueqin, is one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was written some time in the middle of the 18th century during the Qing dynasty. Long considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature, the novel is generally acknowledged to be the"
"Reform and Opening Up policies, only to experience an even greater revival in the new millennium. Today, Kunqu is performed professionally in seven Mainland Chinese major cities: Beijing (Northern Kunqu Theatre), Shanghai (Shanghai Kunqu Theatre), Suzhou (Suzhou Kunqu Theatre), Nanjing (Jiangsu Province Kunqu Theatre), Chenzhou (Hunan Kunqu Theatre), Yongjia County/Wenzhou (Yongjia Kunqu Theatre) and Hangzhou (Zhejiang Province Kunqu Theatre), as well as in Taipei. Non-professional opera societies are active in many other cities in China and abroad, and opera companies occasionally tour. There are many plays that continue to be famous today, including ""The Peony Pavilion"" and ""The Peach Blossom"
"Guangzhou Opera House Guangzhou Opera House () is a Chinese opera house in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, People's Republic of China. Designed by Zaha Hadid, it opened in 2010. In April 2002 an international architectural competition attracted Coop Himmelb(l)au, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid – each producing detailed designs. In November 2002, Zaha Hadid's ""double pebble"" was announced the winner and the groundbreaking ceremony was held early in 2005. The theatre has become the biggest performing centre in southern China and is one of the three biggest theatres in the nation alongside Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts and Shanghai's"
"the imperial court. The painting illustrates this text with scenes depicting anecdotes about exemplary behaviour of historical palace ladies, as well as with more general scenes showing aspects of life as a palace lady. The painting, which is now held at the British Museum in London, England, is one of the earliest extant examples of a Chinese handscroll painting, and is renowned as one of the most famous Chinese paintings in the world. The painting is first recorded during the latter part of the Northern Song (960–1127), when it was in the collection of Emperor Huizong of Song (r. 1100–1126)."
"Opera, Chuan Opera and Hebei Opera, Qinqiang has developed its own system of unique vocal music, spoken parts, facial makeup, posture, role, category and acting. It can be traced to Xi Qinqiang () in Qin dynasty, and blossomed until Qing dynasty, with direct influences on many branches of Chinese Opera. Zhang Yimou and Gu Changwei are directors from Xi'an. Zhang Yimou is also the only director in China to win the Golden Bear (Berlin Film Festival) twice. The first film is ""Red Sorghum"" and the second one is ""Tuya's Marriage"". They are produced by Xi'an Filmmaking Factory (now called Xi'an"