"Operatic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrill, high sound of discordant reed instruments. When one or more of the characters commits suicide (which as we know is an honoured custom in China) he sings—or rather whines—a long chant before he dies, just as his western operatic colleagues do, as, for instance, Edgar in "Lucia di Lammermoor" and even, to come nearer ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the audience will not get away till the following morning. Juliette must have said, on the above-mentioned occasion, "Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I could say 'good-night' until to-morrow." And the usual chorus of operatic habitues will be, "We won't go home till morning. Till daylight doth appear!" with refrain, "For—she (or he)'s a jolly good singer," &c., ad infinitum, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 31, 1891 • Various
... last get on a little. You did not talk or fuss; you yourself undertook the unaccustomed task of teaching my work to the people. Be sure that no one knows as well as I what it means to bring such a work to light in existing circumstances. Who the deuce does not conduct operatic rehearsals nowadays? You were intent not only upon giving the opera, but upon making it understood and received with applause. That meant to throw yourself into the work body and soul, to sacrifice body ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... his artistic career, and having so announced his intention to the sewing-girls in an impromptu operatic aria, he took easel and paints and went down on the towpath to paint his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Besides the operatic music above mentioned, Burney's known compositions consist of:—(1) Six Sonatas for the harpsichord; (2) Two Sonatas for the harp or piano, with accompaniments for violin and violoncello; (3) Sonatas for two ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... guitar was one of the marvels of the camp. Nor had he an indifferent voice—Prof. De Blanc allowed that if Barber Sam's voice had been cultured at the proper time—by which I suppose he meant in youth—Barber Sam would undoubtedly have become "one of the brightest constellations in the operatic firmament." Moreover, Barber Sam had a winsome presence; a dapper body was he, with a clear olive skin, soulful eyes, a noble mustache, and a splendid suit of black curly hair. His powers of conversation ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed it is a French Canadian by birth and early education—Madame Albani—who {451} not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood, indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently has never attained ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... principal characters are a coxcomb, an idiot, a madman, a savage blackguard, a foolish tavern-keeper, a mean old maid, and a conceited apprentice,—mixed up with a certain quantity of ordinary operatic pastoral stuff, about a pretty Dolly in ribbons, a lover with a wooden leg, and an heroic locksmith. For these latter, the only elements of good, or life, in the filthy mass of the story,[BM] observe that the author must filch the wreck of those old times of which we fiercely ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... wives seem to be mentally summarising the exact cost of each other's toilettes. Their daughters, or somebody else's daughters, are desperately jerking out monosyllabic responses to feeble remarks concerning the weather, lawn tennis, operatic dbutantes, the gravel in the Row, the ill-health of the Princess, and kindred topics from a couple of F.O. men. Little Snapshot, the wit, on the other side of the Gorgon, has tried to lead up to a story, but has found himself, as it were, frozen in the bud. When lo! the butler softly sibillates ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... is to be seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full of charming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderate sum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fair dramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seen enjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,—the mother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of all ages, and the father,—their faces radiant with that mild German light of contentment ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a moral monster, in which form she still treads the operatic stage, and this is the conception which mankind in general have of her. The lover of real poetry regards this romanticist's terrible drama of Lucretia Borgia as a grotesque manifestation of the art, while the historian ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... it difficult to share these emotions. I seem to smell the foot-lights of the opera in these heroic declamations, and indeed poor Napoleon the Little was himself so much of an operatic hero that to exalt him into a classic tyrant seems ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... attained to cosmic consciousness. Nothing more impresses the illumined mind, than the fact that the universe is One—uni—(one)—verse—(song)—one glorious harmony when taken in its entirety, but when broken up and segregated, and set at variance, we find discord, even as the score of a grand operatic composition when played in unison makes perfect harmony but when ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... well-to-do, contented; not in the least the kind of setting demanded by the patriotism which has to be fed on pictures of little girls singing the Marseillaise in Alsatian head-dresses and old men with operatic waistcoats tottering forward to kiss the flag. What we saw at Dannemarie was less conspicuous to the eye but much more nourishing to the imagination. The military and civil administrators had the kindness and patience ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... of Lent the abbe introduced me to all the best dancers and operatic singers in Bologna, which is the nursery of the heroines of the stage. They may be had cheaply enough on their ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... antecedents and circumstances were wrapped in impenetrable mystery. When I arrived in the country the Signorina Christina Nugent had been settled there about a year. She had appeared originally as a member of an operatic company, which had paid a visit to our National Theater from the United States. The company passed on its not very brilliant way, but the signorina remained behind. It was said she had taken a fancy to Whittingham, and, being independent of her profession, ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... When Davenant before the Restoration obtained Cromwell's permission to reintroduce dramatic entertainments, if not plays, music necessarily formed the chief part of the performance. It was in fact an opera, and operatic peculiarities remained after all restriction had been taken off. Scott assigns on the whole far too much influence to the French drama and to the personal predilection of Charles. The subject is a large one, and has never been fully handled, but readers may be referred to the present ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... does not equal in value Lortzing's "Czar and Zimmermann", it has nevertheless proved an admirable addition to the operatic repertory. It is attractive both on account of the freshness of its melodies and the popular character of its ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Calvary Church for a while when the choir was composed of Harry Gates, tenor, Fred Borneman, bass, M.R. Blake, contralto, G.A. Scott, organist. Prof. Ferrer was not a commonplace performer, but played operatic selections of his own arrangement for the guitar that no one else attempted as far as I can recollect. He had a severe time in the beginning as prices for lessons were so low, and he had all he could ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... tragedians, John Edward MacCullough, Lawrence Patrick Barrett, and Barry Sullivan; of genial comedians like Charles Sullivan and Hubert O'Grady; of sterling actors like Shiel Barry, John Brougham, Leonard Boyne, J.D. Beveridge, and Thomas Nerney; or of operatic artists like Denis O'Sullivan and Joseph O'Mara—many of whom have passed away, but some, fortunately, are ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... sometimes secured by the trick of repetition in the chorus, as well as at the beginning and end. The theme may be and usually is the punch, but in the variations there may be punches not suggested by the theme. Themes, semi-classical, or even operatic, or punches of old favorites may be used—but not those of other popular songs—and then it is ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... place. Sasha, however, did not read Hebrew, and old Tevkin had to be content with having the Four Questions read in English, the general answer to them being given by Tevkin and myself in Hebrew. It reminded me of an operatic performance in which the part of Faust, for instance, is sung in French, while that of Margarita is performed in some other language. We went on with the Story of the Deliverance. Tevkin made frequent pauses to explain and comment upon ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... his commercial intentions to that profession in which he was destined to achieve such popularity. His debut was made as an instrumental composer in his twentieth year, but before he had reached his thirtieth he was engrossed with operatic composition. His first two works were unsuccessful; but the third, "La Bergere Chatelaine," proved the stepping-stone to a career of remarkable popularity, during which he produced a large number of dramatic works, which not only secured ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... bride halted; so suddenly indeed, that she had not time to put down both feet, but remained with one high in the air, while the other sustained itself on the light fantastic toe. The company naturally imagined this to be an operatic flourish, which called for approbation. Monsieur Love, who was thundering down behind her, cried, "Bravo!" and as the well-grown gentleman had to make a sweep to avoid disturbing her equilibrium, he came full against the whiskered stranger, and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... out in opera as a buffo. When he had roared his voice away, he went into the chorus. My father was reared in Italy, and looked more Italian than most genuine natives. He had no voice; so he became first accompanist, then chorus master, and finally trainer for the operatic stage. He speculated in an American tour; married out there; lost all his money; and came over to England, when I was only twelve, to resume his business at Covent Garden. I stayed in America, and ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of a bravo of old times, picturesque, disreputable, an operatic Sparafucile in tattered mantle and ragged plume. The other was in a black satin domino, and had the face of a crow, a great black beak ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Lies, all lies, even though she lie melodically with charm and with apparent conviction. We have passionate love-songs sung by guileless individuals who would be inexpressibly shocked if you explained to them the meaning of the sentiment to which they had been giving utterance. There are operatic scenas, dealing with abduction and all sorts of uncomfortable situations, and again youngsters declaim of their somewhat indecorous emotions with gusto and—let us hope—a sublime insensibility of all that they ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... given to his professional duties in deliberately cultivating the society of Bertram and his friends. To this extent he met with no difficulty, for he found that M. J. Arkwright, the new star in the operatic firmament, was obviously a welcome comrade. Beyond this it was not so easy. Arkwright wondered, indeed, sometimes, if he were making any progress at ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... manifestly impossible. But the professor imagines that the methods of calculation by which such results are obtained are the same as those employed by politicians in estimating their majorities on the eve of election day, by millionaires in paying their personal taxes, and by operatic sopranos in figuring out their age. The influence of a newspaper depends, of course, upon its circulation. Such influence is exercised directly in the form of news and editorial comment, and indirectly in ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... the dishonesty of even suggesting a longer engagement to mademoiselle. The rate of payment would be very much higher, ve-ry, ve-ry, ve-ry much higher when mademoiselle's voice should have once been heard on the boards of a true operatic theatre. M. Le Gros had done himself the honour of being present on one or two occasions at the Charing Cross little playhouse. He did believe himself to have some small critical judgment in musical matters. He thought he might venture—he ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... perhaps, be as well to mention that the date selected for the entertainment was Saturday, just two nights ahead. For that same night a grand operatic concert was announced, under the patronage of an aspiring clique, in another part of the town. Good artists, though somewhat ancient, were billed to take part in it. The craze for the antique then, as now, had no such ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... Bull, Mozart, Handel, and Mendelssohn, And fair Parepa, whose matchless tone Karl, her master, with magic bow, Blent with the angels', and held her so Tranced till the rapturous Infinite— And I've heard arias, faint and low, From many an operatic light Glimmering on my swimming sight Dimmer and dimmer, until, at last, I still sit, holding my roses fast For 'The ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... shop-window at night without taking his clothes off. He was a gaunt man with a red nose, long but scanty black locks covered by a smoking-cap, and a luxuriant black moustache. He smoked a long clay pipe, and had the air of a broken-down operatic villain. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... and recrossing the swift St. Charles, it finally rises at Lorette above the level of the citadel. It is a lonelier road than that to Montmorenci, and the scattering cottages upon it have not the well-to-do prettiness, the operatic repair, of stone-built Beauport. But they are charming, nevertheless, and the people seem to be remoter from modern influences. Peasant-girls, in purple gowns and broad straw hats, and not the fashions of the year before last, now and then appeared to our ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... music, with great display of knowledge concerning things operatic. First one, then another went to the piano and ran through some motif that the rest hummed a little first, then shouted in a rousing chorus. Then they drank more, amid a perfect fracas of talk and laughter. Ivan Petrovitch and Athanase Georgevitch walked across and kissed the general. ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... confirmed the traditional theory of the soothing effect of music upon wild animals. A graphophone, with records of Melba, Sembrich, Caruso, and other operatic stars, made the rounds of a menagerie. Many of the larger animals appeared to thoroughly enjoy listening to the melodious strains, which seemed to fascinate them. The one exception, proving the rule, was a huge, blue-faced mandrill, who ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... feelings; they came back, with the scene of their birth-place. Again he lounged with his brother officers upon the shabby pier at the shabby watering-place, listening to a dreary band with a cornet that was a note and a half flat. Again he heard the old operatic airs, and again she came tripping toward him, leaning on her old father's arm, and pretending (with such a charming, delicious, serio-comic pretense) to be listening to the music, and quite unaware of the admiration of half a dozen open-mouthed cavalry officers. Again the old ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... from offering a single recommendable quality. The only style of composition in which the Abbe de Voisenon might have, perhaps, distinguished himself, had he been seconded by an intelligent musician, was the operatic. In this baladin talent of his there was something of the freedom and sparkle of the Italian abbes; and yet the Abbe de Voisenon enjoyed during his life-time a high degree of celebrity. Seeing the utter impossibility of justifying this celebrity by his works, we must presume ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... the same fat Englishwoman who had driven Arithelli's horses in the chariot. She was by no means young, she had applied her rouge with a lavish hand, and her golden wig was an outrage. Her airs and graces were those of a well-fed operatic soprano. ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... a weakness for the operatic can peruse Rousseau's Social Contract and the Declaration of the Rights of Man published in the great French Revolution. As an antidote, I suggest Bentham's ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... 6,000 persons, and when crowded held 7,000. There was still some debt on the building, for the entire enterprise had cost us about $400,000. There were regrets expressed that we did not follow the elaborate custom of some fashionable churches in these days and introduce into our services operatic music. I preferred the simple form of sacred music—a cornet and organ. Everybody should get his call from God, and do his work in his own way. I never had any sympathy with dogmatics. There is no church on earth in which there is more freedom of utterance ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... relentlessly pursuing one channel. Monsieur," went on Carl, lazily lighting his own cigarette and staring into his companion's face with a look of level-eyed interest, "Monsieur has been praying ardently for—opportunities, is it not so? 'I will humor this mad fool who motors about in the rain like an operatic comet!' says Monsieur inwardly, 'for I am, of course, a stranger to him. Then, without arousing undue interest, I may presently escape into the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... passage in which Adam tells his thoughts upon first falling asleep, soon after his creation. This passage he contrasts with the same apprehension of Annihilation ascribed to Eve in a much lower sense by Dryden in his operatic version of Paradise Lost. In Tatlers and Spectators Steele and Addison had been equal contributors to the diffusion of a sense of Milton's genius. In Addison it had been strong, even when, at Oxford, in April, 1694, a young man trained in the taste of the day, he omitted ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... impressed by JOHANN FRIEDRICH AGRICOLA (1720-1774), court composer and director of the royal chapel to Frederick the Great. This Agricola was a pupil of Bach, and a fine organist and clever writer on music, especially on operatic style, the problems of which were beginning to be raised by French writers-and composers in preparation for ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... following the manager was a tall man with rather a severe look in his eyes. It happened to be Lord Kitchener, followed by his personal private secretary. For a moment there came a dead silence, immediately relieved by the strains of the band beginning an operatic overture and the dinner proceeded. At the end of dinner all officers in uniform were notified to interview a staff officer previous to leaving the hotel. Within two days the number of officers frequenting the Mount Nelson ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... spiteful enough; but he soon recovered his cynical egotism, and went off whistling an operatic passage. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... it is! Miss Falconer and I are very good friends; and of course I like to talk to her—she's so sharp, almost as smart and clever as you are, when she likes to take the trouble; and of course I like to hear her sing—Why, my dear Howard, it's like listening to one of the big operatic swells; but—but to suggest that there is anything—that—there is any reason to warn me—Oh, dash it! come off it, old man, ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... the chevalier which would have made him noticeable from Paris to Pekin, was the gentle paternity of his manner to grisettes. They reminded him of the illustrious operatic queens of his early days, whose celebrity was European during a good third of the eighteenth century. It is certain that the old gentleman, who had lived in days gone by with that feminine nation now as much forgotten as many other ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... This operatic element appeared in the rising itself, when a fire-escape, skilfully disguised to resemble a Maxim gun, was moved backward and forward across the stage at Johannesburg for the purpose of frightening the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... the MS. journal of a highly respectable traveller, is a more correct account: "In 1812 a Signor Guariglia induced several young persons of both sexes—none of them exceeding fifteen years of age—to accompany him on an operatic excursion; part to form the opera, and part the ballet. He contrived to get them on board a vessel, which took them to Janina, where he sold them for the basest purposes. Some died from the effect of the climate, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... agent as the voyager, much to the disgust of the people who strained their eyes until darkness sent every one home. The agent having reached the limit of his credit in Ferrara, as he had at the town up the river, secretly disappeared to the shades of Milan, where it is supposed that he resumed his operatic career. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... incorrect, and certain that the music was not over good. Therefore he was silent. This piqued Lottie, for one of her purposes in the choice of what she sang was to impress him, from the barbarous West, with the idea of her superior culture. At last she said, "I fear you do not like operatic and classical ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... capricious public, and he saw in the girl many of the requisites for success—not only the voice, so far unspoiled by bad training, but the sensitiveness, the beauty, even the splendid physical strength necessary to that most strenuous of all professions, operatic singing. It flattered his vanity to realize that he was the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... that's all and quite enough, and please let us have no more explanations. We might quarrel. Don't be afraid of anyone, I take it all on myself. I am horrid and capricious, I was fascinated by that operatic boat, I am a young lady... but you know I did think that you were dreadfully in love with me. Don't despise the poor fool, and don't laugh at the tear that dropped just now. I am awfully given to ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... profit of an alien Government. What were the Italians? No people, no voice in European counsels, no massive power in European affairs: a race thought of in English and French society as chiefly adapted to the operatic stage, or to serve as models for painters; disposed to smile gratefully at the reception of halfpence; and by the more historical remembered to be rather polite than truthful, in all probability a combination ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... prima donna." And while he sat with closed eyes during the third act, wondering whether he should believe the critics in the flesh, or their criticisms in the columns of their respective journals, he saw rehearsed before him a new operatic perversion of MACBETH, as unlike the original as even VERDI'S MACBETTO, and quite as inexplicable to the unsophisticated mind. And this is what ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... bungled," expressed his fear that the country would be thrown back for 500 years into barbarism, and the Countess Guiccioli confessed with tears that the Italians must return to composing and strumming operatic airs. Carbonarism having collapsed, it of course made way for a reaction; but the encouragement and countenance of the English poet and peer helped to keep alive the smouldering fire that Mazzini fanned into a flame, till Cavour turned it to ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... COVENT GARDEN.—Opening of Italian Opera last Saturday, with Aida. Very well done. "Wait" between Second and Third Act too long: "Waiters" in Gallery whistling. Wind whistling, too, in Stalls. Operatic and rheumatic. Rugs and fur capes might be kept on hire by Stall-keepers. Airs in Aida delightful: draughts in Stalls awful. Signor LAGO called before Curtain to receive First Night congratulations. Signor LAGO ought to do good business "in front," ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various
... operatic performance there could be no thought. The Chancellor cancelled his engagement, and the young men who had assembled for the rehearsals went quietly home. Herr von Erfft gave Daniel a considerable purse with which he might recompense his musicians for their trouble, and, not wishing ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto—hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw—yes! Retired from operatic stage—ha! Living in London—quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and is now desirous of ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... only known you two months, since the day we accidentally met, leaving Paris for Bayreuth. You have written your mother nothing of our engagement—well, provisional engagement, if you will—and you insist on sticking to the operatic stage. I loathe it, and I confess to you that I am sick with jealousy when I see you near that lanky, ill-favored German tenor Burgmann." "What, poor, big me!" she interjected, in teasing accents. "Yes, you, Fridolina. I can quite sympathize with what you tell me ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... him, she had in fact sought for such an encounter. It was in the great armoury. Leonard, as soon as he perceived his wife, began humming some mad operatic tune, an opera bouffe air and bawled through the door to the dog-keeper to ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... preparations for the dinner and ball at the Bivens palace on Riverside Drive. The solution of the whole problem flashed through his mind in an instant. They would have professional singers without a doubt, the great operatic stars and others. If Harriet could only be placed on the programme for a single song it would be settled! Her voice would sweep Bivens off his feet and charm the brilliant throng of guests. He would have to accompany her there of course. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... could sing the song remarkably well. The children had practised this piece faithfully and diligently and purposed to surprise their mother by singing and playing it that very evening. After the Count and Countess had sung several operatic selections, the father turned to his children, saying: "Let us hear what you can do." Albert seated himself at the piano and played, while Marguerite modestly sang in ...
— After Long Years and Other Stories • Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne
... education and absorption, he was apt to be most fastidious in the choice of a wife. Fastidiousness in everything was, in fact, one of his traits. One has but to recall how, one after another, he rejected the subjects that were offered him for operatic composition. "I am afraid," said his father, who was quite anxious to see his famous son properly settled in life, "that Felix's censoriousness will prevent his getting a wife ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... recognize the operatic air, so admirably modified and retarded it was, and its former rapid words replaced by a sad and touching theme, which called for noble endurance in one borne down by suffering. The accompaniment consisted ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... only when it was broad day. It was, however, to be one of the longest days in her calendar, and by noon she felt as though she had been waiting for years in expectation of she did not know what. She tried to read, but found it impossible to fix her attention on the book. She began to run over some operatic scores on the piano, but the sound seemed to ring so oddly that she gave up this also. Between her mother and herself conversation languished—and thus the slow hours wore on. She could not but think how infinitely more desirable it was to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... of this monster troupe has the honor of announcing to the ladies and gentlemen of Tyre, that Mons. BELITZ, accompanied by his entire retinue of attaches and supes, Female Dancers and Dogs, Operatic Vocalists and Vixens, Royal Musicians and Monsters, Bengal Tigers and Time-servers, Magicians and Madmen, Flying Birds, Swimming Fishes, Walking Cats and Dogs, Crawling Reptiles, and various other extraordinary and impossible arrangements, the like of which never before appeared in Bog county, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... often now through sermon trite And operatic singer's flight, I long for that old friendly sight, The hand with herbs of value light, To ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Mrs. Spicer counseled briskly, "Better stick tight to rules, my dear. This Madame knows her business, it seems, and if your operatic friend, says three, it must be as she commands. Thank goodness, she didn't tell you ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... to Miss Church-Member, and seemed unlike anything she had ever heard. The operatic rendition of the music, the ritualistic cast of the prayer and the soothing effect of the rhetorical essay which took the place of a sermon, all exercised a ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... Nature than the trio in "I Puritani" is like conversation. Turner never dreamed of painting like Nature, and no sane man ever saw or can see, in this world, Nature in the colors in which he has painted her, any more than he will find men conducting business in operatic notes. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... peon is picturesque, and to the foreign observer ever strikes a note of almost operatic strain. As the sun sets the peon dons his poncho, or serape, as the red blanket which is his invariable outer garment is termed. In the cool air of the morning or evening he speaks but little, covering his mouth with a corner of the serape, ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... a firtuoso!" grumbled a big German at John's side. John turned to him and smiled. The man, he knew, was Anton Karrosch an operatic impresario. He was glad to have his own impression of the wondrous merit of the ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... walk together one evening, to hear music in the Luxembourg Gardens. As we approached them, the clock on the old building of the Chamber of Peers struck eight, and at once the band commenced playing some operatic airs of exquisite beauty. Now a gay and enlivening passage was performed, and then a mournful air, or something martial and soul-stirring. The music ceased at nine, and a company of soldiers marched to the drum around the frontiers of the gardens, to notify all who were in it that the gates ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... Frangcon-Davies, M.A., 1906.) It is perhaps an exaggeration of the condition to call it "insufficiency and decay." Yet a gradual decline in the art of singing must be apparent to any lover of the art who has listened to most of the famous singers of the past twenty or twenty-five years. Operatic performance has been improved in every other respect, but pure singing, the perfection of the vocal art, has become almost a rarity. This is true not only of coloratura singing; it applies with almost equal force to the use of the singing voice for the purpose ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... country; for to-day, being Sunday, more entertainment is to be met with in Copenhagen than on any other day of the week. The theatres are all open, and the casino, sacred by the royal presence of Christian, lures, with its sweet tones of operatic music, the prudish Englishman from thoughts of Paradise and the fourth commandment. Moses, Daniel, and the Chronicles are quite forgotten; and, putting Ecclesiastes in our pocket, we are going to ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... composer, as a violinist respectable, even in a corps which included Reicha, Romberg, Ries. He had been reared in the severe Saxon school of the Bachs, and before coming to Bonn had had much experience as music director of an operatic company. He knew the value of the maxim, Festina lente, and was wise enough to understand, that no lofty and enduring structure can be reared, unless the foundations are broad and deep,—that sound and exhaustive study of canon, fugue, and counterpoint is as necessary ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... Theatre—first working under the stage, then behind the flys, then upon the stage itself. He thus acquired a familiarity with work, and cultivated an architectural taste, to which the diversity of the mechanical employment about a large operatic establishment is peculiarly favourable. When the theatre closed for the season, he worked a sailing-ship between London and some of the French ports, carrying on at the same time a profitable trade. ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Max Maretzek appeared in New York and at once entered the operatic field, with which he was prominently occupied during ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... coolness never deserted her, for she was as temperamental as a fish, and, for all the sunny white and gold of her surface, she had the shallow restlessness of a meadow brook. At twelve years of age she had devoted herself to music and had planned an operatic career; at fourteen, she had turned to literature, and was writing a novel; and a year later, encouraged by her practical mother, she had plunged into the movement for woman suffrage, and had marched, ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... peeresses, prosperous City financiers, celebrities of the drama and of the operatic stage, luminaries of the law, diplomats, and rich retired traders who had shed the "tradesman" and blossomed into "gentleman," jostled one another in the rooms and on the stairs. It is surprising how people will rush to the ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... Bible narrative into simple verse, and I will do the rest." We know with what care and success he accomplished his delicate task. Meanwhile he gave Massenet the texts for Marie-Madeleine and Le Roi de Lahore, and these two works created a great stir in the operatic world. ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... An amateur operatic company had been started in the town, and all the musical talent among the younger generation had been stirred up to take part in what was regarded as a pleasant occupation for winter evenings with the pleasurable anticipation of the excitement of a public performance ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... professional troups occupy the stage; presenting a fine variety, of wholesome dramas and operas. In this way, the stage of this farm theatre, is made to represent and reflect, the passing progress of the dramatic and operatic world. During the intervals between these star-company weeks, the home-talent club, presents regular, tri-weekly performances, under the supervision of a skillful director. The remaining nights are as a rule, pretty well utilized by the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Kemble, the last of the family who redeemed for a time the fallen fortunes of Covent Garden Theatre, Adelaide, the beautiful and accomplished younger daughter of Charles Kemble, brother to John Kemble and Sarah Siddons, came out as an operatic-singer in the part of "Norma." She was welcomed as her sweet voice, fine acting, and the traditions of her family deserved. She was invited to sing at the palace. From girlhood the Queen had been familiar with the Kembles in their connection with the English stage. The last ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... boon companions was the doctor's laboratory, which was divided from the house by a moderately large garden. Here on a Sunday evening one might meet the very "latest" composer, the sculptor bringing a new "message," or the man destined to supplant with the ballet the time-worn operatic tradition. ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... were all conducted by means of the Edison phonograph. This included the dedicatory speech of Governor Hughes, of New York; the modest remarks of Mr. Edison, as president; the congratulations of the presidents of several national electric bodies, and a number of vocal and instrumental selections of operatic nature. All this was heard clearly by a very large audience, and was repeated on other evenings. The same speeches were used again phonographically at the Electrical Show in Chicago in 1909—and ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Monday 23.—Operatic world all agog to hear, and to see, Le Prophete. First appearance for many years. Great things expected of JEAN DE RESZKE as Jean of Leyden, and Mlle. RICHARD as Fides. Great expectations not disappointed. Scene in Cathedral magnificent as a spectacle. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... their attention distracted from the main issue. For what, in God's name, did he and his sentimental love-carrollings amount to, this pretty fellow of a player, this fictitious hero of the modern, Neapolitan, operatic stage? Weighed in the balances, he and his whole occupation and calling were lighter, surely, than vanity itself? Rightly considered, he and his singing were but as a spangle, as some glittering trifle of tinsel, upon the veil still hiding the awful, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... under consideration. Marcia was a proficient upon the harp and piano, and, as she had heard that Mr. Greenleaf, the handsome painter, as she called him, was a fine singer, she determined to practise some operatic duets with him, that should move all her musical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... seals; light fancy pants, embroidered slippers, white hose, blue cravat, smoking cap, ruffled bosom and wristbands. Countenance sober, eyes raised to one of the engravings on the wall. Light of medium brightness, which may come from either side of the stage. Music of operatic style. ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head
... removal of the tumor and ligated the bleeding vessels later. Rose tied each vessel before cutting, proceeding slowly. Senn remarks that in 1878 he witnessed one of Rose's operations which lasted for four hours. Although the operatic technic of removal of the thyroid gland for tumor has been greatly perfected by Billroth, Lucke, Julliard, Reverdin, Socin, Kocher, and others, the current opinion at the present day seems to be that complete extirpation of the thyroid gland, except for malignant ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... exercise a world redeeming power, and promote all social advancement, must appear strange, when first mentioned to those who are familiar only with fashionable operatic performances and the heartless style of vocal and instrumental music in vogue at the centres of musical education, which is robbed as thoroughly as possible of all ethical life, all ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... charging his pipe. I felt extremely embarrassed all at once, but became positively annoyed when I saw our Prax enter the cafe in a sort of mediaeval costume very much like what Faust wears in the third act. I have no doubt it was meant for a purely operatic Faust. A light mantle floated from his shoulders. He strode theatrically up to our table and addressing me as "Young Ulysses" proposed I should go outside on the fields of asphalt and help him gather a few marguerites to decorate a truly infernal supper which was being organized across ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... stuffed with saw-dust, continually expatiating on the sufferings of early Christians. I have never read Fox's Book of Martyrs. With Mrs. Lucretia McSimpkins I had some relief. She was fond of operatic music, and, it is true, banged our piano out of tune at every visit,—indeed, her efforts resembled a boiler-maker's establishment under full headway; but, when she did subside, her perfect and ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... can talk about your music, and your operatic airs, And your phonographic record that Caruso's tenor bears; But there isn't any music that such wondrous joy can bring Like the concert when the kiddies and their ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... "Corsica" sometimes sung to the words, though written by the famous Von Gluck, shows no sign of the genius of its author. Born at Weissenwang, near New Markt, Prussia, July 2, 1714, he spent his life in the service of operatic art, and is called "the father of the lyric drama," but he paid little attention to sacred music. Queen Marie Antoinette was for a while his pupil. Died ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... another text,—and so speaks as to leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater- Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular operatic composer?—of the opera "Romulus?"—of his correspondence with Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so many innocent Christians to be murdered could not summon up resolution to die. He devised every operatic incident of which he could think. When even his most degraded slaves urged him to have sufficient manliness to save himself from the fearful infamies which otherwise awaited him, he ordered his grave to be dug, and fragments of marble to be collected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... evening. I'm a bit of a critic, Artie; by hook or by crook, you know, paper or money, I've heard every good opera, comic or serious, that's been given in London these last thirty years, and I flatter myself I know something by this time about operatic criticism.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... was she in trying operatic effects that she did not notice an approaching automobile until it came to a stop ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... besides this affair of the curate. Her own sister, Mrs. Jekyll, had a most unhappy life; through no fault of her own, I am sorry to say. She ultimately was so broken-hearted that she went into a convent, or on to the operatic stage, I forget which. No; I think it was decorative art-needlework she took up. I know she had lost all sense of pleasure in life. [Rising.] And now, Gertrude, if you will allow me, I shall leave Mrs. Cheveley in your charge and call ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... he drew 13, "all ye've got ter do is this—313." I gasped in amazement, not at his cleverness as a brand-destroyer, but at his honest abandon. With a horrible operatic laugh, such as is painted in "The Cossack's Answer," he again laboriously drew () (the circle cross), and then added some marks which made it look like this: S()S. And again breaking into his devil's "ha, ha!" said, "Make ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... beginning another. Play it for Tom, Jenny, after you've sung awhile. There's one thing I've made up my mind to—if I had fifty girls, I'd have 'em all learn music if they didn't know anything—not the operatic kind, you know, but enough to teach them to sing to a man like Jenny does. Go ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... want to know how I come to be here. You are to learn then that Mr. Koenig happened to be one of my patients in the hospital, he having gone there for a slight operation, and I having helped to nurse him through what he calls his 'operatic cure.' In the course of that ordeal he had music of a less excruciating kind sometimes, it seems, and after his return home he searched for me all over London on account of my voice, and finding me unexpectedly at last he sent his wife to Mrs. Jupe's ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... carriage was ordered between three and four o'clock, and that in spite of the insufferable heat of the day the two invalids (so very differently disabled) were driven to the Central Park, were driven around it, heard Dodworth's Band perform half a dozen operatic selections as only that cornet-band can perform them, saw the loungers on the grass, the promenaders on the walks, the boats on the pond which is called a lake, and all the picturesque features of that Saturday-afternoon ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... entirely departed from any pretence of allusion to Christ-tide, and play indifferently the last things out in dance music, operatic airs, or music-hall songs; and they act upon people according to their various temperaments, some liking to "hear the waits," whilst others roundly anathematise them for ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... interest for the public which did not translate itself to me. As far as the more visible commerce of the more sight-seen parts of the Thames is concerned, it is as unimpressive as may be. It has nothing of the dramatic presence of the shipping in the Hudson or the East River, with its light operatic touches in the gayly painted Sound and North River steamboats. You must go as far at least as Stepney on the Thames before you begin to realize that London is the largest port, as well as the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the way, Brunhilde was put to sleep for interfering somehow or other in the love affairs of Siegfried's mother and father, who are really sister and brother. If you think of it, the story is extremely indecent, but operatic things never seem to be shocking; music, apparently, covers a multitude of naughtiness, like charity is reported to do. Very likely that's why Mrs. —— is always doing so much for institutions and what not—for her sins, I suppose. I always thought she was a naughty old hypocrite! ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... memoirs seem worthy of credit. According to Mademoiselle, the Empress during her stay at Aix-la- Chapelle, drank the waters with much eagerness and some hope. As the theatre there was only supplied with some German singers who were not to Josephine's taste, she had part of a French operatic company sent to her from Paris. The amiable creole had always a most royal disregard of expense. When Bonaparte joined her, he renewed his old custom of visiting his wife now and then at her toilet, and according to Mademoiselle Avrillion, he took great interest in the subject of her dressing. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... at her back had a map of the district and blank telegrams, one of which he filled in every now and then, and scribbled a hasty letter to the same address. He was a sharp-faced middle-aged man of business; Joseph Ashmead, operatic and theatrical agent—at his wits' end; a female singer at the Homburg Opera had fallen really ill; he was commissioned to replace her, and had only thirty hours to do it in. So he was hunting a singer. What the lady was hunting can never be known, unless she ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... orders. Can't have authors monkeying around here.' As he spoke Goldwater's voice rose from the neighbouring stage in an operatic melody, and reduced Pinchas's brain to chaos. A despairing sense of strange plots and treasons swept over him. He ran back to the lobby. The doors had been bolted. He beat against them with his cane and his fists and his toes till a tall ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... will be of most value to him. The teacher should see that the course he prescribes is unified. There should be no waste material. Some teachers are inclined to teach pieces of a worthless order to gain the fickle interest of some pupils. They feel that it is better to teach an operatic arrangement, no matter how superficial, and retain the interest of the pupil, than to insist upon what they know is really best for the pupil, and run the risk of having the pupil go to another teacher less conscientious about making compromises of this sort. ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... filled with the Spirit is that those who are thus filled will speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in their hearts to the Lord. Men who are filled with the Holy Spirit will not be singing sentimental ballads, not comic ditties, nor operatic airs while the power of the Holy Ghost is upon them. If the Holy Ghost should come upon any one while listening to one of the most innocent of the world's songs, he would not enjoy it, he would long to hear something about Christ. Men who are baptized with ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... our most successful operatic managers—impressario, I believe, is the more correct appellation—was about to produce the opera of "Salome," which had been taken off the rival stage after its first performance, on the assumption ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... Mrs. McNabb that Splinterin' Andra was a dour old man. But he felt no apprehensions; his sunny smile and his charming manner had often swept away greater obstacles than this old fellow's crustiness. So he strode along in high spirits, flicking the tops off the wayside weeds, whistling a gay operatic air and incidentally wondering whether her eyes were ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... an academy and a kit fiddle, but the domestic relations of the female remain a profound mystery; and although Professors Tom Duncombe, Count D'Orsay, Chesterfield, and several other eminent Italian-operatic natural historians, have spent immense fortunes in an ardent pursuit of knowledge in this branch of science, they have as yet afforded the world but a small modicum of information. Perhaps what they have learned is not of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... for great things from this new departure. It is rare enough for an operatic performer to be capable of both singing and acting, or to be alike beautiful to look on and to listen to. Once we have accepted the convention by which an actor's lips are allowed to move in one part of the stage while the sound comes from a totally different ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... modern discontent there is lurking always this queer anomaly of the chorus. We have in our modern theatre no chorus, and when, in the opera, something of the nature of a chorus appears in the ballet, it is a chorus that really dances to amuse and excite us in the intervals of operatic action; it is not a chorus of doddering and pottering old men, moralizing on an action in which they are too feeble to join. Of course if we are classical scholars we do not cavil at the choral songs; the extreme difficulty of ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... music, of which there are such eloquent examples in all his operas. During his three and a half years' sojourn in Paris, just at the opening of his career as an opera composer (1839-1842), he learned many things regarding operatic scenery, machinery, processions, and details, which he subsequently turned to good account. Even Meyerbeer, the ruler of the musical world in Paris at that time, was not without influence on him, though he had cause to disapprove of him because of his submission to the demands of the fashionable ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... thank you for your song, or, rather, your two songs,—your new song on love, and your old song on religion. [1] I admire the first sincerely, and in turn call upon you to admire the following on Anacreon Moore's new operatic farce, [2] or farcical opera—call ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... expert performer, a piano should be chosen for softness and richness of tone, instead of brilliancy. For most households the old cottage organ is a more practicable instrument than the "concert grand" often found in a small parlor, where its piercing notes, especially in combination with operatic singing, are so confined that tones and overtones, which should assist each other, mingle in jarring confusion. Indeed, when the parlor is large and high, a genuine pipe-organ built in a recess and harmonizing in finish with the woodwork of the room is not ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... American art and life; the overthrow of that rgime in obedience to the command of fashion; the subsequent dawn and development of the liberal and comprehensive policy which marked the climax of the career of Maurice Grau as an operatic director, I have witnessed since then, many of the fruits of wise endeavor and astute management frittered away by managerial incapacity and greed, and fad and fashion come to rule again, where for a brief, but eventful period, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... considered to be one of the pre-eminent classical music figures of the Western world. This German musical genius created numerous works that are firmly entrenched in the repertoire. Except for a weakness in composing vocal and operatic music (to which he himself admitted, notwithstanding a few vocal works like the opera "Fidelio" and the song "Adelaide,"), Beethoven had complete mastery of the artform. He left his stamp in 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 10 violin sonatas, 32 piano sonatas, numerous string ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... the tones of a cherished voice. Electric wires, connected with the vast buildings wherein instruments produce what sounds like fine choral singing as well as musical notes, enable the householder to turn on at pleasure music equal, I suppose, to the finest operatic performances or the grandest oratorio, and listen to it at leisure from the cushions of his own peristyle. This was a great though not wholly new delight to Eunane and most of her companions. For their sake only would Eveena ever have resorted to it, for though ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... includes the whole general character or distinctive impression of any given workmanship in Art, and so is applicable to the Drama; as when we speak of a writer's tragic or comic style, or of such and such dramas as being in too operatic a style. The peculiarities of Shakespeare's style in this sense have been involved in the foregoing sections; so that I shall have no occasion to speak further of them in this general survey of the Poet's Art. The more restrained and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Roger and I should not discuss the opera business, but we didn't. That it hurt him I knew, for I knew Roger. Anglo-Saxon to the backbone, the position which his wife as a successful operatic star must put him in could be nothing but highly distasteful to him. It is one thing to snatch your wife from the stage, as Margarita's noble grandfather had done, and enjoy her in your home; it is quite another to see her snatched from your home to that stage, after ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... tennis tournament or a golf championship. But when you Hollanders are bursting with pride of place and achievement, and offering energy and brains to help Britishers along, I just feel as if you'd got to be told a few home-truths for your good. Now I'm going to liven the meeting with a little operatic music," and she tripped indoors to the piano. Van Hert shrugged his shoulders expressively, and then stood silently beside Meryl for some moments looking into the night. And as he stood he became conscious of a vague sort of dissatisfaction ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... unknown to me, which Antonio and Piero performed with incomparable spirit. It was noticeable how, descending to the people, sung by them for love at sea, or on excursions to the villages round Mestre, these operatic reminiscences had lost something of their theatrical formality, and assumed instead the serious gravity, the quaint movement, and marked emphasis which belong to popular music in Northern and Central Italy. An antique character was communicated even to the recitative of Verdi by slight, ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... of the ground were stationed four immense men, magnificently formed. A fifth approached this group, paused a moment, and then threw his head back, gazed up into the sky in the manner of a cock and gave a smooth, clear operatic tone. Instantly the little black ball went up between the two middle rushers, in the midst of yells, cheers and war-whoops. Both men endeavored to catch it in the air; but alas! each interfered with the ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... second-rate, its temporary disappearance is not altogether to be regretted. The class of opera company that usually comes out here may be imagined when I tell you that Rose Hersee was a favourite prima donna! There are now sufficient resident operatic singers of the third class to perform opera without assistance from European stars; but by themselves these purely colonial companies do not draw well, except in pieces of the 'Patience,' or 'Tambour-Major' type. The ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... Directly behind that end of the counter stood a Gothic brass-mounted beer-pump, at whose faucets Mr. Snelling, the landlord, flooded you five or six mugs in the twinkling of an eye, and raised the vague expectation that he was about to grind out some popular operatic air. At the left of the pump stretched a narrow mirror, reflecting he gaily-colored wine-glasses and decanters which stood on each other's shoulders, and held up lemons, and performed various acrobatic feats on a shelf in ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... complete the illusion of a great operatic scene, fairy-like but sinister, before which our bent and black party crawls and splashes, behold a red star, and then a green; then a sheaf of red fire, very much tardier. In our ranks, as the available half of our pairs of eyes watch the display, we cannot help murmuring ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... know,' he said with emphasis. 'I assure you that I know. I have seen a great deal of operatic people. A few, and they are not generally the great ones, try to lead their own lives, as you put it, but they either don't succeed at all or else they make themselves so disagreeable to their fellow artists ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... there, facing each other, both embarrassed by the long silence, the military band began to play under the trees in the garden. They played one of those Italian operatic overtures which seem to have been written expressly for public open-air resorts; the swiftly-flowing notes, as they rise into the air, blend with the call of the swallows and the silvery plash of the fountain. The blaring brass brings out in bold relief the mild ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... golden wine, which loaned to it its sparkling warmth, recalled the former heroine of the dainty suppers after the play, the Crenmitz of the good old days, not an audacious hussy after the style of our modern operatic stars, but entirely unaffected and nestling contentedly in her splendor like a fine pearl in its mother-of-pearl shell. Felicia, who was certainly determined to be agreeable to everybody that evening, ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... voice now commands thousands of dollars on the operatic stage, was placed under training at the joint expense of her benefactress ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts |
