"Operatical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Boy—how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And yet I have never felt that way—thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she was right. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That is for tragedy queens, operatic stars, and—the women we do not talk about! ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... His smile crushed me. I know better now. I know that clerks in box-offices, with their correct neckties and their air of continually doing wonders over the telephone, are not, after all, the grand masters of the operatic world. I know that that manner of theirs is merely a part of their attire, like their cravats; that they are not really responsible for the popularity of great sopranos; and that they probably go home at nights ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... 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
... Italian and singing lessons, for as it happens she will enjoy an unique opportunity of studying both those things. For living in this village is an Italian lady, a certain Madame Margherita Martelli, who was once a famous operatic singer, but who lost her voice after a very short career. She lives here so as to be near her only daughter, who married a clergyman in Chailfield. She is by no means well off, and will be very glad ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... fire,—and the distinguished tenor, who had travelled all the way from Buda Pesth in haste, so that he might 'create' the chief role in the work of his friend Valdor, began to feel that there was something more in operatic singing than the mere inflation of the chest, and the careful production of perfectly-rounded notes. Valdor himself played the various violin solos which occurred frequently throughout the piece, and never failed to evoke a storm of rapturous ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... Didn't you see that most of the people were strangers? How could Lady Adela be sure that she was not wounding somebody's susceptibilities by having operatic music on a Sunday evening? She knew nothing at all about half those people; they were merely names to her, that she had collected round her in order that she might count herself in among ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... Yet that had once been an attractive, cheerful property, and there had been much feasting and revelry there not long before. It had been laid out for the famous singer who had sold it to Jenkins, and it exhibited traces of the imaginative genius peculiar to the operatic stage, in the bridge across the pond, where there was a sunken wherry filled with water-soaked leaves, and in its summer-house, all of rockwork, covered with climbing ivy. It had seen some droll sights, had that summer-house, in the singer's time, and now it saw some ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the gipsies, in common with waterfalls and ruined castles, belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the world, from which the last thrill has long since departed. They are, so to say, public poetry, the public property of the emotions, and no longer touch the private heart or stir the private imagination. Our fathers felt so ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... 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
... and sound oratory, but of hoboes blinking in rows, and girls in gospel bonnets, and little silver and crimson placards of Bible texts. They stopped on a corner to listen to a Pentecostal brother, to an I. W. W. speaker, to a magnificent negro who boomed in an operatic baritone that the Day of Judgment was coming on April 11, 1923, at three ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... assuming an extravagantly languishing attitude, burst forth in a most poignant burlesque of a lovelorn tenor's part, rolling his eyes, clasping his hands, striking his breast, and gyrating about Miss Dwyer in the most approved operatic style. He had a fine voice and knew a good deal of music; so that, barring a certain nervousness in the performer, the exhibition was really not bad. In his singing he had used a meaningless gibberish varied with the syllables of the scale, but he closed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... secretary of the Bursley Amateur Operatic Society, of which both Ethel and Millicent were members. In a few weeks' time the Society was to render Patience in the Town Hall for the benefit of local charities, ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... madrigal, catch, round, chorus, chorale; antiphon^, antiphony; accompaniment, second, bass; score; bourdon^, drone, morceau^, terzetto^. composer &c 413; musician &c 416. V. compose, perform &c 416; attune. Adj. musical; instrumental, vocal, choral, lyric, operatic; harmonious &c 413; Wagnerian. Adv. adagio; largo, larghetto, andante, andantino^; alla capella [It]; maestoso^, moderato; allegro, allegretto; spiritoso^, vivace^, veloce^; presto, prestissimo^; con brio; capriccioso^; scherzo, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... growth away from his early ideas. He was at first an artistic disciple of Meyerbeer, and not only drew operatic inspirations from him, but was saved from starving by Meyerbeer's money and by his letters of introduction; later he came to abhor Meyerbeer's operas, and to despise the man himself and his ways. Wagner earned himself ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... 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 ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... her 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, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... attention. He appeared to be thinking deeply, and, from his detached manner, heedless of the harmony of sound that filled the room. But her supposition was soon rudely shaken. Peters had paused in his playing. When a few moments later the plaintive melody of an operatic air stole through the room she saw her husband start violently, and the terrible pallor she had witnessed once before sweep across his face. She clenched her teeth on her lip to keep back the cry that rose, and breathlessly watched him stride across the room and drop an ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... gather in the evenings. Of a summer night, when the moon was full, they lit no lamps, but sat grouped in the light and shadow, while sundry of the younger men sang old ballads, or joined Tom Moore's songs to operatic airs. On other nights, there would be an original essay or poem read aloud, or else a play of Shakespere, with the parts distributed to different members; and, these amusements failing, some interesting discussion was likely to take their place. Occasionally, in the dramatic ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... an entirely profitless and monstrous story, in which the 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 ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... for the theatre at Esterhaz—many of them for the Marionette Theatre—and was content if they pleased his patron. One or two were given elsewhere with some success; but, with regard to Armide, he wrote stating his view that his operatic works should not be given at all save in the conditions for which they were composed. Those conditions have now for ever passed away, and excepting as curiosities the operas will never be ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... important element in the constitution of the English heroic play. 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
... 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. But scene in Cathedral between JEAN ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... power of endurance in the muscles can be gained. They must be so strong that a great operatic role can be repeated ten times in succession, in order that the singer may become able to endure the strain of singing in opera houses, in great auditoriums, and make himself heard above a great orchestra, without ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... perhaps the greater part of the Greek alphabet. In short, I am, as to classical education, another Shakespear. I can read French as easily as English; and under pressure of necessity I can turn to account some scraps of German and a little operatic Italian; but these I was never taught at school. Instead, I was taught lying, dishonorable submission to tyranny, dirty stories, a blasphemous habit of treating love and maternity as obscene jokes, hopelessness, evasion, derision, cowardice, and all the blackguard's ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... "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 Nov. ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... point about 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 ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... it was no short-lived fit of enthusiasm, for she was the favourite of the public until her retirement; her beautiful voice and simplicity of manner charming everyone, from Royalty downwards. Unfortunately her debut was somewhat marred by a pecuniary squabble between her and Bunn, the operatic poet, a rival impresario, Lumley, having secured her services. Here is ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... Davenant undertook to create a form of dramatic entertainment which would be tolerated by the authorities. The Lord Protector was known to be a lover of music. Sir William, therefore, applied for permission to give operatic entertainments, "after the manner of the antients," the "story sung in recitative music," and the representation made "by the art of perspective in scenes." To such entertainments, he thought, no one could object. He was wise enough to give his first performances at Rutland ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... "If Alexander does not quickly stop the impetus which has been given, he will be carried away by it next year; and thus war will take place in spite of him, in spite of me, in spite of the interests of France and Russia.... It is an operatic scene, of which the English are the shifters." What madness! As if Russia's craving for colonial wares and solvency were a device of the diabolical islanders.[249] As if his planetary simile were anything more than a claim that he was the centre of the universe and his will its ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Raphael, of Rembrandt, of Turner, in painting. In this sense, it 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 ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... emptying itself, whose blood is flowing like poor touches of a tongue on to my hand. I shut my eyes, bemused, and think of a bygone merry-making; and I remember that I once saw, at the end of a hunt, against the operatic background of a forest, a child-animal whose life gushed out ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... himself, "'What did you say to her?' 'Nothin'. I started to, but'—" Then he put on a burst of speed and passed them, sweeping off his hat with operatic deference, yet hurrying by as if fearful of being thought a killjoy if he lingered. He went to the "frat house," found no one downstairs, and established himself in a red leather chair to smoke and ruminate merrily by a great fire ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... gifts of temperament and originality may, and sometimes do, mask defects of emission, particularly in the case of artists following the operatic career. But the artistic life and success of such a singer is short. Violated Nature rebels, and avenges herself for all infractions of law. A voice that is badly produced or emitted speedily becomes worn, and is ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... friends; a handsome young man in knee-breeches and a cocked hat watched the proceedings cynically in the right-hand corner, whilst on the left a big fat man frantically endeavoured to recover his wig, that had been lost in the melee. The advertisement was headed, 'Morton and Cox's Operatic Company,' and concluded with the announcement that Madame Angot would be played at the Queen's Theatre. After a few moments spent in examining the picture Kate said it must have something ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... tender feeling or exquisite sensibility." Heartless coquetry, prudery, mock modesty, are bosom friends of sentimentality. While sentiment is the noblest thing in the world, sentimentality is its counterfeit, its caricature; there is something theatrical, operatic, painted-and-powdered about it; it differs from sentiment as astrology differs from astronomy, alchemy from chemistry, the sham from the real, hypocrisy from sincerity, artificial posing from natural grace, genuine affection ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... 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 that New York was shocked. ...
— Commercialism and Journalism • Hamilton Holt
... his chair, humming an operatic air and chinking the handcuffs together, by way of accompaniment. He felt intensely pleased with himself, the more so, as he saw that by this capture he would be ranked far above Gorby. "And what would Gorby say?—Gorby, who had laughed at all his ideas as foolish, ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... means of enlarging a sentence is by the extension, or repetition, of the final cadence—that effect which is so frequent in the chamber and symphonic music of Haydn, and which has its comic manifestation in the so-called "crescendo" of the Rossini Operatic Overture.[60] ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... found a proper customer. His progress with the 'cello had been such that the theatre people offered him an engagement, which his father and his own sense of the enormous respectability of the Swanns compelled him to refuse. But he always played in the band of the Five Towns Amateur Operatic Society, and was beloved by its conductor as being utterly reliable. His connection with choirs started through his merits as a rehearsal accompanist who could keep time and make his bass chords heard against a hundred ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... clavichord. Her infantile graces at these instruments were the delight and amazement of her parents. She warbled this old-time music as other children do the vulgar songs of the hour; she seemed less anxious to learn the operatic music which she heard in her mother's class-rooms, and there was a shade of uneasiness in Mrs. Innes's admiration of the beauty of Evelyn's taste; but Mr. Innes said that it was better that her first love should be for the best, and he could ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... time I received a letter from Varvilliers containing intelligence which was not only interesting in itself, but seemed to possess a peculiar appositeness. He had heard from Coralie Mansoni, and she announced to him her marriage with a prominent operatic impresario. "You have perhaps seen the fellow," Varvilliers wrote. "He has small black eyes and large black whiskers; his stomach is very big, but, for shame or for what reason I know not, he hides it behind a bigger gold locket. Coralie detests him, but it has been her ambition to ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... 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 be out in the streets, even though that might ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... He exchanged greetings with Mr. Osmond, to whom he had been introduced the day before and who, after he came in, sat blandly apart and silent, as if repudiating competence in the subjects of allusion now probable. It struck her second visitor that Miss Archer had, in operatic conditions, a radiance, even a slight exaltation; as she was, however, at all times a keenly-glancing, quickly-moving, completely animated young woman, he may have been mistaken on this point. Her talk with him moreover pointed to presence of mind; it expressed ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... come in to reap an annual harvest here too, and have and long will have their zealous party of admirers. Were Opera an organized home industry among us, as much as other forms of music,—were there some meaning in the name "Academy of Music" worn by operatic theatres, it would be more useful to our artistic progress. But Italian Opera, as managed, and "star" concerts generally, are no part of the healthy, permanent development of our own musical resources. They are speculations; they attack us from without, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... more or less under protest, because of its length, and because his mind was too practical for the indirect operatic form. He could not remain patient at a recital; the effort to listen to one performer for an hour and a half was too severe a tax upon his restless nature. The Philadelphia Orchestra gave a symphony concert each Saturday evening, and ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... the works. They did not appear half so mysterious as when seen in the dark. The Tower of London had shrunk into quite a small buttressed building of brick and Nebuchadnezzar's Fiery Furnace dwindled considerably in size. The Medes and Persians, on the other hand, looked wilder and more "operatic" than at night. I think as a matter ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... remark which he permitted himself, Nancy felt it time to shake him off. Her next encounter was more noteworthy. Of a sudden she felt an arm round her waist, and a man, whose breath declared the source of his inspiration, began singing close to her ear the operatic ditty, 'Queen of my Heart.' He had, moreover, a good tenor voice, and belonged, vaguely, to some ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... Journalistic Tenderfoot A Letter of Regrets All About Menials All About Oratory Along Lake Superior A Lumber Camp A Mountain Snowstorm Anatomy Anecdotes of Justice Anecdotes of the Stage A New Autograph Album A New Play An Operatic Entertainment Answering an Invitation Answers to Correspondents A Peaceable Man A Picturesque Picnic A Powerful Speech Archimedes A Resign Arnold Winkelreid Asking for a Pass A Spencerian Ass Astronomy A Thrilling Experience A Wallula Night B. Franklin, Deceased Biography of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... retirement and asked leave to turn it into rime and put it on the stage as an opera. "Ay," said Milton, good humoredly, "you may tag my verses." And accordingly they appeared, duly tagged, in Dryden's operatic masque, the State of Innocence. In this startling conjunction we have the two ages in a nut-shell: the Commonwealth was an epic, the ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... out, constituting a harmony in itself, though not perhaps a harmony with this negligent Sunday afternoon environment in which the singer finds herself. Her voice is finely trained and under complete control, she enters into the spirit of the operatic scene she sings, dramatically, yet with restraint, with modulated movements, now of her arms, now of her whole supple body. In her voice, as in her body, there is always a reserve of energy, a dignified self-respect; there is never any self-abandonment. ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... 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
... Canadians 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 ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... and Victor had gotten up between them; and which, though not the best fit in the world, was, in color, exceedingly becoming to the dark-eyed child, who, perched upon the music-stool, was imitating her own operatic songs to the infinite delight of the old man, nodding his approval ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... "bath man" and the holder of the corresponding number claims the machine. The basket chairs cost for the whole day twenty cents, Dutch money. One may obtain a subscription to the "Kurhaus" at a surprisingly reasonable rate for the day, week or season. There is a daily orchestra; ballet and operatic concerts once a week; dramatic performances and frequent hops throughout ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... 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 as well as ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... file, Captain Tony advanced through the clearing, and what with his flowing black beard, his portly form, and a certain dramatic swagger which he possessed, he looked so entirely Italian and operatic that you expected to hear him at any moment burst out in a sonorous basso. With a sweeping gesture he flung down upon the table two brown canvas bags, which opened and discharged from gaping mouths ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... 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 were remarkable—that fact, coupled with ...
— Second Book of Tales • Eugene Field
... She had arranged it with Brown that no public acknowledgment of Caroline's relationship should be made, and that she should pass as an adopted child or protege, at least until her success on the operatic stage ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... went back into the past, and he recalled the evenings when he as a little child was enraptured listening to some operatic selection brilliantly played, while his mother sat accompanying upon the piano. Then he recollected the first lessons given him by his father upon that very flute, and years after the plaudits he listened to with burning cheeks after he had played one of his ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... 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 ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... he returns—a man, the good husband, the tender father; he slips into the conjugal bed, his imagination still afire with the illusive forms of the operatic nymphs, and so turns to the profit of conjugal love the world's depravities, the voluptuous curves of Taglioni's leg. And finally, if he sleeps, he sleeps apace, and hurries through his slumber as he does ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... a curious old lady who wore a bonnet of Sweet Sixteen of the time of the Crimea, and with a sense of colour which would wreck the reputation of a kaleidoscope. She it was who had taught her son Orlando the tunefulness of Meyerbeer and Balfe and Offenbach, and the operatic jingles of that type of composer. Orlando Guise had come by his outward showiness naturally. Yet he was not like his mother, save in this particular. His mother was flighty and had no sense, while he, behind the gaiety ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Elsie Marley" nor anything that would in any way remind Mr. Graham of it. Either she would shock that elegant gentleman's taste with the ugliest of ragtime, or she would inflict him with a succession of the operatic selections she had taken up with Madame Valentini. The latter choice would probably, upon Miss Pritchard's arrival, serve to bring up the unhappy matter of her abandoning the stage for music, but that ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... dance music; old Baldy closed the exhibition with an operatic gesture (for which alone, if for nothing else, at least one watcher thought the showy gentleman deserved hanging), and this odious gesture concluded with a seizure of Julia's hand. She sprang up eagerly; he whirled her away, and the ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... her as 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 laughs at it; ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... instance of a discriminating black, our young men went and had some "supper" in a wonderful place arranged like a theater, where, in a gilded gallery, upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra was playing operatic selections, and, below, people were handing about bills of fare, as if they had been programs. All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later, was to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer, in the warm breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight, to make out the ...
— An International Episode • Henry James
... 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)
... apparition, the 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, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... 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 as the ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... to write, and for that alone he would deserve praise, even if he had not beaten the English so gloriously. Mademoiselle Verrieres was an actress and Dupin de Francueil a dilettante. Aurore's grandmother, Marie-Aurore, was very musical, she sang operatic songs, and collected extracts from the philosophers. Maurice Dupin was devoted to music and to the theatre. Even Sophie-Victoire had an innate appreciation of beauty. She not only wept, like Margot, at melodrama, but she ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... 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
... DWIGHT, of Boston, has recently delivered an admirable lecture before the Mercantile Library Association of this city, on "Operatic Music," illustrated by a critical examination of Rossini's Don Giovanni. Mr. Dwight's rare musical learning and accomplishments, his exquisite taste in art, and his remarkable felicity of expression, were displayed to singular advantage in this masterly lecture, and won the cordial ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... in such an operatic and rollicking way that it was quite hard to fancy it a religious performance, which, however, it was. I heard ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... master realist if you forget his old-fashioned operatic scenery and costumes. It is to Jane Austen we must go for the realism admired of Mr. Howells, and justly. Her work is all of a piece. The Russians are realists, but with a difference; and that deviation forms the school. Taking Gogol as the norm of modern Russian fiction—Leo Wiener's admirable ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the swaggering and dissolute brother-in-law that Prince Igor left behind when he went to the wars, and Khan Konchak, most magnanimous of barbarians. Neither character gave scope for the particular subtlety of which (as he proves in Boris Godounov) M. CHALIAPINE is the sole master among male operatic singers. But to each he brought that gift of the great manner, that ease and splendour of bearing, and those superb qualities of voice which, found together, give him a place ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... more honorable to the boxes, while it does not depreciate the performance. This view holds that the operatic situation offers a choice of delights, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... nearly, if not quite, as bad. The undisguised sensuality of Faust, both in Goethe's drama and in the operatic rendering, is such that it nearly destroys our sympathy with Margaret, and scenes that should be pathetic are either merely repulsive, or excite our indignation to such a degree that we 'turn all our ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... interested; they themselves had been conscious of impatiences, of bolder dreams—at least the younger had; so that one of the things they made out together—making out as they did an endless variety—was that in those operatic palaces of the Villa d'Este, of Cadenabbia, of Pallanza and Stresa, lone women, however reinforced by a travelling-library of instructive volumes, were apt to be beguiled and undone. Their flights of fancy moreover had been modest; they had for instance risked nothing ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps the meanest and most 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 for its adornment, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... or four times a new coat just received from that metropolis, and spend not a little time, when not on duty or in uniform, in studying critically its cut and fit in the various mirrors that hung about his bachelor den, gayly humming some operatic air as he conducted the survey, and generally winding up with a wholesale denunciation of the cutter and an order to Ananias to go over and get some other fellow's coat, that he might try the effect of that. These were liberties he took only with his chums ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... when his father concluded a fine old boat-song with a magnificent flourish worthy of an operatic artiste, "can any one tell me any thing about the strange old woman that lives down in the hut ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Italy, in the year 79, a play was being acted in one of the theaters, when a storm of cinders fell, buried the whole city, and, of course, put a stop to the play, which has never been completed. A few months ago, however, an operatic manager named Languri made up his mind to have a new theater just where the old one stood; so, he printed in the Italian newspapers a notice that ran something ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... reformer—but not founder." This holds good of Wagner, who closed a period and did not begin a new one. In a word, Wagner was a theater musician, one cursed by a craze for public applause—and shekels—and knowing his public, gave them more operatic music than any Italian who ever wrote for barrel-organ fame. Wagner became popular, the rage; and today his music, grown stale in Germany, is being fervently imitated, nay, burlesqued, by the neo-Italian school. Come, is it not a comical ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... the evening, and taken a short stroll along the quay where a noisy band was discoursing operatic airs. The performance elicited from Mr. Muhlen some caustic comments on Latin music as contrasted with that of Russia and other countries. He evidently knew the subject. Mr. Heard, to whom music was Greek, soon found himself out of his depths. Later on, in the smoking-room, ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... odd that 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 you ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... He began to sing, a demi-voix, a little phrase out of Louise—an invocation to Paris—and the Englishman stirred uneasily beside him. It seemed to Hartley that to stand on a bridge, in a top-hat and evening clothes, and sing operatic airs while people passed back and forth behind you, was one of the things that are not done. He tried to imagine himself singing in the middle of Westminster Bridge at half-past eight of an evening, and he felt quite hot all over at the thought. It was not done at ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... accompaniment, second, bass; score; bourdon[obs3], drone, morceau[obs3], terzetto[obs3]. composer &c. 413; musician &c. 416. V. compose, perform &c. 416; attune. Adj. musical; instrumental, vocal, choral, lyric, operatic; harmonious &c. 413; Wagnerian. Adv. adagio; largo, larghetto, andante, andantino[obs3]; alla capella[It][obs3]; maestoso[obs3], moderato; allegro, allegretto; spiritoso[obs3], vivace[obs3], veloce[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in bloom. Poison ivy, to whose baneful touch fortunately none of us appear susceptible, grows everywhere about. From the farmhouse on the narrow bottom to our rear comes the melodious tinkle-tinkle of cow bells. The operatic calliope is in full blast, at Bearsville, its shrieks and snorts coming down to us through four miles of space, all too plainly borne by the northern breeze; and now and then we hear the squeak of the New Martinsville fiddles. There are no mosquitoes as yet, but burly May-chafers come stupidly ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... time, however, Handel's enemies never ceased their opposition, and, despite successes, it was soon apparent that the rival parties were bent on destroying each other. The enormous cost incurred in producing operatic works, added to the losses occasioned by quarrels and dissensions amongst the singers, many of whom deserted Handel to join his enemies, at length brought the Royal Academy to the end of its resources. In 1727, when the society was tottering to its fall, the rival theatre in Lincoln's ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... reproach you, my kind friend," answered Rosa. "I know you meant it all for the best. But I had a heavy presentiment of evil when you first told me they were left. This news makes it hard for me to keep up my heart for the efforts of the evening. You know I was induced to enter upon this operatic career mainly by the hope of educating that poor child, and providing well for the old age of you and Papa Balbino, as I have learned to call my good friend, the Signor. And poor Tulee, too,—how much I intended to do for her! No mortal can ever know what she was to me in the ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... 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 ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... 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 little ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... form, would have said, had they lived last century, that Salieri was greater than Mozart because Salieri's melodies were more like Hasse's in form. Perhaps the last act might be quite as exquisite on the stage, for it is even more exquisite in the score; but that we shall not know until our operatic singers abandon their vanity and their melodrama, and by reading an occasional book, and sometimes going out into the world, learn how much they themselves would gain if they always ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... Queen of Croatia, one of those convenient operatic Balham royalties...."—Liverpool ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... like a "side-scene" in a comic opera. But there was a serious little English lawn in front of it, over which a couple of industrious red-coats were pulling up and down a garden-roller; and in the centre of the drive before the door was a tremendous clump of rhododendrons of more than operatic brilliancy. I leaned on the garden-gate and looked out at the camp: it was twinkling and bustling in the morning light, which drizzled down upon it in patches from a somewhat agitated sky. An hour later the camp got itself together and spread itself, in close battalions and glittering cohorts, over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... hitherto been not too common in England. The same year a 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 time she visited ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... After her death, tours in Germany and elsewhere, new works, new troubles, enthusiasms, and disappointments filled up the remainder of the composer's days. He returned to his beloved Dauphine, war-worn and almost as one who has outlived life. In his provincial retreat he composed the huge operatic duology 'The Trojans at Carthage,' and 'The Taking of Troy,' turning once more to Virgil, his early literary love. Neither of them is often heard now, any more than his amazing 'Benvenuto Cellini.' Their author died in Dauphine in 1869, weary, disenchanted, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... 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 Little Man in ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... 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 ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... 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
... Nebular Theory for the scientific journal to which she occasionally contributed over the signature of "Sabaean." Gradually her thoughts wandered from the completed task to other themes of scarcely less interest. The week previous she had accompanied Hugh to an operatic concert given by the Parodi troupe, and had been astonished to find Russell seated on the bench in front of her. He so rarely showed himself on such occasions that his appearance elicited some comment. They had met frequently since the evening at ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... true and individual field as the symphony was that of Beethoven. He took counsel with his father by letter touching many details in his earlier operas, wherefore we are advised about their origin, and, what is more to the purpose, about Mozart's fine aesthetic judgment. His four operatic masterpieces are imperishable, and a few words about them are in place, particularly since Mozart has left numerous and interesting comments on "Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail." This first German opera he composed ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the same direful institution; that there must be somewhere in the house a place of torment, the angels who abide therein, giving us our daily bread and doughnuts, being of a totally different type from the glorious creatures singing songs of praise and operatic melodies in the upper stories. That the genius of the kitchen and the parlor can be one and the same is a conception too stupendous for the ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... though with a Polish accent, and also German, but did not care much for German music except Bach and Mozart. Beethoven—save in the C sharp minor and several other sonatas—was not sympathetic. Schubert he found rough, Weber, in his piano music, too operatic and Schumann he dismissed without a word. He told Heller that the "Carneval" was really not music at all. This remark is one of the curiosities ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... so far are they 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 ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... 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 quarter, we may go further ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 24, 1914 • Various
... while American spring carts are much too European to warrant unslinging the Kodak. But the cachape—here is something not to be lightly passed over. Lying idle it may not strike him at first sight as a cart, but rather as a remnant of some revolution, when, tired of waging light operatic war, the army disbanded, leaving their gun-carriages to serve more ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... may find it in "Sibyl, or The Two Nations." The gay overture of "The Eve of the Derby," at a London club, with which the curtain rises, contrasts with the evening amusements of the proletaire in the gin-palaces of Manchester in a more than operatic effectiveness, and yet falls rather below than rises above the sober truth of present history. And we are often tempted to bind up the novel of the dashing Parliamenteer with our copy of "Ivanhoe," that we may thus have, side by side, from the pens of the Right Honorable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... fortification, to be called Castle Clinton, but, in 1820, it was discovered that the foundations were not strong enough to bear heavy ordnance, and Congress reconveyed the site to the city. The building was then completed as an opera house, and used for operatic and theatrical performances, concerts, and public receptions. It was the largest and most elegant hall of its kind in the country, and was a favorite resort of pleasure seekers. Jenny Lind sang there, during her visit to the United States. It was used for this purpose until the year 1855, when, the ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the house were—first, why he was not, at such an hour, engaged in at any rate the pretence of earning his living; and, second, why he did not take his gloves off. No notion of work seemed to exist in the minds of the three. They chattered of tennis, novels, music, and particularly of amateur operatic societies. James acquired the information that Emanuel was famous as a singer of songs. The topic led then naturally to James's concertina; the talk lightly caressed James's concertina, and then Emanuel swept it off to the ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... enrapturing 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 ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... leisurely. "The woman is in some sort of trouble. If I go to her assistance I shall probably involve myself in a most unattractive mess, and eventually be arrested by the constable,—if they have any constables in this operatic domain, the which I doubt. I shall accordingly emulate the example of the long-headed Levite, and sensibly pass by on the other side. Halt! I there recognize the voice of the Duke of Ormskirk. I came into this country to find John Bulmer; and John Bulmer would ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... middle 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 other; then the guards on each side ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... tongues began to subside. The first officer 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 Hotel was reduced to a minimum. A couple of ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... a journey from the Saxon capital to Warsaw, which took about eight days, and cost on an average from 3,000 to 3,500 thalers (450 to 525 pounds), was a mere nothing compared with the migration of a Parisian operatic company in May, 1700. The ninety-three members of which it was composed set out in carriages and drove by Strasburg to Ulm, there they embarked and sailed to Cracow, whence the journey was continued on rafts. [FOOTNOTE: M. Furstenau, Zur Geschichte der Music und des Theaters ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... 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 projecting from ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... previously sang at various Italian theatres, chiefly at the San Carlo. Donizetti's Roberto Devereux and Belisario were composed expressly for him. Madame Rosine Stoltz, whose portrait, a very fair resemblance, is prefixed to Mr. Hervey's sketch of her operatic career, is a highly dramatic singer and an excellent actress, but her voice, of unusually extensive range, has a metallic sharpness which to our ear is not pleasant. She possesses a good stage ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... 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
... to consider. The present mode of dress renders waltzing almost as objectionable in a large room as the boldest feats of a French ballet-dancer. Not to put too fine a point on it, I mean that these girls' gyrations in the centre of their gyrating and centrifugal hoops make a most operatic drapery-display. I saw scores and scores of public waltzing-girls last summer, and among them all I saw but one who understood the art, or, at any rate, who practised the art, of avoiding an indecent exposure. In the glare and glamour of gas-light it is only flash and clouds ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... courier 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, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 blue ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... groundwork laid before the appearance of the critique in the 'Edinburgh Review' Sent to Mr. Harness Success of the satire The author's regret in having written it Refusal to republish it Attempted publication of Englishman, Otway's three requisites for an Envy Ephesus, ruins of EPIGRAM on Moore's Operatic Farce, or Farcical Opera Erskine, Lord, his eloquence his famous pamphlet See, also Essex (George-Capel), fifth Earl of Euxine, or Black Sea, description of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... said Holmes. "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 getting those ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... 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 form of ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... compassion at the sight of poor Sarti, who struck her as the mere battered wreck of a vessel that might have once floated gaily enough on its outward voyage to the sound of pipes and tabors. She spoke gently as she pointed out to him the operatic selections she wished him to copy, and he seemed to sun himself in her auburn, radiant presence, so that when he made his exit with the music-books under his arm, his bow, though not less ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... letters of Gluck, that I have been able to find, concern his married life, though many of them are in existence concerning his operatic warfare. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... regalia from the Tower. Again—Loon Lake. Can you imagine two more lonesome wailing words to make a picture with? But—Cohocton. How oddly right my absurd instinct had been about that—and, shall we ever forget the unearthly beauty of the evening which brought us at dark to the quaint little operatic-looking village, deep and snug among ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... Portugal, and wrote several operas.] or some other Maestro di capella, or rather schiavo d'un primo uomo." [Footnote: Literally, "The slave of a primo uomo," primo uomo being the masculine form corresponding to prima donna, that is, a singer of hero's parts in operatic music. At one time also female parts were sung and acted by men or boys.] Now, thought I, now's the time; so turning to Antonia, I remarked, "Antonia knows nothing of such singing as that, I believe?" At the same time I struck up one of old Leonardo Leo's [Footnote: Leonardo ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... assumed a weary superiority, tilting his chair far back near an open window in the true Costaguana manner. The military band happened to be braying operatic selections on the plaza just then, and twice he raised his hand imperatively for silence in order to listen to ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... novel-readers. His intrinsic merits, in sober retrospect, seem very feeble. For all his concern with current questions, his accurate news instinct, he is fundamentally a romantic of the last century, with more than one plain touch of the downright operatic. ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... the next high note, and a hand in readiness to support her elbow in case she should suddenly collapse. Then, feeling partially reassured, she goes round to inspect her from the right, where she remains until her superior has completed her confidences, and it is time to lead her away. Operatic confidant sympathetic—but a more modern heroine might find one "get on her nerves," perhaps. Manrico a very robust type of Troubadour—but oughtn't a Troubadour to carry about a guitar, or a lute, or something? If Manrico has one, he invariably leaves it outside. Probably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various |
