An Opera Performance On Friday November 3rd I had the pleasure of attending an evening of Opera titled Love Through the Ages with Maria Fortuna and Nancy Townsend at the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre. Having never been to an Opera performance I had no idea of what to expect and was looking forward to this new experience. Fortuna was accompanied by multi-faceted pianist Nancy Townsend. These two musicians showed tremendous expertise and were able to keep my attention through the extent of the program. Maria Fortuna is a soprano and she has enjoyed international success with her stunning vocal talent. Fortuna’s repertoire ranges from the lyric soprano to the dramatic coloratura roles, being performed in front of many large audiences and critics. Fortuna was born in Niagara Falls N.Y ...
Porgy and Bess, America’s first opera opened on the 10th of October in 1936. Porgy and Bess chronicles the unlikely romance between Porgy and Bess and takes place in the fictitious town of “Catfish Row” in Charleston South Carolina. The opera is based on “Porgy”, a novel written by Dubose Heyward and the play also written by Heyward and his wife Dorothy Heyward.
The source expands on three major groups of muscular systems. They are skeletal muscle, Cardiac muscle and smooth muscle. Skeletal muscles are made up of muscle tissue, connective tissue, nerves and blood vessels that is attached to tendons and bones. Cardiac muscles are small with short wide T-tubules and is only found in heart. Smooth muscles are long, slender and spindle shaped with no T tubules, myofibrils or sarcomeres that arrange the blood vessels in some organs. All these three types of muscles are grouped together with fibers that
Muscular system is a system which consists of specialized cells which called as muscle fibers. The main function of muscular system are allows the body movement, circulates the blood throughout the body, helps to maintain the posture such as standing and sitting and also function as heat production which helps to maintain the body temperature. Human body would not able to move at all without muscles. In human body there are more than 600 muscles and most of the muscles attached to the skeleton. Muscle system can be divided into three types of muscles which is the cardiac muscle, skeletal muscle and also smooth muscle. There are two type of muscle arrangement which is the antagonistic muscles and synergistic muscles.
King Henry V was born on the 9th of August 1387 in Monmouth Castle, located, now in modern Wales, near the English border. His parents King Henry IV (previously Henry of Bolingbroke) and Mary de Bohun were...
Christmas and Opera did not merely seem to correlate, but understanding where the two events derived from can help one to understand the similarities and differences between them. The development of Christmas was different from the creation of opera because the working class was controlling the other social classes for profit. Whereas for opera, the different social classes unified to keep opera as entertainment and not a social event. Another difference came within the writing and context throughout the article and the presentation of information conveyed by the author. Yet the events share the similarity of both being refined and reinvented.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 in Salzburg, part of what is now modern day Austria (BBC, 2014). The son of a Musician, Leopold, Mozart was born into a musical upbringing. He quickly became very proficient at the harpsichord, and was even composing his own works at the ripe young age of 5 years old. Mozart gained important development on an early childhood trip through Europe, where he and his family met and played for famous musicians of the time. He was strongly influence by his interactions with Johann Christian Bach, the song of the much more famous Johann Sebastian Bach. Mozart also encountered opera throughout his journeys through Europe.
Erika Miklosa has neither the range, nor the vocal skills, nor the temperament of the Queen of the Night. She might make a good Queen of High Tea. In short, a highly uneven musical evening, and one in which the music was never able to soar and beguile as The Magic Flute must. Komische Oper is the third tier company in Berlin, in budget as well as in ticket prices. This has the distinct advantage of making opera accessible to young people and there were plenty in the audience the other night, rarely seen, one would guess, at the other houses here and almost never in the US.
Skeletal muscle is a muscle that is connected at either one or both extremities of the skeleton to form part of the mechanical system that moves the limbs and other parts of the body. The human body contains more than six hundred skeletal muscles, which establish forty percent to fifty percent of the total body weight. Nevertheless, skeletal muscle performs three important functions which include: force generation for locomotion and breathing, force generation for postural support, and heat production during cold stress. The most obvious function of skeletal muscle is to enable an individual to move freely and breathe. Skeletal muscles are attached to bones by tough connective tissue called tendons. Muscles that decrease joint angles are called
There is no consensus regarding the mechanism of manifestation of neurocognitive consequences associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and their definite underlying process is unknown. However, there are some findings and theories about it. In OSA, there are different levels of hypoxia which are associated with many factors such as obesity and etc.1 The hippocampus has a region (CA1) which is more vulnerable and sensitive to the hypoxia that leads to inflammatory response (COX-2, TNF-a),2 which can bring about endothelial dysfunctions,3 disturbances of cerebrovascular blood flow,3 and consequently neuronal cells death.3 In addition, it provokes oxidative stress and nitric oxide synthase (iNOS).2 Another finding is related to NDPH (subtype
With the Romantic era taking a foothold in the nineteenth century, the rise of the German opera was nourished with the rise of nationalism in music. Due to the comparative nature of the German language versus the Italian language, early German language operas were imitative but could not effectively compete with Italian language operas. “Traditional operatic singing was a function, an outgrowth of the Italian language, the nature of its vowels, and consonants, and its ability to sustain melisma. As long as German language opera attempted to compete with Italian opera on its own artistic turf without one embracing the unique character of German language vocal music and two, by employing plot elements that would somehow distinguish it from
Central sleep apnea is not as common as OSA. It is caused by a problem in the central nervous system, most often a failure in the brain to signal the airway muscles to breathe. In cases, oxygen levels drop suddenly and usually the patient wakes with a start. Unlike those with obstructive sleep apnea, people with central apnea remember their awakenings. They experience less sleepiness in the daytime compared to people with obstructive sleep apnea. The causes of central sleep apnea include heart disease and heart failure. Mixed sleep apnea is when both central and obstructive happen at the same time. The third and last type of apnea is Upper airway resistance syndrome (UARS). It is a condition where people snore, wake up frequently throughout the course of the night, and have excessive daytime sleepiness. Nevertheless, they do not have breathing abnormalities characterized with obstructive sleep apnea. They also do not display reduction in blood oxygen levels. Unlike apnea, upper airway resistance syndrome is more common in women than men. But it is treated the same way as those of sleep
Music: the art of organized noise. The blend of pitch and rhythm combined in different mediums and enjoyed by our ears. A very interpretive art, music isn’t very clearly constricted or defined by one definition. With so many varieties of music, it’s difficult to say what aspect is really the most important. Some people think music’s history and the appreciation of music are the most important aspects to take into consideration. Some think complex in rhythms and melodies make the best music. Some people devote their whole lives to studying one genre of music in order to fully understand how that genre works. While all of these aspects of music are important, none of them can truly be compared with each other on a fair playing field. Music of different genres, eras, and geographic backgrounds were written for different purposes, different people, and different settings. Still, there is still one overarching theme that applies to all forms of music new or old: the way the composer presents his or her creation. The performance and presentation of a work of music is like the icing on the top of a cake. The cake may be the best you’ve ever tasted, but if the icing on the outside doesn’t look appealing or doesn’t taste good, chances are you’ll take a different piece of cake with better looking frosting next time. The performance of music is what appeals most to people. With live performance, an artist must “sell” his or her creation. They must put smile on their face and convey to the audience that this is their music and through the music explain why it’s awesome. They must persevere through whatever the stage, the audience, and their surroundings give them and put on a good show. In today’s popular music though, this aspect of showma...
The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Hall-25 Anniversary Celebration was filmed for the 25th anniversary for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s critically acclaimed Phantom of the Opera. The script was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The show is based off of the book Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. The show opens in Paris 1905 at an auction of old theater props from L’Opera Populaire. As they are auctioning off old props of the theater they come up to an old music box with a monkey on top of it. An elderly man buys it and the auctioneer soon moves on to what he calls “ chandelier in pieces” and coincides with the mysterious Phantom of the Opera. The cloth over the chandelier comes off and the it comes to life with light and we are transported back to 1881. The show follows Christine, a young vocalist with great beauty, and an Opera House Phantom who yearns to be closer and love her. The Phantom, who has a deformed face hides it from the world behind his mask try to lure Christine to his heart by teaching her the ways of music and vocals only for her to fall in love with her childhood friend Raoul. The Phantom, who has been alone for all this time, does
Imagine you are in a darkened theater and on stage are the actors. Behind the actors you can see the scenery. Down in front of the stage, in what is called the pit, is an orchestra and a conductor. As the orchestra plays, the actors on stage do not speak their lines they sing them!
The start of the new century was marked with the emergence of ‘opera seria,’ a “serious” opera that soon became the standard Italian style. The operas were characterized by a lack of chorus and consistency, as the individuals who performed possessed separate and distinct styles and the order of the subjects of which they were interpreting seemed sporadic and haphazard. Nevertheless, with its dramatic interpretations of various historical and mythological themes, opera seria was thought of as possessing content fitting only for royalty and quickly became a favorite of the nobles and aristocrats. As such, it served to be the main attraction during the ever-popular carnival season. In less than a century, however, as opera seria was thought to be too rigid, extravagant, and expensive, fewer and fewer of the required sopranos, of whom possessed the vocal range necessary for the dramatic works, came out as opera singers as their employment moved to the church for the last decade of the century. Their talents had previously earned them the highest salaries out of any musicians, allowing those on top to live lavishly and comfortably, but the decline of opera seria in Italy forced them to change their paths and career choices.