title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Throughout the programme's broadcast, the sitcom features a number of overarching storylines, with two of these being the most prominent within episodes. The first, and most prominent, plot concerns the theft of a valuable painting from the town's chateau – "The Fallen Madonna" by fictional artist van Klomp (usually referred to as ""The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies"") – stolen by von Strohm, and the subsequent effort by him to conceal the theft from his superiors and Herr Flick. René is notably forced into handling the stolen painting out of threat of execution, but also due to being indebted to von Strohm for allowing him to fake his death when he is sentenced to execution for unjustified accusations of aiding the Resistance in an act of sabotage. The painting itself is subjected to being lost during the course of its concealment, before receiving a forged copy upon being found, only for it to be lost again and sought out by not only by von Strohm, but also Herr Flick who, rather than return it to Berlin, intends to keep it himself.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The second storyline concerns the involvement of two stranded British airmen, shot down while over Nouvion. Because of their predicament, several plots in a number of episodes focus on the efforts of Michelle to devise plans that can help to send them back to England, with René not only forced to help hide them within his café or keep them under disguises, but also help in her schemes, sometimes devised by London who relay these plans via a radio installed within the bedroom of Edith's mother. Often, the schemes devised are so complicated that they invariably backfire, especially when they collide with other schemes conducted by von Strohm and his assistants, often leaving him, René and Michelle worse off than before. Most other storylines concern other events, including the efforts to remove von Klinkerhoffen's replacement from power, sabotaging the Germans' plan to invade England, and the subsequent build-up of German concern about an Allied invasion of France following the defeat of Italy.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: As with previous sitcoms created before "Allo 'Allo!", such as Lloyd and Croft's earlier collaboration "Are You Being Served?", much of the humour is derived from classic elements of comedy including classic farce set-ups, physical comedy and visual gags, alongside a large amount of sexual innuendo, and a fast-paced running string of broad cultural clichés. Like most characters devised for previous sitcoms, the cast for the programme were designed with notable elements to distinguish them throughout the series, be it a catchphrase, gimmick, or saying.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Like previous sitcoms devised by the creators, "Allo 'Allo!" ends each episode with the caption "You have been watching (in order of appearance)", followed by a short vignette shot of actors who performed in the episode — whether as a main or supporting character — identified by their name in caption within each sequence. Although the shots appear like a clip from the episode, the production team conduct a separate filming session aimed as a reenactment of a scene the actor was involved in, mostly pertaining to a specific camera angle or action conducted by their character, with the vignette sequence often done in order of their first spoken line; the exception to this is that actor Gorden Kaye is always first in the sequence, regardless of when his first appearance is made.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: As each episode builds on previous ones, viewers are often required to have followed the series to the episode they have reached in order to understand the plot. As "Allo 'Allo!" revolved around individual story arcs spread across several episodes, the creators opted for using a comical version of the "As you remember ..." device, commonly used in serials, to act as a recap of events in the current story for the beginning of a new episode. This device within the sitcom was always conducted by René, who would open an episode by breaking the fourth wall (which Michael Bates did in "It Ain't Half Hot Mum") to interact with the audience and provide a brief summary of events that had occurred previously, including notable events that had taken place, and also intermittently during episodes to make comic comments. This plot device was rare for comedy (including comedy animation), where plots are prominently gag-driven and self-contained, but its use in "Allo 'Allo!" had a major impact on audiences connecting with the characters. It also had considerable benefits for re-runs, as it allowed local TV stations who had reshuffled episodes for their schedule, to ensure that their audiences could be aware of the plot events surrounding the story of the episode being broadcast.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: One of the trickier problems with "Allo 'Allo!" was the fact that the main characters were of four different nationalities — French, German, English and Italian. Lloyd and Croft determined that it would be too much for the audience to follow multiple languages, so they employed a simple dramatic device to overcome the issue: all characters would speak English in a theatrical foreign accent depicting the foreign language. French and German characters could understand each other when speaking, but the English characters could not understand the others without someone "translating" for them and vice versa.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Because of this device, each particular main language for the show required a specific accent and speaking style to be devised. While the French-speaking characters mainly spoke with a French accent, the English-speaking characters mostly employed Bertie Wooster-esque "top-hole, old chap!"-style banter in an upper-class English accent, and German-speaking characters mainly spoke in a guttural manner. When Italian characters were added to the series, particularly Captain Alberto Bertorelli, in the fourth series, the cast members assigned to these role spoke in a nasal tone, making use of the letter "a" on the ends of certain words (e.g., ""What a mistake-a to make-a!"").


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: One of the most notable, and wittiest, aspects of the language device was in the speech of the police officer Crabtree, a character introduced in the second series. Because the character was an Englishman with a poor grasp of French, the actor, Arthur Bostrom, spoke perfectly when the character spoke in English, but extensively deployed malapropism to represent when the character was speaking in French. Bostrom therefore altered not all but certain words in his sentences, substituting different vowels and/or consonants, changing them into different or nonsensical words, usually laden with innuendo. An example is the line ""I was passing by the door, and I thought I would drop in."", which Bostrom pronounced ""I was pissing by the door, and I thought I would drip in"". Another example is Crabtree's greeting of "good morning", pronounced ""good moaning"".


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: After the pilot aired in December 1982, a full-length first series of seven episodes was commissioned and aired from September 1984 onwards. Series two, three and four followed annually, with six episodes each.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Series five was commissioned with a view to syndicating the show in America. As a result, it aired as a single long series of twenty-six episodes between September 1988 and February 1989, with each episode running only twenty-five minutes to allow for commercials. The attempts to air the show in America failed (although screening rights to the series were later sold to PBS), and so series six had only eight episodes commissioned, which aired from September 1989 onwards.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: On 25 January 1990, Gorden Kaye suffered serious head injuries in a car crash brought on by gale-force winds. This delayed the start of the seventh series, which consisted of ten episodes airing from January 1991 onwards. Series 8 (7 episodes) followed in January 1992, and the ninth and final series of six episodes aired later that year from November onwards.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Two Christmas specials were also made. The first was a 45-minute episode, which followed Series 2 in 1985, and the second was also a 45-minute episode, screened at Christmas 1991, preceding Series 8.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In 1994, two years after the series ended, the BBC broadcast "The Best of 'Allo 'Allo!", a compilation of clips from the series, linked by new scenes featuring Gorden Kaye and Carmen Silvera, in which René and Edith reminisce about the events of the war.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: On 22 March 2007, a one-off special episode entitled "The Return of 'Allo 'Allo!" was filmed in Manchester, and was broadcast on 28 April 2007 at 9 pm on BBC 2. The storyline involves René writing his memoirs after the war, and the events from the final episode in 1992 have been overlooked. The new scenes were interspersed with clips from the original series and new interviews. The actors who reprised their roles were: Gorden Kaye, Vicki Michelle, Sue Hodge, Kirsten Cooke, Arthur Bostrom, Guy Siner, Robin Parkinson, John D. Collins and Nicholas Frankau. In addition, Richard Gibson and Sam Kelly are interviewed, although they are not reprising their respective roles. The only main characters who did not appear in the reunion at all (barring those cases where the actor or actress had died) were Private Helga Geerhart (played by Kim Hartman) and Herr Engelbert von Smallhausen (played by John Louis Mansi). Jeremy Lloyd wrote the new material.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The show's premise was not to make fun of the war but to spoof war-based film and TV dramas, and in particular a BBC1 drama "Secret Army", which ran from 1977 to 1979 and dealt with the activities of a Belgian "escape line" that returned allied pilots to Britain, working from a Brussels café and later restaurant. Many of the elements and characters are directly taken from "Secret Army", such as the café owner having an affair in the restaurant under the nose of his wife, a bed-ridden woman in a room above who knocks on the floor for attention, a pianist who is also the forger, and the enmity between the Gestapo and the German military. Many storylines for "Allo 'Allo" also derive directly from episodes of "Secret Army", such as the valuable paintings and the accompanying forgeries, which both the Germans and the Resistance are seeking to obtain in the "Secret Army" second series episode "Weekend". Some actors from "Secret Army" also appear in "'Allo 'Allo!": Richard Marner, Guy Siner, John D. Collins, Hilary Minster, David Beckett and Louis Sheldon. Inspiration was also drawn from patriotic black-and-white British melodramas of the 1940s.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The French village setting is reminiscent of 1972's "Clochemerle", whilst Rene's intermediary role between the Germans and the Resistance reflects a comic version of Rick from "Casablanca" (as well as directly matching the proprietor of the café in "Secret Army").


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Having a café-cabaret in the plot, music was often performed on the show. This usually took place with Madame Edith singing, and either Lt. Gruber or Leclerc at the piano, played (out of vision) by Roy Moore. Occasionally, characters could also be seen whistling or humming tunes at certain points.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: David Croft and Roy Moore composed the theme tune performed at the start and end of each episode. It features a French-style melody performed on an accordion in the (waltz) time signature. The title is "'Allo 'Allo", and the first lyrics are:


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The café cabaret music usually took the form of 1930s film and show tunes – reminiscent of the way period songs were also used in "Secret Army".


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Most popular was "Louise" from the film "Innocents of Paris" (1929), which featured a number of times and was even sung in the "broken-French" language of Crabtree, who pronounced the title "Loo-woes". Gruber sang a number such as "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from "Show Boat" or "(I Got a Woman Crazy for Me) She's Funny That Way" by Neil Monet and Richard A. Whiting. He gazed at René in a slightly lustful manner, replacing lyrics such as "woman" and "she" with "boy" and "he". He caused a particular sensation with his straight version of Noël Coward's "Mad About the Boy".


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Naturally the "La Marseillaise" and the German National Anthem "Deutschlandlied" featured from time to time, for example where several French peasants sang La Marsellaise to celebrate the expected bombing of the Germans, but the singers flawlessly and without hesitation switch to Das Lied der Deutschen when the Germans come past. Helga also sometimes stripped to a rather raunchy version (arranged by Roy Moore) of the latter tune.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Captain Bertorelli could be seen singing "'O Sole Mio (It's Now or Never)"; and the British airmen in a prisoner of war camp could be seen singing "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball".


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In 1986, Gorden Kaye and Vicki Michelle released a version of the hit song "Je t'aime... moi non plus". The characters of Yvette and René could be heard talking and canoodling in a comic manner whilst the familiar musical "Je t'aime..."' melody played in the background. The song got to number fifty-seven in the UK Singles Chart.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In 1985, Gorden Kaye and Carmen Silvera appeared in the Royal Variety Performance in character as René and Edith, and sang "I Remember It Well" from "Gigi".


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The show gave rise to a successful touring stage-show featuring most of the TV cast. This ran from 1986 to 1992, and included three London stage runs as well as international tours.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In January 1990 Gorden Kaye suffered serious head injuries in a car accident. As a result, his understudy, John Larson, played the part in a London Palladium production. Kaye had a dent in his forehead for the rest of his life from a piece of wood that smashed through the car window. He wanted to end the television show after his accident, but was persuaded by Jeremy Lloyd to continue. In Australia Gorden Kaye's part was played by Australian comedian/impressionist Max Gillies (later, Gorden Kaye repaid the favour when he took over Max Gillies' role in another play in Australia, when Max Gillies was unable to take part).


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In 2007 Gorden Kaye, Sue Hodge and Guy Siner reprised their roles in a production of the stage show in Brisbane, Australia. They were joined by Steven Tandy as Colonel von Strohm and Jason Gann as Herr Flick.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: A new touring show, based on the 1992 tour written by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, opened at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage, Hertfordshire on 29 August 2008 before going on a national tour in 2009. Vicki Michelle reprised her role as Yvette Carte-Blanche. The cast also included Jeffrey Holland playing Rene Artois and his wife Judy Buxton playing Michelle Dubois. Other cast members included Robin Sebastian as Gruber, James Rossman as Herr Flick, Nell Jerram as Private Helga Geerhart and Claire Andreadis as Mimi Labonq.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The theatrical version is also frequently performed by amateur theatre companies in the UK and elsewhere.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Between 1982 and 1987, and from 1989 to 1992, all interior scenes were filmed in front of a studio audience at the BBC Television Centre studios in London. For the fifth series, recorded from December 1987 to August 1988, production moved to BBC Elstree Centre in Studio D. With hopes for a US syndication deal, the BBC planned to make 26 new episodes of the sitcom; hence, a bigger space was needed for the production. Even though the US syndication deal did not go ahead as planned, production remained at BBC Elstree Centre for the remainder of the fifth series. With more space available, the outside set of Café Rene became a semi-permanent structure in the former ATV Garage building.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In Australia, Roadshow Entertainment, under licence from the BBC began releasing the series on DVD in 2006, on a semi-annual basis. To date, all series have been released on DVD; only "The Return of 'Allo 'Allo!" TV special remains to be released.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: Universal Playback, under licence from the BBC, began releasing the series on DVD in 2002. In the UK six box sets with series 1–9 have been released, as well as a complete box set.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: The original UK releases have episode titles superimposed over the openings of the episodes (series 1–4). The 2013 re-release of the complete series box set omits the majority, but not all of these superimposed titles. The American releases have no on-screen episode titles, reflecting the way that the shows were originally transmitted.


title: 'Allo 'Allo!

text: In January 2004, BBC Worldwide began releasing the show themselves onto DVD in North America, beginning with Series 1. The releases have continued on a somewhat irregular basis (approximately circa twice-yearly).


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of the British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital city status. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is known as "the white and blue city" in Kenya. It is the country's oldest (circa 900 AD) and second-largest city after the capital Nairobi, with a population of about 1,208,333 people according to the 2019 census. Its metropolitan region is the second-largest in the country, and has a population of 3,528,940 people.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa's location on the Indian Ocean made it a historical trading centre, and it has been controlled by many countries because of its strategic location. Kenyan school history books place the founding of Mombasa as 900 A.D. It must have been already a prosperous trading town in the 12th century, as the Arab geographer al-Idrisi mentions it in 1151. The oldest stone mosque in Mombasa, Mnara, was built 1300. The Mandhry Mosque, built in 1570, has a minaret that contains a regionally specific ogee arch.


title: Mombasa

text: In the late pre-colonial period, it was the metropolis of a plantation society, which became dependent on slave labour based around the ivory trade. Throughout the early modern period, Mombasa was a key node in the complex and far reaching Indian Ocean trading networks; its key exports then were ivory, millet, sesamum and coconuts.


title: Mombasa

text: Today, Mombasa is a tourism-based town, home to one of the state houses, with an extra-large port and an international airport.


title: Mombasa

text: The founding of Mombasa is associated with two rulers: Mwana Mkisi and Shehe Mvita. According to legend, Mwana Mkisi is the original ancestor of Mombasa's oldest lineages within "Thenashara Taifa" (or Twelve Nations). Families associated with the Twelve Nations are still considered the original inhabitants of the city. Mwana Mkisi was a queen from the pre-Islamic era, who founded Kongowea, the original urban settlement on Mombasa Island.


title: Mombasa

text: Significantly, the names of both the queen and the city have linguistic and spiritual connections with Central Africa. "Mkisi" is considered the personification of ""ukisi"", which means "the holy" in kiKongo. "Kongowea" can similarly be interpreted as the Swahili locative of ""kongo"", which denotes the essence of civilizational order in central Africa. These legends can be read as an acknowledgment of the Bantu-speaking origins of the Swahili people.


title: Mombasa

text: Shehe Mvitaff superseded the dynasty of Mwana Mkisi and established the first permanent stone mosque on Mombasa Island. Mombasa's oldest extant stone mosque, Mnara, was built c. 1300. Shehe Mvita is remembered as a Muslim of great learning and so is connected more directly with the present ideals of Swahili culture that people identify with Mombasa. The ancient history associated with Mwana Mkisi and Shehe Mvita and the founding of an urban settlement on Mombasa Island is still linked to present-day peoples living in Mombasa. The Thenashara Taifa (or Twelve Nations) Swahili lineages recount this ancient history today and are the keepers of local Swahili traditions.


title: Mombasa

text: Most of the early information on Mombasa comes from the writings of Portuguese chroniclers in the 16th century.


title: Mombasa

text: The famous Moroccan scholar and traveller Ibn Battuta (13041368/1369) visited the area during his travels to the Swahili Coast. He noted the city, although he stayed only one night. He wrote that the people of Mombasa were Shafi‘i Muslims, religious people, trustworthy and righteous. Their mosques were made of wood, expertly built.


title: Mombasa

text: The exact founding date of the city is unknown, but it has a long history. Kenyan school history books place the founding of Mombasa as 900 A.D. It must have been already a prosperous trading town in the 12th century, as the Arab geographer al-Idrisi mentions it in 1151. The oldest stone mosque in Mombasa, Mnara, was built 1300. The Mandhry Mosque, built in 1570, has a minaret that contains a regionally specific ogee arch. This suggests that Swahili architecture was an indigenous African product rather than being adopted from non-African Muslims who brought stone architecture to the Swahili Coast.


title: Mombasa

text: During the pre-modern period, Mombasa was an important centre for the trade in spices, gold, and ivory. Its trade links reached as far as India and China. Oral historians today can still recount this period of local history. Indian history shows that there were trade links between Mombasa and Cholas of South India. Throughout the early modern period, Mombasa was a key node in the complex and far-reaching Indian Ocean trading networks, its key exports then were ivory, millet, sesamum and coconuts.


title: Mombasa

text: Ivory caravans remained a major source of economic prosperity. Mombasa became the major port city of pre-colonial Kenya in the Middle Ages and was used to trade with other African port cities, the Persian Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, India and China.


title: Mombasa

text: "[Mombasa] is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from Sofala and others which come from Cambay and Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar."


title: Mombasa

text: Vasco da Gama was the first known European to visit Mombasa, receiving a chilly reception in 1498. Two years later, the town was sacked by the Portuguese. In 1502, the sultanate became independent from Kilwa Kisiwani and was renamed as Mvita (in Swahili) or Manbasa (Arabic).


title: Mombasa

text: The Portuguese had since had encounters with the city several times; first under Tristão da Cunha in 1506, later under Afonso de Albuquerque in 1522 to quell an attempted mutiny by the sultan's nephew in Pemba and Zanzibar, and finally the destruction of the city under Nuno da Cunha again in 1528 after the Malindi sultan failed to pay tribute.


title: Mombasa

text: In 1585, a joint military expedition between the Somalis of Ajuran Empire and the Turks of the Ottoman Empire, led by Emir 'Ali Bey, successfully captured Mombasa, and other coastal cities in Southeast Africa from the Portuguese. However, Malindi remained loyal to Portugal. The Zimba overcame the towns of Sena and Tete on the Zambezi, and in 1587 they took Kilwa, killing 3,000 people. At Mombasa, the Zimba slaughtered the Muslim inhabitants, but they were halted at Malindi by the Bantu-speaking Segeju and went home. This stimulated the Portuguese to take over Mombasa a third time in 1589, and four years later they built Fort Jesus to administer the region. Between Lake Malawi and the Zambezi mouth, Kalonga Mzura made an alliance with the Portuguese in 1608 and fielded 4,000 warriors to help defeat their rival Zimba, who were led by chief Lundi.


title: Mombasa

text: After the building of Fort Jesus, Mombasa was put by the Portuguese under the rule of members of the ruling family of Malindi. In 1631 Dom Jeronimo the ruler of Mombasa slaughtered the Portuguese garrison in the city and defeated the relief force sent by the Portuguese. In 1632 Dom Jeronimo left Mombasa and became a pirate. That year the Portuguese returned and established direct rule over Mombasa.


title: Mombasa

text: With the capture of Fort Jesus in 1698, the town came under the influence of the Imamate of Oman, subordinate to the Omani rulers on the island of Unguja, prompting regular local rebellions. Oman appointed three consecutive Governors (Wali in Arabic, Liwali in Swahili):


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa was briefly returned to Portuguese rule by captain-major Álvaro Caetano de Melo Castro (12 March 1728 – 21 September 1729), then four new Omani Liwali until 1746, when the last of them made it independent again (disputed by Oman), as the first of its recorded Sultans:


title: Mombasa

text: From 9 February 1824 to 25 July 1826, there was a British protectorate over Mombasa, represented by governors. Omani rule was restored in 1826; seven where appointed. On 24 June 1837, it was nominally annexed by Said bin Sultan of Muscat and Oman.


title: Mombasa

text: On 25 May 1887 Mombasa was relinquished to the British East Africa Association, later the Imperial British East Africa Company. It came under British administration in 1895.


title: Mombasa

text: It soon became the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate and the sea terminal of the Uganda Railway, construction of which was started in 1896. Many workers were brought in from British India to build the railway, and the city's fortunes revived. The Sultan of Zanzibar formally presented the town to the British in 1898.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa became the capital of the Kenya Colony Protectorate of Kenya, sometime between 1887 and around 1906. The capital was later moved because medical officers warned that the ground was swampy, and urged Sir James Hayes Sadler, then Commissioner of the East Africa Protectorate, to plead with London to move the town elsewhere to mitigate potential disease. Nairobi has since been Kenya's capital to date.


title: Mombasa

text: The Mombasa tusks, one of the city's best-known monuments, were originally constructed in 1952 by the British administration of the Kenya Colony, commemorating the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to the city.


title: Mombasa

text: In 2018, as part of an effort to increase tourism, Mombasa County Governor Hassan Joho issued a directive requiring that all buildings in the Old Town and the Central Business District be painted white with Egyptian blue trim and banned all signs from their walls or canopies. Transport, Infrastructure and Public Works County Executive Tawfiq Balala stated that the city wanted to be "the most photographed in Africa."


title: Mombasa

text: Being a coastal town, Mombasa is characterised by a flat topography. The town of Mombasa is centred on Mombasa Island, but extends to the mainland. The island is separated from the mainland by two creeks, Port Reitz in the south and Tudor Creek in the north.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa has a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen: "As"). The amount of rainfall essentially depends on the season. The rainiest months are April and May, while rainfall is minimal between January and February.


title: Mombasa

text: Located near the equator, Mombasa has only a slight seasonal temperature variation, with high temperatures ranging .


title: Mombasa

text: As a seaport, Mombasa is subject to detrimental consequences of a fluctuating climate. In October 2006, Mombasa experienced a large flood that affected 60,000 people.


title: Mombasa

text: Like the rest of Kenya, climate change is already creating challenges for the city: coastal erosion has become a problem for infrastructure in Mombasa. Due to rising sea levels, the coastline has been eroding at per year. This has increased the number of annual floods.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is located on Mombasa Island and sprawls to the surrounding mainlands. The island is separated from the mainland by two creeks: Tudor Creek and Kilindini Harbour. It is connected to the mainland to the north by the Nyali Bridge, to the south by the Likoni Ferry, and to the west by the Makupa Causeway, alongside which runs the Kenya-Uganda Railway. The port serves both Kenya and countries of the interior, linking them to the ocean. The city is served by Moi International Airport located in the northwest mainland suburb of Chaani.


title: Mombasa

text: Kizingo: Considered the prime residential area of Mombasa. The State House of Mombasa, Provincial Headquarters, The Mombasa Law Courts, and the Municipal Council are located in Kizingo. The Aga Khan Academy, Aga Khan High School, Serani Primary School, Serani High School, Santokben Nursery School, Coast Academy, Jaffery Academy, Mombasa Primary School, Loreto Convent, Mama Ngina Girls' High School and the Government Training Institute (GTI) Mombasa are all in Kizingo as well.


title: Mombasa

text: Central Business District: The Mombasa central business district across the TSS building roundabout, Moi Avenue, and Nyerere Avenue is densely populated. Organizations such as the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and businesses such as Banks (ABSA, I&M Ltd, Bank of India Ltd), Insurance Firms (Nomura Insurance Brokers, Masumali Meghji Insurance), and Audit Firms (Anant Bhatt LLP, Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, Mazars LLP, Deloitte LLP, and PKF LLP) are located here.


title: Mombasa

text: Kuze: Part of Old Town with Swahili culture and architecture. Originally flourishing with Swahili people but currently becoming a more cosmopolitan neighbourhood.


title: Mombasa

text: Makadara: Part of Old Town consisting of a high number of descendants of Baluchi former soldiers who settled within this area before it developed into a town. The name is derived from the Arabic words "Qadru r-Rahman" meaning "Decree of (God) the Merciful".


title: Mombasa

text: Ganjoni: Primarily a middle class residential, home of second biggest dry dock of Africa after the one in South Africa.


title: Mombasa

text: Tudor: Another middle class residential area with homes and shops. The Technical University of Mombasa (TUM) is situated in this neighbourhood.


title: Mombasa

text: Nyali, also considered a prime and up-market residential area, it is on the mainland north of the island and is linked by the New Nyali Bridge. It has numerous beach front hotels in the area known as the "North Coast". Nyali has two distinct sections – the upmarket Old Nyali and the upcoming New Nyali. For many residents, Nyali has now become a self-contained residential area, with two Nakumatts, a multiplex cinema, shopping malls, banks, schools and post offices. This often eliminates the need for residents to cross the bridge and to go into the congested Mombasa city centre. Nyali is home for the Nyali Cinemax complex, Mamba Village, the Nyali Golf Club, and some of the most prestigious academic institutions of the Coast Province.


title: Mombasa

text: Kongowea is a densely populated area with 15 villages, two sub-locations and an estimated population of 106,180 residents. Kongowea is a cosmopolitan settlement mainly inhabited by people from mainland who migrated into the city in search of employment, mainly in service and manufacturing sector. The area is adjacent to the rich suburb of Nyali which employs a portion of the village residents. They are mainly hired as cheap labour as watchmen, gardeners, masons for up coming houses and house help. The most well known villages inside Kongowea include Kisumu Ndogo, Shauri Yako and Mnazi Mmoja, despite being located in this prime area, many residents live under extreme conditions – poor sanitation, high crime rate and lack of basic essential amenities like schools, hospitals and tap water. Kongowea is also home to one of the largest open-air markets in the African Great Lakes.


title: Mombasa

text: Bamburi is an outlying township (fifteen minutes drive) along the Malindi road. It is home to Bamburi Cement factory, the largest cement plant in the East African region. Other notable features in the area are the Jomo Kenyatta public beach, commonly known as Pirates, and Haller Park, a nature trail and wildlife conservatory. Kiembeni Estate, also in the Bamburi area, hosts around 100,000 residents. The estate has its own supermarket, several retail shops, salons and boutiques, and a number of licensed drinking dens. The establishments include The Shilla Bar, Turkey Base, Stars Garden and Sensera pub. Kiembeni is arguably the largest estate in Mombasa, and growing even faster.


title: Mombasa

text: Other areas include, Shanzu, Mkomani, Bombolulu, Kisauni and, across the Mtwapa creek, the popular area of Mtwapa, which is already located in Kilifi county.


title: Mombasa

text: Likoni: is a lower income and lower-middle-class neighbourhood connected to Mombasa Island by ferry. It is south of Mombasa Island and made up of mostly Swahili and non-Swahili Bantu tribes. The ferry was the target of the Likoni Riots of 1997.


title: Mombasa

text: Diani Beach: a beach resort area situated over the Likoni Ferry on the south coast of Mombasa. It is located some 36 km (22 miles) south of Mombasa city on the mainland coast and is a prime resort for many local and international tourists. Diani Beach has an airport at Ukunda town to cater for tourists who fly there directly from Nairobi Wilson or any other airports and airfields in the country.


title: Mombasa

text: Magongo: is an outlying township 20 minutes driving distance northwest of Mombasa Island, situated on the Nairobi Highway. This fringe community lacks any effective electricity, water or sewer systems, with a general lack of infrastructure. Poverty, lack of sanitation, and unemployment continue to be the greatest issues for the Mikindani Township, which have ensured low health and safety standards for its residents. Poor, lower class housing is widespread, ranging from simple stone, two-storey structures to mud and earth homes fitted with corrugated iron roofs. Much of the community works outside of the township, within Mombasa Island itself as there is a lack of employment and industry. There are number of small health clinics, shops, and a few public primary schools: Nazarene primary is one school, which is known in particular as being staffed by a revolving volunteer teacher base from Western, and predominately English speaking nations. This small town serves as a link between the city and Moi International Airport. Magongo is also home to the Akamba Handicraft Cooperative.


title: Mombasa

text: Mikindani, a suburban area: This is an outlying township on the mainland along the Nairobi Highway. It is built in the heavy industrial sections of Changamwe and mainly accommodate the working class who either work in the industries, the town centre on the Island and the Port at Kilindini harbour.


title: Mombasa

text: Miritini: outlying township on the Mombasa Nairobi Highway which is first growing as a suburban area.


title: Mombasa

text: Changamwe: Industrial area which contains the Kipevu power generation projects, the Kenya Oil Refinery Company facility and housing estates such as Chaani and is the gateway to the Moi International Airport. The area has administrative offices of the D.O and the chiefs who serve the administrative division.


title: Mombasa

text: Migadini & Chaani: They are two adjacent estate that are located east of Airport road and east of Kenya Port Authority. They are bordered by Port Reitz, Magongo and KPA


title: Mombasa

text: Port Reitz: Is a suburb on the mainland which contains a beach, oil refineries, housing estates etc. Moi International Airport and the Port Reitz District Hospital are in Port Reitz.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa has a cosmopolitan population, with the Swahili people and Mijikenda predominant. Other communities include the Akamba and Taita Bantus as well as a significant population of Luo and Luhya. Gusii, Agikuyu, peoples from Western Kenya. The major religions practised in the city are Christianity and Islam. Over the centuries, many immigrants and traders have settled in Mombasa, particularly from the Middle East and South Asia.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is an important economic centre in Kenya. In addition to the coffee trade, the food and chemical industries, there is a steel mill, an aluminum rolling mill, an oil refinery and a cement plant. The city is home to the most important seaport in East Africa, Kilindini Harbor, which is also used by the neighboring countries Tanzania and Uganda for their imports and exports.


title: Mombasa

text: "Kilindini" is an old Swahili term meaning "deep". The port is so-called because the channel is naturally very deep. Kilindini Harbour is an example of a natural geographic phenomenon called a ria, formed at the end of the last glacial period when the sea level rose and engulfed a river that was flowing from the mainland.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is a centre of coastal tourism in Kenya. Mombasa Island itself is not a main attraction, although many people visit the Old Town and Fort Jesus. The Nyali, Bamburi, and Shanzu beaches are located north of the city. The Shelly, Tiwi, and Diani beaches are located south of Mombasa. Several luxury hotels exist on these beaches, while the less expensive hotels are located further away.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa's northern shoreline is renowned for its vibrant 24-hour entertainment offers, including both family entertainment (water parks, cinemas, bowling, etc.), sports (watersports, mountain biking and gokarting), culinary offers (restaurants offering a wide range of specialties from Kenya, China, Japan, India, Italy, Germany and other countries) and nightlife (bars, pubs, clubs, discothèques, etc.).


title: Mombasa

text: Other local industries include an oil refinery with a capacity of a day, and a cement factory capable of producing over 1.1 million tons per year. The major intercontinental undersea telecom cables reach shore next to Mombasa, connecting the African Great Lakes to the rest of the world and supporting a fast-growing call centre business in the area. The estimated real GDP growth for Kenya in 2016 is 5.7-6.0%. This growth will be in response to the construction of a railway system from Nairobi to Mombasa which will aid in trade and transportation between Kenya's two major cities.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa will become a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in which certain industries such as tea, garments, and footwear will be exempt from certain taxes to promote domestic growth. This is in response to the deficiencies in Export Processing Zones (EPZ).


title: Mombasa

text: President Kenyatta has made it a priority to deepen economic ties with Asia at the onset of his presidency. Japan has played a role in financially sponsoring the expansion of the Mombasa port in phase one and two of the expansion project.


title: Mombasa

text: At 44%, the rate of youth unemployment in Mombasa is more than double the national average of 21% (2016).


title: Mombasa

text: Moi International Airport is located in the city of Mombasa, and is the second largest airport in Kenya with daily flights to Nairobi and other Kenyan, European and Middle Eastern destinations. The airport also handles a large amount of air cargo through its freight terminal.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa currently has a modern railway station on the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway that replaced the narrow-gauge Uganda Railway completed in 1901 under British colonial rule. Completed in 2017 and located at Miritini, the Mombasa Terminus station links Mombasa to Nairobi. The station, situated about 20 kilometers from the city centre, is accessible through the newly built (2018) highway, being the first phase of the Dongo Kundu bypass. Kenya Railways transports passengers and cargo through the Standard Gauge Railway between Nairobi to Mombasa.


title: Mombasa

text: Driving in Mombasa is straightforward and the majority of the roads are tarmacked. The Mombasa–Nairobi Expressway connects Mombasa to the capital city Nairobi.


title: Mombasa

text: Within Mombasa, most local people use "matatus" (mini-buses) which are extremely common in Kenya, to move around the city and its suburbs. The "tuk-tuk"—a motor vehicle with three wheels—is widely used as transport around the city and its suburbs. No more than three passengers may be carried. A "boda-boda" is originally a bicycle taxi but have long since been replaced by motorcycles.


title: Mombasa

text: The port of Mombasa is the largest in East Africa, with 19 deep water berths with two additional berths nearing completion and two oil terminals. The port is connected by rail and road to the interior. At present there is little or no scheduled passenger service from the port, however, international cruise ships frequent the port. The port is part of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the Upper Adriatic region. In connection with the Silk Road Initiative, China has started infrastructure development projects in Kenya and is building roads, railways and public buildings on credit.


title: Mombasa

text: There is no bridge between Mombasa Island and the south coast, instead the route is served by ferries operated by the Kenya Ferry Service from Kilindini and Mtongwe to Likoni in the south coast of Mombasa. The last major accident occurred in 1994 when a ferry serving Mtongwe route sank killing more than 270 people.


title: Mombasa

text: As a result of the increase in more luxurious hotels along the south coast and a lack of a direct bridge linking with Mombasa island, visiting tourists have the option of flying directly from Nairobi into the South Coast airstrip at Ukunda.


title: Mombasa

text: The Dongo Kundu Bypass Highway is currently (2018) under construction. With a total of three bridges, it will finally connect the mainland to the south coast easing the burden on the ferry services. Mombasa Gate Bridge will connect the mainland to likoni,this will eliminate the usage of the unsafe ferry which has claimed hundreds of lives.


title: Mombasa

text: Other major university campuses include University of Nairobi-Mombasa campus, Mount Kenya University-Mombasa campus, JKUAT-Mombasa, Shanzu Teachers Training College, Mombasa Technical College, Bandari college, Utalii college, and ICS college Mombasa.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa has places of worship serving needs of the city's diverse communities. Christian denominations represented in the city include:


title: Mombasa

text: A large number of Hindus visit Mombasa to pray at a number of naturally formed Lingam that have formed in the Nyali beach Gombeshwar Caves. According to local folklore, the cave-temple was found a long time ago when a group of local herders were puzzled after they noticed that one of their cows regularly released all of her milk at a specific yet random spot on the hills. They are then said to have approached some Hindu families living in the area to ask if they had any idea behind the strange behaviour by the cow. The group then teamed up, made their way to the spot and started digging. That is how they ended up stumbling into the cave where they found a 'Shiva Lingam' – an abstract representation of the Hindu God Lord Shiva, whose vehicle is Nandi (mythology). Hindus worship Lord Shiva by offering milk to a Lingam.


title: Mombasa

text: Other temples within Mombasa include the Sikh Shree Guru Gobind Singh Sabha Temple, and the Shree Parshva Vallabh Jain Temple


title: Mombasa

text: A major cultural hub in Kenya and the African Great Lakes, Mombasa's proximity to Zanzibar, Nairobi and the Indian subcontinent, as well as its large shipping and maritime industries gives it a diverse mosaic of cultures. Music is a main feature of Mombasa's culture.


title: Mombasa

text: Taarab music, which originates from Zanzibar, has a prominent local presence. Styles of music native to Mombasa include the smooth and mellow Bango, fast-paced Chakacha and traditional Mwanzele.


title: Mombasa

text: Musicians of note are Mombasa Roots, Safari Sounds, Them Mushrooms, Prof Juma Bhalo, Maulidi Juma, Zuhura Swaleh, Zein Alabdin and Princess Farida. Mombasa has been the home or base for former greats like Fundi Konde, known for his song "Tausi"; Fadhili Williams and Grand Charo, famous for the song "Malaika"; Sal Davies; Malika Mohammed; Stara Butte; Juma Bhalo. Contemporary hip-hop fusion artistes are Susumila, Majizee, Nyota Ndogo, Cannibal (musician), Sharama and Ukoo Flani super group which once could boast up to 40 rappers.


title: Mombasa

text: Recently, hip hop, reggae, soul, blues, salsa and (among the Indian community) bhangra have become popular, especially amongst the youth. Mombasa is mainly a tourism centre populated by hundreds of entertainment spots of all categories from night clubs, bars, hotels, fancy restaurants and many more. It has the most vibrant night life in Kenya catering to the mainly tourist population.


title: Mombasa

text: Currently, Mombasa is represented in the Kenyan Premier League by Bandari F.C, which plays at the Mbaraki Sports Grounds. Also, the Congo United FC, Promoted and dropped in 2011, are in the second tier Nationwide Super League with 4 other hometown clubs – Admiral F.C.; Magongo Rangers; Sparki Youth and Coast United. Derbies between Mombasa teams have become intriguing affairs recently. Another team, Coast Stars, were relegated several years ago from the league. The only Mombasa-based team to win the league is Feisal F.C., the 1965 champions. Kiziwi leopards was a popular team in the 1980s as was Mombasa Wanderers decades before. There are several cricket teams in Mombasa; one is Mombasa Sports Club (MSC), whose ground was given ODI status in 2006. MSC has also a rugby union team playing in the Kenya Cup League, the premier rugby competition in Kenya. Mvita XI men and MSC ladies represent Mombasa in Kenyan field hockey leagues.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is represented in the nationwide rugby league by Mombasa RFC. The city is also host to a leg of the national rugby sevens circuit, being one of only six city hosts. The Mombasa leg is referred to as the Driftwood sevens, and the annual tournament is extremely popular, attracting thousands of fans from across the country.


title: Mombasa

text: The 2007 World Cross Country Championships were held in Mombasa. Mombasa Marathon is competed annually in Mombasa. The town also hosts the biennial classic edition of Safari Rally and annually a Kenya National Rally Championship round.


title: Mombasa

text: Scuba diving takes place mostly within the Mombasa Marine National Park and Reserve, which is managed and maintained by Kenya Wildlife Service. The park has a length of about .


title: Mombasa

text: During its history, Mombasa was visited by numerous pioneers of the maritime exploration, such as the Arabs Al Idrissi (1151) and Ibn Battuta (1330) or the Portuguese Vasco da Gama (1498), Pedro Álvares Cabral (1500) João da Nova (1505) and Afonso de Albuquerque (1507).


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is the subject of the popular song and music video of the same name, "Mombasa" by "Jabali Afrika" feat. "Jason Dunford" aka Samaki Mkuu released on July 17, 2020.


title: Mombasa

text: In the film "Out of Africa", Mombasa is the train destination as the seaport for voyages to Europe via the Suez Canal, and Mombasa is indicated as downriver ("This water must go home to Mombasa").


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is a pivotal setting in the highly popular "Halo" video game series. Mombasa appears as a major setting in "Halo 2", and the entirety of "" takes place in Mombasa. The science fiction games are set in the year 2552, and the city has been divided into "Old Mombasa" and "New Mombasa" (a prosperous section filled with futuristic skyscrapers and an iconic orbital elevator). It is the capital of the fictional East Africa Protectorate. The city comes under attack by humanity's alien adversaries, "The Covenant", who focus their planetary invasion in and around Mombasa in search of a massive, technologically advanced artifact buried nearby.


title: Mombasa

text: Mombasa is featured in the 2010 movie, "Inception", where Cobb meets Eames and Yusuf before the job takes place.


title: Mombasa

text: In the Warren Zevon song "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner", Mombasa is one of the key locales related to the protagonist's quest.


title: Mombasa

text: In the US, the Walt Disney World resort recreated a Kenyan village in the Africa section of the Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park named "Harambe", which is modelled after Mombasa. The village features a store called the "Mombasa Marketplace".


title: Mombasa

text: Most of the events in the 2017 story "Consummation in Mombasa" (by Andrei Gusev) take place in Mombasa and in the nearest district Mtwapa.


title: Mombasa

text: "One-Way Ticket to Mombasa (Menolippu Mombasaan)" is a 2002 Finnish film directed by Hannu Tuomainen.


title: Mombasa

text: Popular blackgaze band Deafheaven titled the last song of its 2021 album, "Infinite Granite", with the name of the city. The lyrics make reference to the beaches and general uplifting scenery of Mombasa.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a novel by Ken Kesey published in 1962. Set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital, the narrative serves as a study of institutional processes and the human mind, including a critique of psychiatry and a tribute to individualistic principles. It was adapted into the Broadway (and later off-Broadway) play "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Dale Wasserman in 1963. Bo Goldman adapted the novel into a 1975 film of the same name directed by Miloš Forman, which won five Academy Awards.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: "Time" magazine included the novel in its "100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005" list. In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 200 "best-loved novels."


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The book is narrated by "Chief" Bromden, a gigantic yet docile half-Native American patient at a psychiatric hospital, who presents himself as deaf and mute. Bromden's tale focuses mainly on the antics of the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy, who faked insanity to serve his sentence for battery and gambling in the hospital rather than at a prison work farm. The head administrative nurse, Nurse Ratched, rules the ward with absolute authority and little medical oversight. She is assisted by her three day-shift orderlies and her assistant doctors and nurses.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: McMurphy constantly antagonizes Nurse Ratched and upsets the routines of the ward, leading to endless power struggles between the inmate and the nurse. He runs a card table, captains the ward's basketball team, comments on Nurse Ratched's figure, incites the other patients to conduct a vote about watching the World Series on television, and organizes a deep-sea fishing trip wherein the patients were going to be "supervised" by prostitutes. After claiming to be able, and subsequently failing, to lift a heavy control panel in the defunct hydrotherapy room (referred to as the "tub room"), his response—"But at least I tried"—gives the men incentive to try to stand up for themselves, instead of allowing Nurse Ratched to take control of every aspect of their lives. The Chief opens up to McMurphy, revealing late one night that he can speak and hear. A violent disturbance after the fishing trip results in McMurphy and the Chief being sent for electroshock therapy sessions, but such punishment does nothing to curb McMurphy's rambunctious behavior.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: One night, after bribing the night orderly, McMurphy smuggles two prostitute girlfriends with liquor onto the ward and breaks into the pharmacy for codeine cough syrup and unnamed psychiatric medications. McMurphy, having noticed on the fishing trip that Billy Bibbit—a timid, boyish patient with a stutter and little experience with women—had a crush on the prostitute named Candy, primarily arranged this break-in so that Billy could lose his virginity and, to a slightly lesser extent so that McMurphy and other patients could throw an unsanctioned party. Although McMurphy agrees before the end of the night to a plan involving his escaping before the morning shift starts, he and the other patients instead fall asleep without cleaning up the mess of the group's antics, and the morning staff discovers the ward in complete disarray. Nurse Ratched finds Billy and the prostitute in each other's arms, partially dressed, and admonishes him. Billy asserts himself for the first time, answering Nurse Ratched without stuttering. Ratched calmly threatens to tell Billy's mother what she has seen. Billy has an emotional breakdown, regressing immediately back to a boyish state, and, upon being left alone in the doctor's office, takes his life by cutting his own throat. Nurse Ratched blames McMurphy for the loss of Billy's life. Enraged at what she has done to Billy, McMurphy attacks Ratched by ripping her shirt open and attempting to strangle her to death. McMurphy is physically restrained and moved to the Disturbed ward.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: Nurse Ratched misses a week of work due to her injuries, during which time many of the patients either transfer to other wards or check out of the hospital forever. When she returns, she cannot speak and is thus deprived of her most potent tool to keep the men in line. With Bromden, Martini, and Scanlon the only patients who attended the boat trip left on the ward, McMurphy is brought back in. He has received a lobotomy, and is now in a vegetative state, rendering him silent and motionless. The Chief smothers McMurphy with a pillow during the night in an act of mercy before lifting the tub room control panel that McMurphy could not lift earlier, throwing it through a window and escaping the hospital, thus being the “one” who “flew over the cuckoo’s nest”.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was written in 1959 and published in 1962 in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement and deep changes to the way psychology and psychiatry were being approached in America. The 1960s began the controversial movement towards deinstitutionalization, an act that would have affected the characters in Kesey's novel. The novel is a direct product of Kesey's time working the graveyard shift as an orderly at a mental health facility in Menlo Park, California. Not only did he speak to the patients and witness the workings of the institution, he also voluntarily took psychoactive drugs, including mescaline and LSD, as part of Project MKUltra.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: In addition to his work with Project MKUltra, Kesey took LSD recreationally; advocating for drug use as a path to individual freedom.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The novel constantly refers to different authorities that control individuals through subtle and coercive methods. The novel's narrator, the Chief, combines these authorities in his mind, calling them "The Combine" in reference to the mechanistic way they manipulate and process individuals. The authority of The Combine is most often personified in the character of Nurse Ratched who controls the inhabitants of the novel's mental ward through a combination of rewards and subtle shame. Although she does not normally resort to conventionally harsh discipline, her actions are portrayed as more insidious than those of a conventional prison administrator. This is because the subtlety of her actions prevents her prisoners from understanding they are being controlled at all. The Chief also sees the Combine in the damming of the wild Columbia River at Celilo Falls, where his Native American ancestors hunted, and in the broader conformity of post-war American consumer society. The novel's critique of the mental ward as an instrument of oppression comparable to the prison mirrored many of the claims that French intellectual Michel Foucault was making at the same time. Similarly, Foucault argued that invisible forms of discipline oppressed individuals on a broad societal scale, encouraging them to censor aspects of themselves and their actions. The novel also criticizes the emasculation of men in society, particularly in the character of Billy Bibbit, the stuttering Acute patient who is domineered by both Nurse Ratched and his mother.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: Chief Bromden's grandmother sang a version of this song to him when he was a child, a fact revealed in the story when the Chief received yet another ECT treatment after he assisted McMurphy with defending George, a patient being abused by the ward's aides.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The acutes are patients who officials believe can still be cured. With few exceptions, they are there voluntarily, a fact that angers McMurphy when he first learns of it, then later causes him to feel further pity for the patients, thus further inspiring him to prove to them they can still be strong despite their seeming willingness to be weak.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The chronics are patients who will never be cured. Many of the chronics are elderly and/or in vegetative states.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The novel was adapted into a 1963 play, starring Kirk Douglas (who purchased the rights to produce it for the stage and motion pictures) as McMurphy and Gene Wilder as Billy Bibbit. A film adaptation, starring Jack Nicholson and co-produced by Michael Douglas, was released in 1975. The film won five Academy Awards.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: The characters of Nurse Ratched and Chief Bromden appear as recurring characters in ABC's "Once Upon a Time", where they are portrayed by Ingrid Torrance and Peter Marcin.


title: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (novel)

text: Netflix and Ryan Murphy produced a prequel series titled "Ratched" which follows Sarah Paulson as a younger version of Nurse Ratched. The first of the two-season order was released on September 18, 2020.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Giacomo Puccini (22 December 1858 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera he later developed his work in the realistic "verismo" style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: His most renowned works are "La bohème" (1896), "Tosca" (1900), "Madama Butterfly" (1904), and "Turandot" (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musical dynasty by Puccini's great-great-grandfather – also named Giacomo (1712–1781). This first Giacomo Puccini was "maestro di cappella" of the Cattedrale di San Martino in Lucca. He was succeeded in this position by his son, Antonio Puccini, and then by Antonio's son Domenico, and Domenico's son Michele (father of the subject of this article). Each of these men studied music at Bologna, and some took additional musical studies elsewhere. Domenico Puccini studied for a time under Giovanni Paisiello. Each composed music for the church. In addition, Domenico composed several operas, and Michele composed one opera. Puccini's father Michele enjoyed a reputation throughout northern Italy, and his funeral was an occasion of public mourning, at which the then-famed composer Giovanni Pacini conducted a Requiem.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: With the Puccini family having occupied the position of "maestro di cappella" for 124 years (1740–1864) by the time of Michele's death, it was anticipated that Michele's son Giacomo would occupy that position as well when he was old enough. However, when Michele Puccini died in 1864, his son Giacomo was only six years old, and thus not capable of taking over his father's job. As a child, he nevertheless participated in the musical life of the Cattedrale di San Martino, as a member of the boys' choir and later as a substitute organist.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini was given a general education at the seminary of San Michele in Lucca, and then at the seminary of the cathedral. One of Puccini's uncles, Fortunato Magi, supervised his musical education. Puccini got a diploma from the Pacini School of Music in Lucca in 1880, having studied there with his uncle Fortunato, and later with Carlo Angeloni, who had also instructed Alfredo Catalani. A grant from Queen Margherita, and assistance from another uncle, Nicholas Cerù, provided the funds necessary for Puccini to continue his studies at the Milan Conservatory, where he studied composition with Stefano Ronchetti-Monteviti, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Antonio Bazzini. Puccini studied at the conservatory for three years, sharing a room with Pietro Mascagni. In 1880, at the age of 21, Puccini composed his "Mass", which marks the culmination of his family's long association with church music in his native Lucca.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini wrote an orchestral piece called the "Capriccio sinfonico" as a thesis composition for the Milan Conservatory. Puccini's teachers Ponchielli and Bazzini were impressed by the work, and it was performed at a student concert at the conservatory on 14 July 1883, conducted by Franco Faccio. Puccini's work was favorably reviewed in the Milanese publication "La Perseveranza", and thus Puccini began to build a reputation as a young composer of promise in Milanese music circles.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: After the premiere of the "Capriccio sinfonico", Ponchielli and Puccini discussed the possibility that Puccini's next work might be an opera. Ponchielli invited Puccini to stay at his villa, where Puccini was introduced to another young man named Ferdinando Fontana. Puccini and Fontana agreed to collaborate on an opera, for which Fontana would provide the libretto. The work, "Le Villi", was entered into a competition sponsored by the Sozogno music publishing company in 1883 (the same competition in which Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" was the winner in 1889). Although it did not win, "Le Villi" was later staged at the Teatro Dal Verme, premiering on 31 May 1884. G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers assisted with the premier by printing the libretto without charge. Fellow students from the Milan Conservatory formed a large part of the orchestra. The performance was enough of a success that Casa Ricordi purchased the opera. Revised into a two-act version with an intermezzo between the acts, "Le Villi" was performed at La Scala in Milan, on 24 January 1885. However, Ricordi did not publish the score until 1887, hindering further performance of the work.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Giulio Ricordi, head of G. Ricordi & Co. music publishers, was sufficiently impressed with "Le Villi" and its young composer that he commissioned a second opera, which would result in "Edgar". Work was begun in 1884 when Fontana began working out the scenario for the libretto. Puccini finished primary composition in 1887 and orchestration in 1888. "Edgar" premiered at La Scala on 21 April 1889 to a lukewarm response. The work was withdrawn for revisions after its third performance. In a Milanese newspaper, Giulio Ricordi published a defense of Puccini's skill as a composer, while criticizing Fontana's libretto. A revised version met with success at the Teatro del Giglio in Puccini's native Lucca on 5 September 1891. In 1892, further revisions reduced the length of the opera from four acts to three, in a version that was well received in Ferrara and was performed in Turin and in Spain. Puccini made further revisions in 1901 and 1905, but the work never achieved popularity. Without the personal support of Ricordi, "Edgar" might have cost Puccini his career. Puccini had eloped with his former piano student, the married Elvira Gemignani, and Ricordi's associates were willing to turn a blind eye to his lifestyle as long as he was successful. When "Edgar" failed, they suggested to Ricordi that he should drop Puccini, but Ricordi said that he would stay with him and continued his allowance until his next opera.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: On commencing his next opera, "Manon Lescaut", Puccini announced that he would write his own libretto so that "no fool of a librettist" could spoil it. Ricordi persuaded him to accept Ruggero Leoncavallo as his librettist, but Puccini soon asked Ricordi to remove him from the project. Four other librettists were then involved with the opera, as Puccini constantly changed his mind about the structure of the piece. It was almost by accident that the final two, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, came together to complete the opera.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: "Manon Lescaut" premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin on 2 February 1893. By coincidence, Puccini's first enduringly popular opera appeared within a week of the premiere of Verdi's last opera, "Falstaff", which was first performed on 9 February 1893. In anticipation of the premiere, "La Stampa" wrote that Puccini was a young man concerning whom "great hopes" had a real basis (""). Because of the failure of "Edgar", however, a failure of "Manon Lescaut" could have jeopardized Puccini's future as a composer. Although Giulio Ricordi, head of Casa Ricordi, was supportive of Puccini while "Manon Lescaut" was still in development, the Casa Ricordi board of directors was considering cutting off Puccini's financial support. In any event, ""Manon Lescaut" was Puccini's first and only uncontested triumph, acclaimed by critics and public alike." After the London premiere in 1894, George Bernard Shaw pronounced: "Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals."


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: "Manon Lescaut" was a great success and established Puccini's reputation as the most promising rising composer of his generation, and the most likely "successor" to Verdi as the leading exponent of the Italian operatic tradition. Illica and Giacosa returned as librettists for Puccini for his next three operas, probably his greatest successes: "La bohème", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly".


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini's next work after "Manon Lescaut" was "La bohème", a four-act opera based on the 1851 book by Henri Murger, "La Vie de Bohème". "La bohème" premiered in Turin in 1896, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Within a few years, it had been performed in many of the leading opera houses of Europe, including in Britain, as well as in the United States. It was a popular success, and remains one of the most frequently performed operas ever written.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The libretto of the opera, freely adapted from Murger's episodic novel, combines comic elements of the impoverished life of the young protagonists with the tragic aspects, such as the death of the young seamstress Mimí. Puccini's own life as a young man in Milan served as a source of inspiration for elements of the libretto. During his years as a conservatory student and in the years before "Manon Lescaut", he experienced poverty similar to that of the bohemians in "La bohème", including chronic shortage of necessities like food, clothing and money to pay rent. Although Puccini was granted a small monthly stipend by the Congregation of Charity in Rome (), he frequently had to pawn his possessions to cover basic expenses. Early biographers such as Wakeling Dry and Eugenio Checchi, who were Puccini's contemporaries, drew express parallels between these incidents and particular events in the opera. Checchi cited a diary kept by Puccini while he was still a student, which recorded an occasion in which, as in Act 4 of the opera, a single herring served as a dinner for four people. Puccini himself commented: "I lived that "Bohème", when there wasn't yet any thought stirring in my brain of seeking the theme of an opera". ("")


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini's composition of "La bohème" was the subject of a public dispute between Puccini and fellow composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo. In early 1893, the two composers discovered that they were both engaged in writing operas based on Murger's work. Leoncavallo had started his work first, and he and his music publisher claimed to have "priority" on the subject (although Murger's work was in the public domain). Puccini responded that he started his own work without having any knowledge of Leoncavallo's project, and wrote: "Let him compose. I will compose. The audience will decide." Puccini's opera premiered a year before that of Leoncavallo, and has been a perennial audience favorite, while Leoncavallo's version quickly faded into obscurity.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini's next work after "La bohème" was "Tosca" (1900), arguably Puccini's first foray into "verismo", the realistic depiction of many facets of real life including violence. Puccini had been considering an opera on this theme since he saw the play "Tosca" by Victorien Sardou in 1889, when he wrote to his publisher, Giulio Ricordi, begging him to get Sardou's permission for the work to be made into an opera: "I see in this "Tosca" the opera I need, with no overblown proportions, no elaborate spectacle, nor will it call for the usual excessive amount of music."


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The music of "Tosca" employs musical signatures for particular characters and emotions, which have been compared to Wagnerian leitmotivs, and some contemporaries saw Puccini as thereby adopting a new musical style influenced by Richard Wagner. Others viewed the work differently. Rejecting the allegation that "Tosca" displayed Wagnerian influences, a critic reporting on the Torino premiere of 20 February 1900 wrote: "I don't think you could find a more Puccinian score than this."


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: On 25 February 1903, Puccini was seriously injured in a car crash during a nighttime journey on the road from Lucca to Torre del Lago. The car was driven by Puccini's chauffeur and was carrying Puccini, his future wife Elvira, and their son Antonio. It went off the road, fell several metres, and flipped over. Elvira and Antonio were flung from the car and escaped with minor injuries. Puccini's chauffeur, also thrown from the car, suffered a serious fracture of his femur. Puccini was pinned under the vehicle, with a severe fracture of his right leg and with a portion of the car pressing down on his chest. A doctor living near the scene of the crash, together with another person who came to investigate, saved Puccini from the wreckage. The injury did not heal well, and Puccini remained under treatment for months. During the medical examinations that he underwent it was also found that he was suffering from a form of diabetes. The accident and its consequences slowed Puccini's completion of his next work, "Madama Butterfly".


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The original version of "Madama Butterfly" premiered at La Scala on 17 February 1904 with Rosina Storchio in the title role. It was initially greeted with great hostility (probably largely owing to inadequate rehearsals). When Storchio's kimono accidentally lifted during the performance, some in the audience started shouting: "The butterfly is pregnant" and "There is the little Toscanini". The latter comment referred to her well publicised affair with Arturo Toscanini. This version was in two acts; after its disastrous premiere, Puccini withdrew the opera, revising it for what was virtually a second premiere at Brescia in May 1904 and performances in Buenos Aires, London, the US and Paris. In 1907, Puccini made his final revisions to the opera in a fifth version, which has become known as the "standard version". Today, the standard version of the opera is the version most often performed around the world. However, the original 1904 version is occasionally performed as well, and has been recorded.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: After 1904, Puccini's compositions were less frequent. In 1906 Giacosa died and, in 1909, there was scandal after Puccini's wife, Elvira, falsely accused their maid Doria Manfredi of having an affair with Puccini. Finally, in 1912, the death of Giulio Ricordi, Puccini's editor and publisher, ended a productive period of his career.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini completed "La fanciulla del West", based on a play by David Belasco, in 1910. This was commissioned by, and first performed at, the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 10 December 1910 with Met stars Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn for whom Puccini created the leading roles of Dick Johnson and Minnie. Toscanini, then the musical director of the Met, conducted. This was the first world premiere of an opera at the Met. The premiere was a great success. However, the compositional style employed in the opera, with few stand-alone arias, was criticized at the time. Some contemporaries also criticized the opera for failing to achieve an "American" tone. However, the opera has been acclaimed for its incorporation of advanced harmonic language and rhythmic complexity into the Italian operatic form. In addition, one aria from the opera, "Ch'ella mi creda", has become a staple of compilation albums by operatic tenors. It is said that during World War I, Italian soldiers sang this aria to maintain their spirits. The 2008 Italian film, "Puccini e la fanciulla" ("Puccini and the Girl"), is based on the period of his life when he was composing the opera.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini completed the score of "La rondine", to a libretto by Giuseppe Adami in 1916 after two years of work, and it was premiered at the Grand Théâtre de Monte Carlo on 27 March 1917. The opera had been originally commissioned by Vienna's Carltheater; however, the outbreak of World War I prevented the premiere from being given there. Moreover, the firm of Ricordi had declined the score of the opera – Giulio Ricordi's son Tito was then in charge and he described the opera as "bad Lehár". It was taken up by their rival, Lorenzo Sonzogno, who arranged the first performance in neutral Monaco. The composer continued to work at revising this, the least known of his mature operas, until his death.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: "La rondine" was initially conceived as an operetta, but Puccini eliminated spoken dialogue, rendering the work closer in form to an opera. A modern reviewer described "La rondine" as "a continuous fabric of lilting waltz tunes, catchy pop-styled melodies, and nostalgic love music," while characterizing the plot as recycling characters and incidents from works like 'La traviata' and 'Die Fledermaus'.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: In 1918, "Il trittico" premiered in New York. This work is composed of three one-act operas, each concerning the concealment of a death: a horrific episode ("Il tabarro") in the style of the Parisian Grand Guignol, a sentimental tragedy ("Suor Angelica"), and a comedy ("Gianni Schicchi").


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: "Turandot", Puccini's final opera, was left unfinished at the composer's death in November 1924, and the last two scenes were completed by Franco Alfano based on the composer's sketches. The libretto for "Turandot" was based on a play of the same name by Carlo Gozzi. The music of the opera is heavily inflected with pentatonic motifs, intended to produce an Asiatic flavor to the music. "Turandot" contains a number of memorable stand-alone arias, among them "Nessun dorma".


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The libretto of "Edgar" was a significant factor in the failure of that opera. Thereafter, especially throughout his middle and late career, Puccini was extremely selective, and at times indecisive, in his choice of subject matter for new works. Puccini was deeply involved in the process of writing the libretto itself, requiring many iterative revisions of his libretti in terms of both structure and text. Puccini's relationships with his librettists were at times very difficult. His publisher, Casa Ricordi, was frequently required to mediate disputes and impasses between them.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini explored many possible subjects that he ultimately rejected only after a significant amount of effort—such as the creation of a libretto—had been put into them. Among the subjects that Puccini seriously considered, but abandoned, were: "Cristoforo Sly", "Anima Allegra" (based on the play "El genio alegre" by Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero), "Two Little Wooden Shoes" ("I due zoccoletti") (a short story by Maria Louise Ramé, a.k.a. Ouida), the life of Marie Antoinette, Margherita da Cortona, and "Conchita" (based on the novel "La Femme et le pantin" – "The Woman and the Puppet", by Pierre Loüys). Some of these abandoned subjects were taken up and turned into operas by other composers. For example, Franco Vittadini made an opera of "Anima Allegra", Mascagni's opera "Lodoletta" is derived from "Two Little Wooden Shoes", and Riccardo Zandonai eventually wrote "Conchita".


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: From 1891 onwards, Puccini spent most of his time, when not traveling on business, at Torre del Lago, a small community about fifteen miles from Lucca situated between the Ligurian Sea and Lake Massaciuccoli, just south of Viareggio. Torre del Lago was the primary place for Puccini to indulge his love of hunting. "I love hunting, I love cars: and for these things, in the isolation of Torre del Lago, I keep the faith." ("Amo la caccia, adoro l'automobile: e a questo e a quella nelle solitudini di Torre del Lago serbo intera la mia fede.")


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: By 1900, he had acquired land and built a villa on the lake, now known as the "Villa Puccini". He lived there until 1921, when pollution produced by peat works on the lake forced him to move to Viareggio, a few kilometres north. After his death, a mausoleum was created in the Villa Puccini and the composer is buried there in the chapel, along with his wife and son who died later.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The Villa Museo was owned by his granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, until her death, and is open to the public. An annual Festival Puccini is held at Torre del Lago.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: In the autumn of 1884, Puccini began a relationship with a married woman named Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi, 1860–1930) in Lucca. Elvira's husband, Narciso Gemignani, was an "unrepentant womanizer", and Elvira's marriage was not a happy one. Elvira became pregnant by Puccini, and their son, Antonio (1886–1946), was born in Monza. Elvira left Lucca when the pregnancy began to show, and gave birth elsewhere to avoid gossip. Elvira, Antonio and Elvira's daughter by Narciso, Fosca (1880–1968), began to live with Puccini shortly afterwards. Narciso was killed by the husband of a woman that Narciso had an affair with, dying on 26 February 1903, one day after Puccini's car accident. Only then, in early 1904, were Puccini and Elvira able to marry, and to legitimize Antonio.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Cesira Ferrani, and Hariclea Darclée. In 1906, while attending the opening of "Madama Butterfly" in Budapest, Puccini fell in love with Blanke Lendvai, the sister of Hungarian composer Ervin Lendvai (his friend and protégé for many years). Blanke and Puccini exchanged love letters until 1911, when he started an affair with German aristocrat Baroness Josephine von Stangel, which lasted for six years.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: In 1909, Puccini's wife Elvira publicly accused Doria Manfredi, a maid working for the Puccini family, of having an affair with the composer. After being publicly accused of adultery, Doria Manfredi committed suicide. An autopsy determined, however, that Doria had died a virgin, refuting the allegations made against her. Elvira Puccini was prosecuted for slander, and was sentenced to more than five months in prison, although a payment to the Manfredi family by Puccini spared Elvira from having to serve the sentence. Some music critics and interpreters of Puccini's work have speculated that the psychological effects of this incident on Puccini interfered with his ability to complete compositions later in his career, and also influenced the development of his characters such as Liù (from "Turandot"), a slave girl who dies tragically by suicide.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: According to documents found in the possession of a descendant of the Manfredi family, Nadia Manfredi, in 2007, Puccini was actually having an affair with Giulia Manfredi, Doria's cousin. Press reports at the time when these documents were discovered alleged that Nadia Manfredi was Puccini's granddaughter, by a son, Antonio Manfredi, born to Giulia.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Unlike Wagner and Verdi, Puccini was not active in politics. Puccini biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz wrote: "Throughout this entire period [of World War I and its immediate aftermath], Puccini's interest in politics was close to zero, as it had been all his life, so far as one can judge. He seemed almost indifferent to everything from mayoral elections in Viareggio to cabinet appointments in Rome." Another biographer speculates that Puccini may have been—if he had a political philosophy—a monarchist.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini's indifference to politics caused him problems during World War I. Puccini's long-standing and close friendship with Toscanini was interrupted for nearly a decade because of an argument in the summer of 1914 (in the opening months of the war) during which Puccini remarked that Italy could benefit from German organization. Puccini was also criticized during the war for his work on "La rondine" under a 1913 commission contract with an Austrian theater after Italy and Austria-Hungary became opponents in the war in 1915 (although the contract was ultimately cancelled). Puccini did not participate in the public war effort, but privately rendered assistance to individuals and families affected by the war.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: In 1919, Puccini was commissioned to write music to an ode by honoring Italy's victories in World War I. The work, "Inno a Roma" (Hymn to Rome), was to premiere on 21 April 1919, during a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of Rome. The premiere was delayed to 1 June 1919, when it was played at the opening of a gymnastics competition. Although not written for the fascists, "Inno a Roma" was widely played during Fascist street parades and public ceremonies.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini had some contact with Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party in the year preceding his death. In 1923 the Fascist Party in Viareggio made Puccini an honorary member and sent him a membership card. However, evidence that Puccini was actually a member of the Fascist party is ambiguous. The Italian Senate has traditionally included a small number of members appointed in recognition of their cultural contributions to the nation. Puccini hoped to attain this honor, which had been granted to Verdi, and undertook to use his connections to bring about the appointment. While honorary senators could vote, there is no indication that Puccini sought the appointment for this purpose. Puccini also wished to establish a national theater in Viareggio, a project which would require government support. Puccini met with Mussolini twice, in November and December 1923, seeking support for the theater project. While the theater project never came to fruition, Puccini was named Senator ("senatore a vita") a few months before his death.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: At the time Puccini met with Mussolini, Mussolini had been prime minister for approximately a year, but his party had not yet taken full control of the Italian Parliament through the violence and irregularities of the 1924 general election. Puccini was no longer alive when Mussolini announced the end of representative government, and the beginning of a fascist dictatorship, in his speech before the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January 1925.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: A chain smoker of Toscano cigars and cigarettes, Puccini began to complain of chronic sore throats towards the end of 1923. A diagnosis of throat cancer led his doctors to recommend a new and experimental radiation therapy treatment, which was being offered in Brussels. Puccini and his wife never knew how serious the cancer was, as the news was revealed only to his son.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini died in Brussels on 29 November 1924, aged 65, from complications after the treatment; uncontrolled bleeding led to a heart attack the day after surgery. News of his death reached Rome during a performance of "La bohème". The opera was immediately stopped, and the orchestra played Chopin's "Funeral March" for the stunned audience. He was buried in Milan, in Toscanini's family tomb, but that was always intended as a temporary measure. In 1926 his son arranged for the transfer of his father's remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Most broadly, Puccini wrote in the style of the late-Romantic period of classical music (see Romantic music). Music historians also refer to Puccini as a component of the "giovane scuola" ("young school"), a cohort of composers who came onto the Italian operatic scene as Verdi's career came to an end, such as Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and others mentioned below. Puccini is also frequently referred to as a "verismo" composer.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini's career extended from the end of the Romantic period into the modern period. He consciously attempted to 'update' his style to keep pace with new trends, but did not attempt to fully adopt a modern style. One critic, Andrew Davis, has stated: "Loyalty toward nineteenth-century Italian-opera traditions and, more generally, toward the musical language of his Tuscan heritage is one of the clearest features of Puccini's music." Davis also identifies, however, a "stylistic pluralism" in Puccini's work, including influences from "the German symphonic tradition, French harmonic and orchestrational traditions, and, to a lesser extent, aspects of Wagnerian chromaticism". In addition, Puccini frequently sought to introduce music or sounds from outside sources into his operas, such as his use of Chinese folk melodies in Turandot.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: All of Puccini's operas have at least one set piece for a lead singer that is separate enough from its surroundings that it can be treated as a distinct aria, and most of his works have several of these. At the same time, Puccini's work continued the trend away from operas constructed from a series of set pieces, and instead used a more "through-composed" or integrated construction. His works are strongly melodic. In orchestration, Puccini frequently doubled the vocal line in unison or at octaves in order to emphasize and strengthen the melodic line.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: "Verismo" is a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana", peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s. The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. Verismo does not usually employ the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. "Cavalleria Rusticana", "Pagliacci", and "Andrea Chénier" are uniformly considered to be "verismo" operas. Puccini's career as a composer is almost entirely coincident in time with the "verismo" movement. Only his "Le Villi" and "Edgar" preceded "Cavalleria Rusticana". Some view Puccini as essentially a "verismo" composer, while others, although acknowledging that he took part in the movement to some degree, do not view him as a "pure" "verismo" composer. In addition, critics differ as to the degree to which particular operas by Puccini are, or are not, properly described as "verismo" operas. Two of Puccini's operas, "Tosca" and "Il Tabarro", are universally considered to be "verismo" operas. Puccini scholar Mosco Carner places only two of Puccini's operas other than "Tosca" and "Il tabarro" within the "verismo" school: "Madama Butterfly," and "La Fanciulla del West". Because only three "verismo" works that were composed by Puccini continue to appear regularly on stage (the aforementioned "Cavalleria Rusticana", "Pagliacci", and "Andrea Chénier"), Puccini's contribution has had lasting significance to the genre.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Both during his lifetime and in posterity, Puccini's success outstripped other Italian opera composers of his time, and he has been matched in this regard by only a handful of composers in the entire history of opera. Between 2004 and 2018, Puccini ranked third (behind Verdi and Mozart) in the number of performances of his operas worldwide, as surveyed by Operabase. Three of his operas ("La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madame Butterfly") were amongst the 10 most frequently performed operas worldwide.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Gustav Kobbé, the original author of "The Complete Opera Book", a standard reference work on opera, wrote in the 1919 edition: "Puccini is considered the most important figure in operatic Italy today, the successor of Verdi, if there is any." Other contemporaries shared this view. Italian opera composers of the generation with whom Puccini was compared included Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919), Umberto Giordano (1867–1948), Francesco Cilea (1866–1950), Baron Pierantonio Tasca (1858–1934), Gaetano Coronaro (1852–1908), and Alberto Franchetti (1860–1942). Only three composers, and three works, by Italian contemporaries of Puccini appear on the Operabase list of most-performed works: "Cavalleria rusticana" by Mascagni, "Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo, and "Andrea Chénier" by Umberto Giordano. Kobbé contrasted Puccini's ability to achieve "sustained" success with the failure of Mascagni and Leoncavallo to produce more than merely "one sensationally successful short opera". By the time of Puccini's death in 1924, he had earned $4 million from his works.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Although the popular success of Puccini's work is undeniable, and his mastery of the craft of composition has been consistently recognized, opinion among critics as to the artistic value of his work has always been divided. Grove Music Online described Puccini's strengths as a composer as follows:


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini succeeded in mastering the orchestra as no other Italian had done before him, creating new forms by manipulating structures inherited from the great Italian tradition, loading them with bold harmonic progressions which had little or nothing to do with what was happening then in Italy, though they were in step with the work of French, Austrian and German colleagues.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: In his work on Puccini, Julian Budden describes Puccini as a gifted and original composer, noting the innovation hidden in the popularity of works such as "Che gelida manina". He describes the aria in musical terms (the signature embedded in the harmony for example), and points out that its structure was rather unheard of at the time, having three distinct musical paragraphs that nonetheless form a complete and coherent whole. This gumption in musical experimentation was the essence of Puccini's style, as evidenced in his diverse settings and use of the motif to express ideas beyond those in the story and text.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini has, however, consistently been the target of condescension by some music critics who find his music insufficiently sophisticated or difficult. Some have explicitly condemned his efforts to please his audience, such as this contemporary Italian critic:


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: He willingly stops himself at minor genius, stroking the taste of the public ... obstinately shunning too-daring innovation ... A little heroism, but not taken to great heights; a little bit of veristic comedy, but brief; a lot of sentiment and romantic idyll: this is the recipe in which he finds happiness. ()


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Budden attempted to explain the paradox of Puccini's immense popular success and technical mastery on the one hand, and the relative disregard in which his work has been held by academics:


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: No composer communicates more directly with an audience than Puccini. Indeed, for many years he has remained a victim of his own popularity; hence the resistance to his music in academic circles. Be it remembered, however, that Verdi's melodies were once dismissed as barrel-organ fodder. The truth is that music that appeals immediately to a public becomes subject to bad imitation, which can cast a murky shadow over the original. So long as counterfeit Puccinian melody dominated the world of sentimental operetta, many found it difficult to come to terms with the genuine article. Now that the current coin of light music has changed, the composer admired by Schoenberg, Ravel, and Stravinsky can be seen to emerge in his full stature.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Founded in 1996 in Lucca, the Centro di studi Giacomo Puccini embraces a wide range of approaches to the study of Puccini's work. In the US, the American Center for Puccini Studies specializes in the presentation of unusual performing editions of composer's works and introduces neglected or unknown Puccini pieces. It was founded in 2004 by the singer and director Harry Dunstan.


title: Giacomo Puccini

text: Puccini wrote orchestral pieces, sacred music, chamber music, solo music for piano and organ and songs for voice and piano, most notably his 1880 mass "Messa di gloria", his "Preludio Sinfonico" of 1882, and his 1890 string quartet movement "Crisantemi". However, he is primarily known for his operas:


title: Aardman Animations

text: Aardman Animations Limited (also known as Aardman Studios, simply Aardman or Aardman Animation and stylised as AARDMAN as of 2022) is a British animation studio based in Bristol, England. It is known for films made using stop-motion and clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring its plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, and Morph. After some experimental computer-animated short films during the late 1990s, beginning with "Owzat" (1997), Aardman entered the computer animation market with "Flushed Away" (2006). As of February 2020, it had earned $1.1 billion worldwide, with an average $134.7 million per film.


title: Aardman Animations

text: Aardman's films have been consistently very well received, and their stop-motion films are among the highest-grossing produced, with their 2000 debut, "Chicken Run", being their top-grossing film, as well as the highest-grossing stop-motion film of all time.


title: Aardman Animations

text: Aardman was founded in 1972 as a low-budget project by Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who wanted to realise their dream of producing an animated motion picture. The partnership provided animated sequences for the BBC series for deaf children "Vision On". The company name originates from the name of their nerdish Superman character in that sequence. The process of using clay animation to produce a segment called "Greeblies" (1975) became the inspiration for creating Morph, a simple clay character. Around the same time, Lord and Sproxton made their first foray into adult animation with the shorts "Down and Out" and "Confessions of a Foyer Girl", entries in the BBC's "Animated Conversations" series using real-life conversations as soundtracks. Aardman also created the title sequence for "The Great Egg Race" and supplied animation for the multiple award-winning music video of Peter Gabriel's song "Sledgehammer". They produced the music video for the song "My Baby Just Cares For Me" by Nina Simone in 1987. Also in the 1980s, they created the trombone-playing character "Douglas" in a television commercial for Lurpak butter.


title: Aardman Animations

text: Later Aardman produced a number of shorts for Channel 4, including the "Conversation Pieces" series. These five shorts worked in the same area as the "Animated Conversations" pieces, but were more sophisticated. Lord and Sproxton began hiring more animators at this point; three of the newcomers made their directorial debut at Aardman with the "Lip Synch" series. Of the five "Lip Synch" shorts, two were directed by Lord, one by Barry Purves, one by Richard Goleszowski and one by Nick Park.


title: Aardman Animations

text: In 1991, Park's short, "Creature Comforts", was the first Aardman production to win an Academy Award. Park also developed the clay modelled shorts featuring the adventures of Wallace and Gromit, a comical pair of friends: Wallace being a naive English inventor with a love of cheese, and Gromit his best friend, the intelligent but silent dog. These films include "A Grand Day Out" (1989), "The Wrong Trousers" (1993) and "A Close Shave" (1995), the latter two winning Academy Awards.