Donizetti’s family were very poor. His talent was discovered by Simon Mayr who was maestro di cappella (music director) at S Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. He opened a school which trained boys to sing in the church choir and gave them a good musical education. Donizetti learned a lot from Mayr and was always very grateful to him.
Donizetti’s first operas were performed in Venice. A rich lady who realized he was very talented paid so that he did not have to do military service. His opera "Zoraida di Granata" was very successful in Rome and he was given a contract for an opera for Naples. For several years he composed between two and five operas every year. They were not particularly successful. One of the reasons was that the libretti he was given (the words he had to set) were not very good.
In 1828 he married. None of their three children lived very long and his wife died in 1837 which made him very sad during his last years. This can be felt in his music.
His opera "Anna Bolena" made him internationally famous. It was performed in London and Paris. His opera "Maria Stuarda" was based on a play by Schiller. It was not popular at first. The audience did not like the tragic ending. Today it is recognized as containing some great music, especially in the final scene. After a visit to Paris he returned to Naples to produce "Lucia di Lammermoor" which was based on Scott’s novel "The Bride of Lammermoor". There is a French version as well as an Italian version of this opera.
In 1838 he moved to Paris where he had his operas performed in four theatres. Berlioz wrote very critical articles about him in a music journal. Donizetti had gone to Paris hoping that he would earn lots of money so that he could then retire, just like Rossini had done. However, his health was not good and he found it harder to concentrate. He managed to composed "Don Pasquale" which is one of the best comic operas every written, but it does have a lot of music that he had written earlier. He was obviously finding it difficult to think of new ideas. Soon he became really ill. He was suffering from syphilis. He was put in a sanatorium near Paris for 17 months. In 1847 some friends arranged for him to stay with them, but he was very ill by then. He was paralysed and almost unable to speak. His friends looked after him until he died.
He was buried in Bergamo. His remains are now in a church there. The house where he was born is a museum.
St. Catherine
There are nine St. Catherines:
There is a
See also:
Blonde
Blond or blonde is a light color of hair or a person with this color hair. The spelling "blonde" means a female with this hair colour, and the spelling "blond" can mean a male with the same hair color. The color itself can have either spelling ("blonde" or "blond"), according to "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary".
Some people are blonde because they have less pigment in their hair than dark haired people. To be blonde is usually to have blonde ancestors. Then it is genetic - blondes have genes that make them blond. Sometimes it is not genetic - this is called albinism. People can also use chemicals to make themselves blonde. Bleach is sometimes used to make the color of a person's hair lighter.
Most people are not blondes by their genes. Only some people, mostly with European ancestry, are blondes by their genes, and also some Australian Aborigines have a different gene that makes them blonde. Natural blondes are most common around the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia. The Nordic countries such as Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, and Finland also have many blond people. Ireland and Scotland also have a high number of natural blondes. According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome exist in Austrians. There is also a large number of blondes in England, Baltic countries, Slavic countries (especially Poland), north-western parts of Russia and among European descent that have lived in Kazakhstan since the Soviet Union. Natural blondes are also common in Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Germany. Light hair can also brought on by environmental factors, especially exposure to sunlight.
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a Conservative statesman. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963.
Macmillan served in the Grenadier Guards during the First World War. After the war he joined his family publishing company, then entered Parliament at the 1924 general election. After losing his seat in 1929, he regained it in 1931.
During World War II, Churchill made Macmillan Minister Resident in the Mediterranean. This made him the go-between for Churchill and the British forces in North Africa and the Middle East. The Mediterranean was a major theatre of war, and Macmillan's work made his name as a serious politician.
Macmillan became Foreign Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer under Churchill's successor Sir Anthony Eden. When Eden resigned in 1957 after the Suez Crisis, Macmillan succeeded him as Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party.
Macmillan presided over a country becoming more affluent (rich), with low unemployment and high (but uneven) economic growth. In his Bedford speech of July 1957 he told the nation they had 'never had it so good'.
Crucifixion
Crucifixion is a way to execute (kill) someone, usually because they have committed a crime. It was used as a capital punishment by the government of Rome. A prisoner was beaten with whips, and made to carry their own cross. They were either tied or nailed to the cross. The Romans used different types of crosses: T-shaped, X-shaped, and sometimes just trees. It killed people by making them bleed, go into shock, and making it hard for them to breathe, eventually dying of suffocation. Some of the people would live for several days before dying. The Roman soldiers (which were like the police of that time) would often break the legs of the criminal to speed it up.
The most famous person to have been crucified was Jesus Christ, the Son of God according to the Christian religion. He was crucified along with two thieves. The cross later became a symbol of Christianity. Six of the twelve apostles of Jesus were also crucified later on, but most of them asked to be crucified in a different way from Jesus. For example, Andrew (who later became the patron saint of Scotland) was crucified on an X-shaped cross. In the year 337 AD, Emperor Constantine I abolished crucifixion in the Roman Empire.
Steeple
A steeple is the tower at the top of a church, which is a building or temple of the Christian religion. It often has a cross at the top, in memory of Jesus' crucifixion.
Baltic paganism
Baltic Paganism are different religions and mythologies that people had in Baltic countries before Christianity and that some people still have. All of those religions have their own features but also between these religions many things are similar. Baltic pagans just like Scandinavian and Finnish pagans believes that greatest god is a male god of sky and thunder. He has a hammer or axe that makes lightning. This belief is very old. In the Stone Age, Corded Ware culture already had this kind of a god and that his weapon was a boat shaped stone axe. Corded Ware culture lived in a large area and many features of Nordic and Baltic people are derived from it.
Kaleva
Kaleva or Kalevi and his sons are people or creatures in Finnish, Karelian and Estonian stories. However many things about them are forgotten.
The name of Estonian national Epos Kalevipoeg means "Sons of Kalevi" and the name of Finnish national epos Kalevala means "Land of Kaleva".
In Estonian stories sons of Kaleva are sons of King.
Finnish people called Sirius "Kalevantähti" which means "Star of Kaleva". Belt of Orion was called Kalevas sword.