Verdi managed to overcome his unhappiness in 1842 when he produced his opera "Nabucco". This was a great success and made him world-famous. He started to work very hard, composing two operas a year. He not only had to write the music but organize all the people to perform it. It was a huge workload. His opera "Ernani" (1844) was one of the best from this period. In 1847 he had another big success with "Macbeth". This opera, based on Shakespeare’s famous play, is still one of the best-loved of all operas. He was becoming a success.
For centuries Italy had been a collection of several countries, each with their own ruler. In the 1850s there was a lot of political unrest in the country. Verdi often wrote music for large choruses in his operas. The words of these choruses were often about fighting for freedom, and it was often thought that the songs were encouraging people to revolt. The song "Va pensiero" from his opera "Nabucco" was about the Hebrew slaves who were captive in Babylon. People chanted it in the streets with the words suitably changed. Verdi became a great national hero. Italy eventually became one country in 1861.
Giuseppina Strepponi was the soprano who sang the part of Abigaille in "Nabucco". Verdi fell in love with her. She had lived with another man and had three children so she felt that she was not good enough for Verdi. They eventually married in 1859. She was a great support to him until her death in 1897 although Verdi was not an easy husband to live with. He moved back to Busseto with her. He continued to travel a lot but did not let his wife come with him, leaving her behind in Busseto where she was not happy because many people there did not like her.
Three more famous operas were written at this time: "Rigoletto" in 1851 and "Il trovatore" ("The Troubadour") and "La traviata", both in 1853. These operas have many tunes which became famous. They are full of exciting drama in which the characters are very skilfully described by the music. The music is not divided so clearly into recitative and aria like it had been for two centuries. Instead, the music is developing all the time, the arias run straight into the following music. He had a brilliant sense of drama, but he often had to fight hard to stop producers making changes to what he had written.
Verdi often had trouble with the censors (the officials who decide whether the opera should be allowed to be performed). His opera "Rigoletto" was based on a story called "Le roi s’amuse" by Victor Hugo. The attempted murder of a king was not thought to be a suitable subject. Verdi had to change the king into a duke in his story and make some other changes before the opera could be performed. The story of his opera "Traviata", based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas fils, was also thought to be immoral. At the first performance the audience laughed because the heroine, who is supposed to be dying of tuberculosis, then called "consumption", was very fat. However, the opera soon became enormously popular.
Verdi had become very famous by now, and was asked to compose for the Opéra in Paris. He had to write operas in the French style: operas with five acts and a ballet based on a serious story. None of the operas he wrote at this time for Paris belong to his best works. He was more inspired when writing for the Italian theatres. "Simon Boccanegra" has a complicated plot, but the characters are described beautifully by the music. "Un ballo in maschera" (The masked ball) was about the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden. Again the censors did not like it and he had to change the story to a setting in Boston which rather spoiled the story. In the 1860s his best works were "La forza del destino" ("The Force of Destiny"), written for St Petersburg, "Don Carlos" written for the Paris Opéra, and "Aida" for the new opera house in Cairo in Egypt. "Aida" is considered one of his most perfect works. The first performance was not without difficulties: Verdi was having a long argument with the conductor Mariani who refused to go to Cairo to conduct it. The argument was made worse by the newspapers who accused Verdi of taking Mariani’s girlfriend. This caused a great scandal.
Verdi retired in the 1870s. He was a rich man who owned a lot of land. He gave a lot of money to charities, particularly to one charity for elderly musicians. Even in retirement he was persuaded by his publishers to write two more operas. He became fascinated by Shakespeare and he wrote "Otello" to a libretto by Arrigo Boito. This was a brilliant libretto and it helped him to write a great masterpiece in which every little detail of the story is beautifully described by the music. His very last opera, "Falstaff" (1893) is based on Shakespeare’s "Merry Wives of Windsor". Verdi continued to write a few religious pieces in his old age. He died of a stroke in Milan in 1901.
Blue box
A blue box is a device that someone could use to make free telephone calls. It worked by playing back the same sounds that the telephone company employees used to program their equipment.
The most famous person to use a blue box was John Draper, who went by the name Captain Crunch. Draper taught Steve Wozniak how to build them. Wozniak and Steve Jobs sold blue boxes to fellow students at the University of California, Berkeley. One time, Wozniak used a blue box to call the Pope.
Red box
A red box is a device that people used illegally in the 20th century to make free telephone calls at a payphone. It worked by playing back the same sounds that the payphone sends to the phone company when coins are put into it.
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) is a company that makes high-end computers. The company was founded by Jim Clark and Abbey Silverstone in 1982 to make graphics display terminals. SGI was famous for making very good computers for 3D animation working on video and pictures. They invented many things that other companies still use today.
Constituent
Constituent may mean:
Constituency
A constituent is a voting member of a community or organization and has the power to appoint or elect. A constituency is all of the constituents of a representative. Constituents also have the power to remove their representative from the position to which they have appointed him or her. All of the constituents who are registered to vote are called the "electorate".
In the United Kingdom, a parliamentary constituency is a district that elects a member of parliament. It is sometimes called a "Parliamentary seat" or a "Division". Constituencies for local government elections are called either "Wards" or "electoral divisions".
As of 2020, there are 650 House of Commons constituencies in the UK:
Northern Ireland has 18 constituencies, each of which elect six MLAs to the Northern Ireland Assembly under the Single Transferable Vote system.
The Scottish Parliament has 73 single-member constituencies elected on a first past the post basis, with the remaining 56 seats in the parliament being selected by the Additional Member System (AMS). Since the passage of the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004, the constituencies of the Scottish Parliament are no longer identical to those of the House of Commons.
The National Assembly for Wales has 40 constituencies elected by first past the post which are identical to the Welsh constituencies of the House of Commons. Its remaining 20 seats are selected by AMS.
The London Assembly has 14 constituencies elected by First-past-the-post voting. Its remaining 11 seats are selected by AMS.
The United States House of Representatives has 435 constituencies each electing one member.
The term "constituency" is usual in many countries, especially in members of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Cohesion
Cohesion may mean:
Local government