the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
Like Ophelia, the Republican Party (three years later) declared that the North must change itself.
It said that the North must stop slavery actively.
Feminist theory can also be seen in Stowe's book.
The novel can be seen as criticizing slavery's patriarchal nature.
For Stowe, families were related by blood, not by family-like relations between masters and slaves.
Stowe also saw the nation as a bigger "family".
So, the feelings of nationality came from sharing the same race.
Because of this, she supported the idea that freed slaves should live together in a colony.
The book has also been seen as trying to show that masculinity was important in stopping slavery.
Abolitionists began to change the way they thought of violent men.
They wanted men to help stop slavery without hurting their self-image or their position in society.
Because of this, some abolitionists followed some of the principles of women's suffrage, peace, and Christianity.
They praised men for helping, working together, and having mercy.
Other abolitionists were more traditional: they wanted men to act more forcefully.
All the men in Stowe's book show either patient men or traditional men.
Creation and popularization of stereotypes
Recently, some people have begun criticizing the book for what they thought were racist descriptions of the book's black characters.
They criticized the way Stowe wrote about the characters' looks, speech, behavior, and the passive nature of Uncle Tom.
The book's use of common stereotypes about African Americans is important because Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel in the world in the 19th century.
Because of this, the book (together with images in the book and related stage productions) helped make a great number of people accept such stereotypes.
Among the African-American stereotypes in Uncle Tom's Cabin are:
The "happy darky" (in the lazy, carefree character of Sam);
The light-skinned tragic mulatto (in the characters of Eliza, Cassy, and Emmeline);
The loving, dark-skinned female mammy (through several characters, including Mammy, a cook at the St. Clare plantation).
The Pickaninny stereotype of black children (in the character of Topsy);
The Uncle Tom, or African American who wants to please white people too much (in the character of Uncle Tom).
Stowe wanted Tom to be a "noble hero".
The stereotype of him was because of "Tom Shows," which Stowe could not stop.
These stereotypes made many people think much more lightly of the historical importance of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a "vital antislavery tool."
This change in the way people looked at Uncle Tom's Cabin began in an essay by James Baldwin.
This essay was titled "Everybody’s Protest Novel."
In the essay, Baldwin called Uncle Tom’s Cabin a "very bad novel".
He said it was not well-written.
In the 1960s and '70s, the Black Power and Black Arts Movements strongly criticized the book.
They said that the character of Uncle Tom was a part of "race betrayal".
They said that Tom made slaves look worse than slave owners.
Criticisms of the other stereotypes in the book also increased during this time.
However, people such as Henry Louis Gates Jr. have begun studying Uncle Tom's Cabin again.
He says that the book is a "central document in American race relations and a significant (important) moral and political exploration of the character of those relations."
Uncle Tom's cabin: or Life among the lowly ; frontispiece by John Gilbert; ornamental title-page by Phiz; and 130 engravings on wood by Matthew Urlwin Sears, 1853 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF  format) Pictures and stories from Uncle Tom's cabin ; "The purpose of the editor of this little work, has been to adapt it for the juvenile family circle.
The verses have accordingly been written by the authoress for the capacity of the youngest readers …" 1853 (a searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF  format)''
''Uncle Tom's Cabin, available at Internet Archive.
Scanned, illustrated original editions.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site
Free audiobook of Uncle Tom's Cabin at Librivox
More on the lack of international copyright
James Christopher "Jamie" McMurray (born June 3, 1976) is an American racecar driver.
McMurray drove full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series from 2003 until 2018.
Since 2018, McMurray has been a Sports analyst for FOX Sports.
McMurray won the 2010 Daytona 500 while driving for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Phil Wachsmann (born August 5, 1944) is an African avant-garde jazz/jazz fusion violinist born in Kampala, Uganda, probably better known for having founded his own group Chamberpot.
He has worked with many musicians in the free jazz idiom, including Tony Oxley, Fred van Hove, Barry Guy, Derek Bailey and Paul Rutherford, among many others.
Wachsmann is especially known for playing within the electronica idiom.
The National Autonomous University of México (UNAM) a university in Mexico City.
It is one of the biggest universities in Mexico and Latin America.
UNAM was started on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra.
UNAM's main campus in Mexico City, known as Ciudad Universitaria (University City), is a UNESCO World Heritage site that was designed by some of Mexico's best-known architects of the 20th century.
Murals in the main campus were painted by some of the most recognized artists in Mexican history, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.
In 2016, it had an acceptance rate of only 8%.
UNAM generates a number of strong research publications and patents in diverse areas, such as robotics, computer science, mathematics, physics,  human-computer interaction, history, philosophy, among others.
All Mexican Nobel laureates are either alumni or faculty of UNAM.
Mexico Diplomat
News in Spanish about UNAM
Colleges and universities in Mexico
1910 establishments in North America
1910s establishments in Mexico
The 1985 Santiago earthquake was registered the Sunday March 3, 1985 at 22:47 UTC (19:47 local time).
Its epicenter was on the coastline of the Valparaiso Region, Chile, near Algarrobo.
It had a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale.
Earthquakes in the 1980s
Jethro Tull (agriculturist), British agriculturist
Jethro Tull (band), rock band
Health care or healthcare is the preservation of mental and physical health by preventing or treating illnesses through services offered by the health profession and its staff.
Health care includes all reasonable and necessary medical aid, medical examinations, medical treatments, medical diagnoses, medical evaluations and medical services.
The right to health care is considered one of human rights with international human rights law as well as social security.
Primary care
A primary care doctor (PCD) or primary care physician (PCP) is a doctor who provides general medical care.
These doctors can answer health concerns and medical conditions a patient may have.
They also can prescribe medicine for their patients, based on information gathered.
Secondary care
Secondary care includes acute care: necessary treatment for a short period of time for a brief but serious illness, injury, or other health condition.
This care is often found in a hospital emergency department.
Secondary care also includes skilled attendance during childbirth, intensive care, and medical imaging services.
Culture of health
In 1968, Victor Skumin proposed the term ″Culture of Health″, which has become widespread.
The main task of a Culture of Health is to implement innovative health programs that support a holistic approach to physical, mental and spiritual health.
Holism is the idea that natural systems (physical, biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc.)
and their properties, should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of parts.
According to Skumin, the culture of health is not only the mechanical connection of the two concepts—the concept of ″culture″ and the concept of ″health″. This is their synthesis, which forms a new quality, a new content.
Skumin examines the culture of health as the specific science, that develops the theoretical and practical tasks of harmonious development of the spiritual, mental, and physical human force, forming of optimum environment, which provides a higher level of creativity of life.
Thus, Skumin argues that the culture of health is a separate science, that creates new content.
The main challenge of culture of health is the development of spiritual, mental and physical capabilities of man.
Rodrigo (English: Ruderic, Roderic, Roderik, Roderich, or Roderick,  ; died 711 or 712) was the Visigothic King of Hispania for a brief period between 710 and 712.
He is famous in legend as "the last king of the Goths."
In history he actually is an extremely obscure figure about whom little can be said with certainty but that he ruled part of Iberia with opponents ruling the rest and was defeated and killed by invading Muslims who soon conquered the entire peninsula.
His widow Egilona is believed to have married Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, who was later assassinated.
Hurricane Ida was the last storm in the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season.
It formed in the southwestern Caribbean on November 4 after being in that area for a few days.
After becoming a depression it quickly got stronger and became a tropical storm and a hurricane shortly before it struck Nicaragua.
Over Central America, Hurricane Ida weakened very fast, becoming downgraded to a tropical depression before the end of the day on November 5.
By November 6, Ida went back into the Caribbean and later became a hurricane again.
Its strength changed a few times before it died on November 10 off the coast of Alabama.
Reports show that Hurricane Ida caused $5.6 million in damage and caused 2 deaths.
Ida was tracked back to a tropical wave that entered the western Caribbean Sea on November 1.
A low soon formed near the tropical wave.
This low did not move very much and it also got a lot of clouds near the middle of it.
There was hardly any wind shear, which allowed for more clouds to form.
On November 4, the tropical wave National Hurricane Center began call it Tropical Depression Eleven.
The new tropical depression quickly got stronger and became Tropical Storm Ida soon after that.
An Aircraft went into Ida and soon found winds at 65 miles per hour, which meant it was nearly a hurricane.
Continuing to the northwest, Tropical Storm Ida was upgraded to Hurricane Ida when winds got to 80 miles per hour;  at the time, it was put at only 75 miles per hour.
Soon after this, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Nicaragua on November 5.
Ida weakened quickly over land and was downgraded to a tropical storm just after landfall.
Near the end of the day on November 5, Tropical Storm Ida weakened to a tropical depression.
Tropical Depression Ida survived its passage over land and went back into the Caribbean on November 6.
Over the western Caribbean, it quickly became a tropical storm again.
After moving north, Tropical Storm Ida became a hurricane again.
It reached its highest winds on November 8 while it crossed between Cuba and Mexico; they were measured at 105 miles per hour, making it a category 2 hurricane.
Water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were not warm enough to keep Ida at this strength.
so it quickly weakened back to a tropical storm.
For only six hours, it became a hurricane again before it became extratropical on November 10 while it was just south of Alabama.
At the time, it looked like it stayed as a tropical storm and made landfall in Alabama,  this was later noted as incorrect.
Its remnants formed a strong nor'easter that affected some of the states of the East Coast of the United States.
Damage in Nicaragua was near $2.1 million and there were no people killed.
In El Salvador, it seemed at first that killed over 100 people, this was discovered as a mistake later on.
2008 Athurricane.org
Hurricane Ida Report from the National Hurricane Center
US Emergency Operations Center - Hurricane Ida information
The National Hurricane Center's Advisory Archive on Hurricane Ida
Norwegian Geotechnical Institute - Evaluations of landslides induced by Hurricane Ida
Adelaide Tambo (1929–2007), South African anti-apartheid activist
Oliver Tambo (1917–1993), South African anti-apartheid activist
Tambo River (Victoria)
Tambo, Queensland
County of Tambo, Victoria
Shire of Tambo, Victoria
Shire of Tambo (Queensland)
Blackall-Tambo Region, Queensland
Tambo River (Peru)
Tambo District, Huaytará
Tambo District, La Mar
Tambo Grande District, Piura province
Tambo de Mora District, Chincha province
Río Tambo District, Satipo province
Tambo Colorado, archaeological site the city of Pisco
OR Tambo District Municipality, Eastern Cape province
OR Tambo International Airport, serving Johannesburg, Gauteng province
Pizzo Tambo, mountain in the Swiss Alps near Splügen, Graubünden
Tambo, California, USA
Tambo (Incan structure), a building that was used for lodging, storage, and record-keeping
Tambo (weapon), a very short staff used in martial arts
Tambo, a character from blackface minstrelsy
Shelly Tambo, one of the main fictional characters in the American television series Northern Exposure
El Tambo
Los Navegantes (; roughly translated as Los Navegantes Neighborhood) is a residential neighbourhood in the south-east of Pichilemu, Chile.
It is located near the Municipal Stadium and La Cruz Hill.
Los Navegantes boasts a perimeter of approximately 1.5 km and was founded between 1996-1997 and has a court.
The Pichilemu tsunami secure side, starts near the neighborhood.
The Rugby Championship is an annual rugby union competition between the national teams of the sport's four strongest Southern Hemisphere nations—New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and Argentina.
It began in 1996, a year after the sport became professional, as the Tri Nations.
At the time, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa competed for the Tri Nations Trophy.
Beginning in 2012, Argentina joined the competition.
During the Tri Nations era, the contest began in July, during the Southern Hemisphere winter, and ran through September.
For most of that era, each team played every other team twice, once at home and once away.
Later on, each team played the others three times.
When the competition added Argentina, it returned to a pure home-and-away format, with a total of 12 games played.
Also, due to a slight change in the sport's calendar, The Rugby Championship now begins in August and runs through October.
This format is used except in years in which the Rugby World Cup is played (every four years, in the year before the Summer Olympics).
In those years, each team plays the others only once, with a total of six games played.
Teams are awarded competition points for a win, but can also earn 'bonus' points.
At the end of the series, the team with the most competition points wins the trophy.
The team that wins the competition is usually considered to be the best rugby union team in the Southern Hemisphere for that year.
Additional trophies
New Zealand and Australia compete annually for the Bledisloe Cup.
All Rugby Championship games count as competition games for the Bledisloe Cup.
South Africa and Australia compete annually for the Mandela Plate.
Some of the Rugby Championship games count as competition games for the Mandela Plate.
New Zealand and South Africa compete annually for the Freedom Cup.
Some of the Rugby Championship games count as competition games for the Freedom Cup.
Sport in South Africa
Agustín Ross Cultural Centre (Spanish,  Centro Cultural Agustín Ross), previously known as Casino Ross (Ross Casino), is a historic casino building.
It is in Agustín Ross Avenue, in front of Ross Park, in Pichilemu, Chile.
The building was built in the late 1800s.
In 1906 the first Chilean casino was built there.
It was closed in 1932 and converted into a hotel which was open until the 1980s.
The building is now Pichilemu's cultural centre.
The casino is named after Agustín Ross Edwards, a Chilean writer, member of parliament, minister and politician.
He was part of the powerful family Ross Edwards, which founded the newspaper El Mercurio years earlier.
Based on his european experience, Ross bought a place named "La Posada" (English: The Inn) or Petren Fund in 1885.
At that time, it was just some barracks with thick walls with a ground of 300 hectares.
The old Ross Casino was constructed in the late 1800s by Ross himself.
It contained the first mail and telegraph service and a big store.
The building had three floors, and was raised using imported materials.
In January 20, 1906, the first Chilean casino was opened in that building.
The Ross Casino worked until 1932, when the permission was cancelled, allowing just the newly constructed Viña del Mar Casino to work.
After the closing of the Ross Casino, the building was converted into a hotel was which functioned until the 1980s.
The old casino (1905) and its gardens (1885) are an important part of the city.
It was named Historic Monument by the National Monuments Council on February 25, 1988, by the supreme decree N° 100.
Ross was also the administrator of the great Juana Ross de Edwards fortune, the Nancagua Hacienda, near the city of same name.
He designed an urban set of high environmental value and landscape, transforming "La Posada" to a hotel (Great Hotel Pichilemu, later Hotel Ross, or Ross Hotel).
Ross also built several chalets, terraces, embankments, stone walls, a balcony in front of the beach and several large houses with imported building materials and furniture from France and England.
Additionally, he put up a park and a forest of more than 10 hectares.
Ross turned Pichilemu into a summer resort town for rich people from Santiago.
He, however, could not build a dock for the city, as he had planned.
The Cultural Centre was severely damaged after the February 2010 Chile earthquake.
The library that it hosted was completely destroyed.
After the 2010 Pichilemu earthquake, the Cultural Centre suffered structural damage, but Roberto Córdova, Mayor of Pichilemu, said that it was repairable.
The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies are the national rugby union side of Australia.
The first Australian teams played against the British Lions at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 24 June 1899.
The Australians won the game 13-3.
In 1908, the Australians went to the United Kingdom, France and North America to play.
They needed a name and someone suggested the "Rabbits", but the team did not like it and chose the "Wallabies" instead.
A wallaby is a small mammal from Australia, very similar to a kangaroo.
Until the 1980s, only teams playing overseas were called the Wallabies; when they played in Australia they were called Internationals.
Now the national team is called the Wallabies all the time.
A sparrow is a member of the genus Passer.
They are small passerine birds which belong to the family Passeridae.
They are also known as old-world sparrows.
Sparrows often make their nests near houses or buildings.
This means they are one of the easiest birds to see in the wild.
The genus has about 30 species around the world.
The best known of these is the house sparrow, Passer domesticus.
Some authorities place other genera in the sparrow group: Petronia, the rock sparrows; Carpospiza, the pale rockfinch; and Montifringilla, the snowfinches.
Sparrows are small birds.
They are between 11–18 centimeters long.
They can weigh between 13–42 grams.
They are usually brown and gray.
They have short tails and small, strong beaks.
Most sparrows eat seeds or small insects.
Sparrows are social birds and they live in flocks (groups)..
The house sparrow
The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a species of sparrow.
It lives all over the world.
It originally lived only in Europe and Asia.
However, people travelled to new places and the house sparrow went to those places too.
It is now the bird with the widest distribution.
This means it lives in the most places.
The species has about 50 subspecies.
Sparrows can be seen on every continent on earth.
A long time ago, they lived only in Europe, Asia and Africa.
However, people traveled to Australia, North America and South America, and now sparrows are seen there too.
The house sparrow is seen in every continent.
In Australia, there are no sparrows in Western Australia, as they have not been able to travel across the deserts that separate that state from the eastern states.
The government employs people to hunt and destroy any sparrows that might arrive.
The house sparrow was introduced to America in the late 19th century.
It was introduced on purpose.
It was imported by several people, including Eugene Schieffelin, who was a wealthy New York City admirer of Shakespeare.
He wanted to introduce to America all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.
Two of these species were great successes: starlings and house sparrows.
He organized a society for the importation of foreign birds, incorporated in Albany.
Other so-called 'sparrows'
Some ornithologists thought the Estrildid finches were in the same family as sparrows.
However, they are now in a different family, the Estrildidae.
There is also a group called 'American sparrows', or New World sparrows.
These are also in a different family, the Emberizidae (buntings).
The hedge sparrow (also known as the dunnock or accentor) Prunella modularis is also not a true sparrow.
It is in a different family, the Prunellidae.
It is only called a sparrow because people called all small brown birds 'sparrows'.
Birdwatchers call then all LBJs (little brown jobs) because they are usually so difficult to tell apart.
The house sparrow is small bird.
It is between 14–18 centimeters (5.5–7.1 in) long.
It weighs between 24–39.5 grams (0.85–1.4 oz).
Females are smaller than males.
Male and female house sparrows are different colors.
The male is brown, gray and white.
It has a black throat.
The female and young house sparrows are brown and dark yellow or cream.
They have streaks (stripes) on their heads and wings.
The house sparrow lives close to humans, often near human houses in towns or cities.
It also lives near farms and makes a nest in a bush or small tree.
It can have two or three broods per year.
This means it has two or three sets of eggs and chicks each year.
Nest sites are varied, though cavities are preferred.
Nests are most frequently built in the eaves and other crevices of houses.
Holes in cliffs and banks, or tree hollows, are also used.p52–57 A sparrow sometimes digs out its own nests in sandy banks or rotten branches.
More often it uses the nests of other birds, such swallows' nests in banks and cliffs, and old tree nest holes.
It often uses deserted nests.
Sometimes it takes over active nests by driving away or killing the occupants.
Tree hollows are more commonly used in North America than in Europe.
This puts the sparrows in competition with bluebirds and other North American cavity nesters so the native bird population declines.
The number of house sparrows in the United Kingdom has gone down, perhaps because their hedgerow habitat has shrunk.
They are now 'endangered' in the United Kingdom.
However, in other countries, the bird is still very common.
Hedges are necessary to the bird because predators cannot usually get at their nests.
They would have no defence against magpies (for example) if face-to-face.
A couch, sofa or settee is a kind of furniture that is designed to seat more than one person.
It usually has a place to rest your arm on each side.
Couches are normally found in the living room or in front of the TV.
Although a couch is used primarily for seating, it may be used for reclining.
In homes, couches are normally found in the family room, living room, den, sitting room or the lounge.
They are also found in hotels, lobbies of commercial offices, waiting rooms, furniture stores, etc.
The term 'couch' is used in North America, Australia, New Zealand, whilst the term 'sofa' is generally used in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The word originated in Middle English from the Old French noun couche, which derived from the verb meaning 'to lie down'.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a couch was thought as a long, upward seat for resting on.
One end would slope up high enough to provide a place for the head to rest.
Some late 18th-century kinds of couches had an arm running partly down one side, and this type continued to be made in England.
In Greek places, there were flowing designs with all kind of elegant colors.
Many of them had scrolled ends and short legs.
The couch was later taken over by the overstuffed sofa during the Victorian age.
Because the couch is usually set in front of the TV, it is the main place where people usually sit and watch it.
Lazy people would eventually seem to be stuck to it all the time.
This person, a person who does not do a lot of physical activity, was called a "couch potato".
This was also because potatoes do not move at all, and does not do anything but just sits there.
This may also be considered as slang.
Couch came from the word couche, which means, "a bed, lair," or from the word coucher, which means "to lie down."
The most common types of couches in homes are the "love seats" for two, or the "sofa" for more than two.
Other couches include the divan or the "fainting couch", which usually does not have a back.
Couches are usually bought in a set together with cushions, which give them a bouncey and decorative comfortable touch.
Most couches should be deep cleaned once or twice a year, but fabric furniture can sometimes need a little more, including vacuuming once a month and treating spills and stains as soon as they happen.
John Gloag, A Short Dictionary of Furniture rev.
1962. (
London: Allen & Unwin)
Etymology of "sofa"
She was adopted by a French family at the age of nine months.
In 2007, Jena Lee met Sulee B Wax, who was interested in her work.
At this point in time Lee wrote the song Some Share.
The song was used in an album by Sherifa Luna.
Jena Lee wrote six out of the thirteen songs that are on Sherifa Luna's album.
In 2008, Jena Lee won the Urban Music Nation contest by Skyrock.
Her first single J'aimerais Tellement was released in April 2009 along with a music video.
It was at the top of the French single charts for eleven weeks.
It had the highest number of downloads in November 2009.
Sinik (real name Thomas Gerard Idir; born on 26 June 1980) is a famous French rapper.
Thomas was four years old when his parents moved to Bergères in France.
French musical entertainers
Porridge is a food which is made with a cereal, usually oats.
The oats are boiled in water or milk, or both.
It is usually served hot in a bowl or dish.
Some people add things to their porridge such as sugar or syrup.
In Scotland salt is often added.
Porridge is a traditional food in many countries in Northern Europe.
It is usually eaten for breakfast.
In some countries barley or other grains may be used.
Porridge is cooked in saucepans or in a microwave.
Traditionally, it was cooked in large metal kettles over hot coals.
Porridge was often served as food for prisoners in prisons.
This is why in English there is a slang expression "doing porridge" which means "being in prison".
Porridge is also given to people who are ill because it is healthy and easy to eat and digest.
Semolina and gruel are foods which are quite similar to porridge.
Semolina is usually served as a pudding.
Gruel is a thinner version of porridge that may be also drunk and may not need to be cooked.
Oliver Twist, in the famous book by Charles Dickens, was given gruel to eat.
Historically, heavy foods were eaten because most work was manual.
Before the industrial revolution, men and women doing hard work needed more calories per day than they need today.
At any rate this applies to countries which are highly mechanized.
Porridge is a good example of the heavy calorie-laden food which has gradually gone out of favor.
A Fresnel lens is an optical lens, which was originally developed for Lighthouses.
It is named after its inventor, French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel.
The name is pronounced  /freɪˈnɛl/ (fray-NELL), the 's' is silent.
Before Fresnel,  Buffon and Condorcet proposed a similar design, as a way to make large burning lenses.
The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the weight and volume of material that would be required in conventional lens design.
Compared to earlier lenses, the Fresnel lens is much thinner.
More light can pass through.
Lighthouses that use these kind of lenses can be seen from farther away.
Giacomo Meyerbeer  (born near Berlin, 5 September 1791; died Paris,  2 May 1864) was a famous German-born opera composer.
He was the most important composer of French Grand opera during the 1830s and 1840s.
Although he was tremendously popular in his day, his music is not often played now.
Meyerbeer was born into a rich Jewish family in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near Berlin.
His father owned large sugar refineries in Berlin and in Italy.
His mother also came from a rich family.
Her father had been important in Germany’s struggle to be free of the French in 1812 when Napoleon was trying to conquer much of Europe.
Giacomo’s mother did a lot of good work trying to help people who were wounded during the Napoleonic wars.
Many famous people came to the house where Giacomo’s family lived.
Some of the visitors were from the royal Prussian court,  including the future King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt also visited them quite often.
The first piano teacher the boy had was Franz Lauska, who also taught the royal princes.
He also had lessons in composition.
Meyerbeer first played in public in 1801 playing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor in Berlin.
He wrote his first opera in 1810.
In the same year he went to Darmstadt to study with the well-known music theorist Abbé Vogler.
There he met the young Carl Maria von Weber who was also a pupil of Vogler.
He left Vogler in 1811 and tried to get some work in Munich.
In 1813 he found he had been offered a job as court composer to the Grand Duke of Hessen.
Vogler had probably recommended him for the job.
At this time Meyerbeer was better known as a pianist than as a composer.
He travelled to London to hear an important pianist based there, namely J.B.Cramer.
There he met other famous pianists such as Kalkbrenner and Ferdinand Ries.
In 1816 Meyerbeer went to Italy.
He wanted to learn about Italian opera and collect Italian folksongs.
While he intended at first to stay only three months, he stayed most of the next nine years.
He made some trips back to Germany and Austria during this time.
He composed several operas which became very popular.
People started to compare him with the famous Rossini.
However, in Germany people were not interested in his music.
He took his opera Il crociato in Egitto  to  London and then to Paris, where it was a success.
The opera is remembered now for being the last opera ever to have a part for a castrato singer.
He was becoming well-known now.
Spontini asked him to compose an opera for Berlin.
He became friends, in Paris, with the librettist  Eugène Scribe who had a lot of influence in the French theatre.
The Grand Operas
From 1825 onwards Meyerbeer spent his life travelling about Europe.
He was often in Paris and in Berlin, but did not live in either of these places.
He stayed in hotels or private houses wherever he went.
One reason why he travelled was because of his health.
His wife also had bad health, so they often went to spa towns to try to get better.
He also travelled about to watch productions of his operas, and to hear young singers.
When Carl Maria von Weber died, he left an opera, Die drei Pintos, unfinished.
It was sent to Meyerbeer in the hope that he would finish it, but he did not seem interested.
In the end Mahler finished it many years later.
Meyerbeer made changes to Il crociato in Egitto and turned it into a grand opera for the Opéra in Paris.
He changed it from an Italian to a French opera, composing extra dance music and a new overture.
He was determined to be famous in Paris.
In 1826 he married his cousin.
They had two children, but they both died when they were very small.
In 1828 Daniel Auber, a famous French composer of the time, had composed a very popular opera called  La muette de Portici.
It was the first French  grand opera.
Meyerbeer realized he could not become really popular by turning his Italian operas into French grand opera, so he took his comic opera Robert le Diable and changed it into a grand opera.
Within three years it had been performed in 77 theatres in 10 different countries.
Many composers made their own arrangements of some of the tunes from the opera.
He was given many honours: the Chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, the title of Prussian Hof Kapellmeister (Director of Music at the Royal Court), and was made a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts and a member of the French Institute.
Meyerbeer realized that anything else he wrote would have to be really good.
In  1836 he produced another opera Les Huguenots.
This too was extremely popular.
In 1842 he went to Boulogne to improve his health.
There he met Wagner who asked him for financial help to stage his operas Rienzi and The Flying Dutchman.
Meyerbeer lent him money, but stopped giving him money when he heard that Wagner was secretly criticizing him.
Berlin years
When Spontini died Meyerbeer was made Generalmusikdirektor in Berlin.
His opera  Les Huguenots had at first been forbidden in Germany, but now it was allowed to be performed.
As court composer he wrote a grand opera called Ein Feldschlag in Schlesien (A  Battle in Silesia), but it never became internationally famous.
The main part in the opera was sung by Jenny Lind.
Return to Paris
In 1849 he returned to Paris.
He wrote several works together with Scribe, whom Meyerbeer described as the best living librettist, and who was one of his closest friends.
His opera Le prophète (for which Scribe again wrote the words) earned him a lot of money.
The great contralto Pauline Viardot-Garcia sang the main part.
Scribe died in 1861.
Meyerbeer worked very hard to try to finish his last opera,  L’Africaine.
Napoleon III said he wanted the opera to be ready by the winter of 1862-63, but it was not ready until 1864.
The work was being rehearsed for its first performance when Meyerbeer suddenly died, without having had the chance to revise it, the way he revised most of his other pieces.
Meyerbeer’s music
Meyerbeer was always more popular in France than in Germany.
His operas are about the society of wealthy people.
The sounds he made with his orchestra are often deliberately harsh.
In this he is like Beethoven in his final years, and Berlioz.
Sometimes he used new instruments such as the bass clarinet and the saxophone.
He always thought carefully about what his singers were capable of when writing his music.
He enjoyed working with different singers, among them Velluti, who was the last of the great operatic castrati.
He took great trouble to give his singers rests during the opera so that they would still be in good voice for the climax of the story.
He liked scenes with large crowds.
He composed his dance music, in particular, very carefully.
Often he would throw it away and start again if the dancers were not happy with it.
Besides his operas he also wrote orchestral pieces for special occasions.
He also wrote some songs for performance in the salon.
Meyerbeer was one of the richest men in Europe.
This is why some people hated him.
Meyerbeer’s reputation after his death
Meyerbeer’s operas were very popular in the middle of the 19th century, but by the end of the century they had gone out of fashion.
From 1933 to 1945 his music was banned in Germany by the Nazis because he was  Jewish.
Today there is some interest again, but nothing like the huge popularity he had in his lifetime.
Stanley Sadie; 1980; ; article “Meyerbeer” vol 12 p. 246ff
Grand Opera is a term which is used to describe an opera with continuous music.
It is a kind of opera that was popular in the 19th-century.
Grand operas are usually divided into four or five acts.
There have large casts (many singers taking part) and large orchestras.
There is a lot of scenery.
The story is dramatic.
It is usually a story about a hero from history.
The term "Grand Opera" has often been used to describe the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850, and sometimes to describe the Paris Opéra itself.
In a broader sense "Grand Opera" can be any large-scale opera from European countries.
During the 1830s and 1840s Giacomo Meyerbeer was thought to be the greatest composer of Grand Opera.
Lake Lucerne is a lake in central Switzerland.
It is the fourth largest lake in the country.
The German name is Vierwaldstättersee which means: "Lake of the Four Forested Cantons".
It is possible to travel all the way round the side of the lake by road.
There are several tunnels on the way.
It is very popular with tourists.
There are many hotels by the lake.
Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata gets its name because, in 1832, a music critic Ludwig Rellstab said it was like the moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne.
Waterlevels Lake Lucerne  at Brunnen
Waterlevels Lake Lucerne  at Lucerne
Lake Lucerne Region
Die Feen (The Fairies) is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner.
The German libretto was written by the composer.
He was adapting a story by Carlo Gozzi called La donna serpente.
Die Feen was the first opera that Wagner finished.
However, it was never performed during his lifetime.
It has never become popular, although the overture is sometimes played.
The music shows the influence of Carl Maria von Weber and other composers of the time.
It also shows some musical ideas that Wagner was to develop later in his life in his famous operas.
The fairy tale atmosphere in the story is also an idea that he uses in his later operas which deal with fantasy stories.
The idea of being saved (redemption) is also an important idea that he used in later operas.
Rienzi is an opera by Richard Wagner.
Its full title is Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen (Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes).
It is one of the earliest operas Wagner wrote.
There are five acts.
Wagner wrote the libretto himself, using the story from a novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
It was composed between 1838 and 1840  It was first performed at the Hofoper, Dresden on 20 October 1842.
It was the first time Wagner had a success as an opera composer.
The story of the opera is set in Rome and is based on the life of Cola di Rienzi (1313–1354), a medieval Italian populist figure who manages to trick the nobles and their followers.
He helps the people to get power.
At first he is very popular, but then he has to use force against the nobles, and the Church turns against him.
In the end the ordinary people burn the Capitol where Rienzi and his friends are sheltering.
A chess tournament is a competition between chess players.
It can take one of these forms:
A knock-out tournament.
Not a popular choice in chess events.
An all-play-all event.
A highly regarded format, but does not permit large entries.
A Swiss system event.
Permits large entries, and is the most common format.
The event has a pre-set number of rounds, and there are many more players than rounds.
Progressively, players play opponents with roughly similar points to their own score.
Players who win get stronger opponents, players who lose get weaker opponents.
Pairing each round may be done by computer.
This is an invention of the chess world and, like chess clocks, has been adopted by a number of other two-person sports.
Since the first international chess tournament in London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among serious players.
Currently, FIDE holds candidates tournaments every two years to determine challenger to the world champion.
In 1851, Adolf Anderssen became first unofficial champion.
In 1858, Paul Morphy beat him and became second unofficial champion.
In 1871, Johannez Zukertort defeated Adolf Anderssen to become third unofficial chess champion.
There are three unofficial world chess champions: Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy and Johannes Zukertort, stemming from first strong international tournament in London in 1851, won by Anderssen.
Chess competitions
Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman) is an opera by Richard Wagner.
Wagner wrote the libretto himself.
The story comes from the legend of the Flying Dutchman, which is about the captain of a ship.
It is his fate  that he has keep sailing the sea, without ever going on to land, until Judgment Day.
The most important idea in the story as told by Wagner is redemption through love.
It was a favourite idea of Wagner, who used it a lot in his later operas.
Wagner conducted the first performance at the Semper Oper in Dresden, in 1843.
It is an early opera of Wagner, but it shows his mature style.
It is very different from the previous opera Rienzi which is still quite similar to operas that other composers were writing.
In Der fliegende Holländer the drama is very important.
Wagner uses a number of leitmotifs: musical ideas associated with particular characters and themes in the story.
The leitmotifs are all introduced in the overture.
We hear the famous leitmotif of the ocean and then those of the Dutchman and of Senta, the girl he falls in love with.
Wagner originally wrote Der fliegende Holländer to be performed without any breaks (intermission).
Sometimes it is performed like that today, but Wagner also made a version with three acts.
Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (En: Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg) is a three-act opera with words and music by Richard Wagner.
It was Wagner's fifth opera.
He worked on it between 1842 and 1845.
It was first performed at the Dresden Royal Opera on 19 October 1845 with Wagner conducting.
The opera was a success.
It became hugely popular in Germany.
In 1859, Tannhäuser was the first Wagner opera to be performed in the United States of America.
By 1861, the opera had been performed many times in Germany when Wagner was asked to revise the work for the Paris Opéra.
Despite his best efforts, Wagner failed.
He was not popular.
Anti-Wagner riots broke out.
He withdrew the work.
It was not staged again in France until 1895.
Meanwhile, the opera opened the second season of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in November 1884.
Wagner was in Paris completing The Flying Dutchman when he began thinking about writing another opera.
A friend suggested Tannhäuser as a subject.
Wagner did not like the tale.
Back in Germany however, he gathered materials by Tieck, Heine, and others about Tannhäuser.
Vacationing in Bohemia, he had a change of heart.
He began preparing an outline for Tannhäuser.
Returning home to Dresden, he immersed himself in the tale.
He completed the opera in October 1845.
He conducted the first performance that month at the Royal Opera House.
His Venus said, "You are a genius, but you write such eccentric stuff that it is impossible to sing."
His Tannhäuser was completely baffled.
The audience was puzzled.
The reception was lukewarm.
Wagner began revisions at once.
The second performance played to a near empty house.
In 1859, Wagner offered Tannhäuser to the Paris Opéra.
They wanted it sung in French.
They also wanted  a ballet in the second act.
This so the Jockey Club had time to finish dinner and arrive at the Opéra just in time to ogle the dancers.
Wagner refused to move the ballet from the first act to the second act.
There were complaints.
Jockey Club members interrupted the performance whenever possible.
The opera disappeared from the French stage for 34 years.
A few years after the Jockey Club incident, Wagner began revising the Paris version.
He produced a sophisticated sound version that was superior to the first draft.
Though there are several set pieces in the opera, the opera is closer to Wagner's vision of complete independence from such set pieces.
Tannhäuser is on the threshold of the leitmotif, and the diminishing of the sound power of the orchestra in favor of the sung word.
Wagner's sources for the opera are spread over 600 year time span.
In 1391, and again at the beginning of the 15th century, tales were in circulation about a paradise within a German mountain and a traveler who idles with a Sybil before heading to Rome for the Pope's forgiveness.
The "Song of Tannhäuser" of 1515 combines moralizing with the adventures of an historical Minnesinger named Danhuser,  Tanhuser, or Tannenhauser.
This Minnesinger's songs told of erotic love and its opposite, holy love.
Wagner was an insatiable reader, always on the alert for material that could be adapted to an opera.
For Tannhäuser, he combined elements not only from traditional tales but material from C. J. L. Lukas's Essay (1838) on the character of Tannhäuser and Ludwig Tieck's Faithful Eckart (1799).
Ludwig Bechstein's Thuringian Legends (1835) included the story of the song contest.
Wagner was familiar with the song contest through E. T. A. Hoffmann's Serapion Brothers, Friedrich de la Motte-Fouque's drama The Singers Dispute in the Wartburg (1828), and Wagensil's Nuremberg Chronicle.''
Tannhäuser, a knight and Minnesinger - tenor
Venus - soprano
Elisabeth, niece of the Landgrave - soprano
Hermann, Landgrave of Thuringia - bass
Wolfram von Eschenbach, a knight and Minnesinger - baritone
Walther von der Vogelweide, a knight and Minnesinger - tenor
Biterolf, a knight and Minnesinger - bass
Heinrich der Schreiber, a knight and Minnesinger - tenor
Reinmar von Zweter, a knight and Minnesinger - bass
Young shepherd - soprano
Four noble pages - trebles
The story is about the struggle between sacred love and profane love, and redemption (salvation) through love.
The story is based on the historical character of Tannhäuser, about whom very little is known except the myths about him.
It is also about the myth of Venus, but it also deals with the medieval Minnesinger (minstrel).
Half of the opera takes place in a historical setting, and half takes place in the mythological Venusberg.
With the coming of Christianity, the old gods and goddesses of the ancient world were dispersed.
Venus has been living in the Venusberg in Germany.
Tannhäuser, a minstrel, has been passing his time with her.
He has grown tired of his indulgent and jaded life.
He longs to return to the world above.
Venus releases him but predicts that he will someday return to her.
The minstrel finds himself in the valley of the Wartburg, the home of his former love Elisabeth.
He is discovered in prayer by the Landgrave and his knights.
They welcome him.
He returns to the castle with them.
Elisabeth joyfully enters the castle's Hall of Song.
She is thrilled Tannhäuser has returned.
She renews her vows of love with him.
Wolfram, Tannhäuser's friend, looks on sorrowfully.
He loves Elisabeth, too.
The Landgrave announces a song contest.
Guests fill the Hall.
The singers are to sing about the true nature of love.
While the others sing of chaste and pure love, Tannhäuser sings of profane love.
The guests are shocked.
Elisabeth defends Tannhäuser.
The Landgrave orders Tannhäuser to go to Rome and beg forgiveness of the Pope.
The minstrel joins a band of pilgrims and leaves.
Months have passed.
Tannhäuser has not returned with the pilgrims.
Elisabeth is heartbroken.
Wolfram sings to the evening star.
Wolfram finds Tannhäuser on a path to the castle.
The Pope has not forgiven him because of his time with Venus.
Tannhäuser despairs.
Venus appears in a vision, ordering Tannhäuser to return to his old life.
Wolfram whispers the name of Elisabeth.
The vision disappears.
A procession appears bearing the dead Elisabeth.
Tannhäuser throws himself over her corpse and dies.
Pilgrims appear announcing a miracle.
The Pope's wooden staff has burst into bloom.
Tannhäuser has been forgiven.
The critics took Wagner to task for his historical inaccuracies.
First, the real Tannhauser was only a boy at the supposed time of the song contest.
Secondly, they regarded Wagner's Elisabeth with scorn: Wagner had made the character an amalgamation of several historical women.
Cuts to the original were made almost immediately because the singers were not capable of understanding and thus acting their roles.
The Prelude to Act 3 was cut from 155 bars to 92.
In the original final scene, neither Elisabeth or Venus appeared on stage.
The original final scene was retained until the 13th performance in 1847.
Wagner then recast the final pages to make Venus visible on stage.
The Venusberg did not appear however.
This new ending disturbed the audience because they were used to the older version.
Wagner had also cut the pilgrim's chorus, further antagonizing the audience.