Riccardo Drigo

Riccardo Eugenio Drigo (ru. Риккардо Эудженьо Дриго), (30 June 1846 – 1 October 1930) was an Italian composer of ballet music and Italian opera, a theatrical conductor, and a pianist.

Drigo is most noted for his long career as kapellmeister and Director of Music of the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, Russia, for which he composed music for the original works and revivals of the choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov. Drigo also served as Chef d'orchestre for Italian opera performances of the orchestra of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. During his career in St. Petersburg, Drigo conducted the premieres and regular performances of nearly every ballet and Italian opera performed on the Tsarist stage.

Drigo is equally noted for his original full-length compositions for the ballet as well as his large catalog of supplemental music written ad hoc for insertion into already-existing works. Drigo is also noted for his adaptations of already-existing scores, such as his 1895 edition of Tchaikovsky's score for Swan Lake. Many pieces set to the music of Drigo are still performed today, and are considered cornerstones of the classical ballet repertory.

Carnival of Venice

The Carnival of Venice (Italian: Carnevale di Venezia) is an annual festival, held in Venice, Italy. The Carnival ends with the Christian celebration of Lent, forty days before Easter on Shrove Tuesday (Martedi' Grasso or Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday. The festival is world-famed for its elaborate masks.

History

It's said that the Carnival of Venice was started from a victory of the "Serenissima Repubblica" against the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrico di Treven in the year 1162. In the honour of this victory, the people started to dance and make reunions in San Marco Square. Apparently, this festival started on that period and became official in the Renaissance. In the seventeenth century, the baroque carnival was a way to save the prestigious image of Venice in the world. It was very famous during the eighteenth century. It encouraged licence and pleasure, but it was also used to protect Venetians from present and future anguish. However, under the rule of the King of Austria, the festival was outlawed entirely in 1797 and the use of masks became strictly forbidden. It reappeared gradually in the nineteenth century, but only for short periods and above all for private feasts, where it became an occasion for artistic creations.

Carnival of Venice (song)

The Carnival of Venice, is a folk tune popularly associated with the words "My hat, it has three corners" (or in German, Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken). A series of theme and variations has been written for solo trumpet, as "show off" pieces that contain virtuoso displays of double and triple tonguing, and fast tempos.

Many variations on the theme have been written, most notably those by Jean-Baptiste Arban, Del Staigers, Herbert L. Clarke for the cornet, trumpet, and euphonium, Francisco Tárrega and Johann Kaspar Mertz for classical guitar, Ignace Gibsone and Louis Moreau Gottschalk for piano, and Giovanni Bottesini for double bass. Chopin's "Souvenir de Paganini", dedicated to the composer and violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, is another variation on this theme. The popular novelty song, "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?", written and recorded in 1952, is based on the tune. A more recent piece making use of the theme, by Allen Vizzutti, called "The Carnival of Venus," is regarded as one of the most difficult trumpet pieces ever written due to range and technical demands.

Venice

Venice (English /ˈvɛnɪs/ VEN-iss; Italian: Venezia [veˈnɛttsja]) is a city in northeastern Italy sited on a group of 118 small islands separated by canals and linked by bridges. It is located in the marshy Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Venice is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture, and its artwork. The city in its entirety is listed as a World Heritage Site, along with its lagoon.

Venice is the capital of the Veneto region. In 2009, there were 270,098 people residing in Venice's comune (the population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; of whom around 60,000 live in the historic city of Venice (Centro storico); 176,000 in Terraferma (the mainland), mostly in the large frazioni (roughly equivalent to "parishes" or "wards" in other countries) of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 on other islands in the lagoon). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2,600,000. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy.

Venice (band)

Venice was started in Venice, California in 1977 by cousins Michael Lennon (born 17 July 1959) and Kipp Lennon (born 12 March 1960). Michael's brother Mark (born 28 March 1963) joined the band in 1978, followed by Kipp's brother Pat (born 9 November 1951) in 1980. Kipp and Pat are two of eleven siblings, and are younger brothers of the Lennon Sisters. Michael and Mark are two of thirteen siblings.

Members of Venice have performed alongside, or recorded with, Bruce Springsteen, Don Henley, Elton John, Heart, Phil Collins, Sting, Melissa Etheridge, Cher, Ozzy Osbourne, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Stevie Nicks, Billy Idol, Michael McDonald, Dave Mason, Tim Moyer, Chris Isaak, Robin Beck, Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers, Styx, Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Bon Jovi, Michael Ruff, Warren Zevon and Dutch band Yellow Pearl. Tano Costa, the band's original drummer, is the son of the late music arranger and record producer Don Costa, who arranged and produced for Frank Sinatra, Paul Anka and many other recordings artists in the 1950s and 1960s jazz and pop era.

Venice (video game)

Venice is a Microsoft Windows-based action puzzle game set in an abstract representation of Venice, Italy developed by both Retro64 Games and PopCap Games, it was published by PopCap Games. The game was released on June 26, 2007.

Gameplay

The basic gameplay consists of a gondola controlled by the player that shoots various treasures (Keys, Hearts, Coins, Rings, Vases, Stars and Lyres) directly upward towards plates that have matching slots on the side of a building in an attempt to match the treasure with its matching slot. Plates come in varied shapes such as bars, circles, half-circles, T-shapes, and X-shapes. They may hold as few as one and as many as eight treasure slots, and they may not be stationary. Some feature hinges that cause them to rotate when hit, while others shift or rotate positions when hit. The player usually has the ability to cycle between two treasures before firing.

If a player manages to hit a high matching slot, the treasure will usually tumble and fill one or more lower slots for a combo bonus; each successive tumble increases the bonus and the chance of a power-up popping up. Bank shots earn extra points; when a treasure makes an inordinate amount of banks shots before filling a slot, the player is given a "Lucky shot" bonus. Once a grouping of slots are filled, that grouping vanishes and awards the player more points.