"Opera" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tall man wearing an opera hat alighted from a Broadway car and turned his face westward. But he saw Murray, pounced upon him and dragged him under a street light. The Captain lumbered slowly to the corner, like a wounded bear, ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn! You acquiesce, and shall I repine? What, man of music, you grown grey With notes and nothing else to say, Is this your sole praise from a friend, "Greatly his opera's strains intend, But in music we know how fashions end!" I gave my youth; ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... at the vast audience filing into the Wagner Opera House before he took his seat. "This makes me think of Oberammergau, Polly," ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... music? Elaborately dressed and ornamented choirs, who in many cases make no profession of religion and are often sneering skeptics, go through a cold artistic or operatic performance, which is as much in harmony with spiritual worship as an opera or theater. Under such worldly performances ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... de Vere would sit downstairs and Mr. Overgold in the gallery; at other times, de Vere and Mr. Overgold would sit in the gallery and Dorothea downstairs; at times one of them would sit in Row A, another in Row B, and a third in Row C; at other times two would sit in Row B and one in Row C; at the opera, at times, one of the three would sit listening, the others talking, at other times two listening and one talking, and at other times three talking ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... not what it is now, nor even what it had been in a former time. It is somewhat amusing to find Goldsmith questioning, in one of his essays, whether the Opera could ever become popular in England. But on the night—on which the reader is summoned to that "theatre of sweet sounds" a celebrated singer from the Continent made his first appearance in London, and all the world thronged ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in the pre-taxi days a cabman had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opera; as soon as the cab reached a populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued; she had let the driver go free because of his ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... which to-day have disappeared, or are on the point of disappearing; and as a consolation such persons have very pretty pictures by M. Pansyer, representing St. Julien le Pauvre, the Rue Galande, the Place Maubert, the ruins of the Opera Comique, the flower-covered relics of the Cour de Comptes; and there has even been evoked for them the manor-houses of Clichy and Monceau such as they were in 1789, and also the quarter of the Bastile, which can thus be compared with their present aspect. Not far from these antiquities ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... Apostolos suarum rixarum socios adscripsisset. Quo doctore? Spiritu. Quin etiam iste fraterculus[17] non dubitavit Evangelium Lucae petulanti stylo perstringere, quod in eo crebrius bona nobis virtutum opera commendentur. Quem interrogavit? Spiritum. Theodorus Beza ex Lucae vigesimo secundo capite : "Hic calix, novum testamentum, in meo sanguine, qui (calix) pro vobis fundetur, <Greek: potaerion enchunomenon>," ausus est ut corruptum ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... good purpose is attained by such caprices? In three sentences the sum of the philosophy may be stated. It has been computed (see Duclos) that the Italian opera has not above six hundred words in its whole vocabulary: so narrow is the range of its emotions, and so little are these emotions disposed to expand themselves into any variety of thinking. The same remark applies to that class of simple, household, homely ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... found in "mystery Babylon the great" and her harlot daughters; namely, Catholicism and the Protestant sects. They are becoming more worldly and covetous, more proud and popularity-loving. They are denying much of the Bible, turning their meeting-houses into concert halls and opera-houses. In a village where we resided until recently the Methodist meeting-house was called by the community ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... which had made me what I am. It occurred to me as a leading motive that a century or two hence the true inner life of any man who had actually lived from the time when railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, gas, percussion-caps, fulminating matches, the opera and omnibuses, evolution and socialism were quite unknown to his world, into the modern age, would be of some value. So I described my childhood or youth exactly as I recalled, or as I felt it. Such a book requires very merciful allowance ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... have at last received that revelation for which I longed, and the divine thoughts with which she has inspired me I will make known to the world. How? Description is inadequate, but it is enough to say that I have decided upon an Opera as the best mode ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... indignation swept the columns of the rank and file. They didn't want the grand duke themselves, but they didn't want Blakely's mother to have him; Blakely's mother and Mrs. Sanderson-Spear, and Mrs. Tudor Carstairs. In a way, it was better than a comic opera; it ...
— Cupid's Understudy • Edward Salisbury Field
... and fence in my own lodgings. Lord Albemarle [the British ambassador] is come from Fontainebleau. I have very good reason to be pleased with the reception I met with. The best amusement for strangers in Paris is the Opera, and the next is the playhouse. The theatre is a school to acquire the French language, for which reason I frequent ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... del Destino," and one comic chorus from "Boccaccio," which seemed to make them wild with pleasure. To my mind, the best of these more formal pieces was a duet between Attila and Italia from some opera unknown to me, which Antonio and Piero performed with incomparable spirit. It was noticeable how, descending to the people, sung by them for love at sea, or on excursions to the villages round Mestre, these operatic reminiscences had lost something of their ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... "D—- it, now my lady is gone, we will have t'other bottle," he would say. He was frank enough in telling his thoughts, such as they were. There was little mystery about my lord's words or actions. His Fair Rosamond did not live in a Labyrinth, like the lady of Mr. Addison's opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a tipsy retinue in the country town. Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady Castlewood could have found the way to her rival's house easily enough; and, if she had come with bowl and ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... of twelve at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it for granted that his wife knew we were coming, and that her preparations were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal to every emergency, and, after placing his guests at their ease in the parlor, he hastened to the nursery, took off his coat, and rocked the baby until his wife had disposed of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... been acting a few nights before in the Country Wake. The part of Hob was his own in every sense, he being the author of the farce, which afterwards was made into a very popular ballad opera called Flora, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... capaciously like a comfortable old dowager fully dressed in stuffs of a richly dull color. Her thick skirts are spread about her with a contented dignity which does not interfere with her eating large sandwiches openly and vigorously at the opera. To-day the mellow sunlight crowned her ancient nobleness with a becoming hue, as Gard was jogged along in a roundabout way through the city. Here at the left were the august bridges and great park, all ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... Scottish bagpipes was heard through all the years of war over the Flemish marshlands, and there were Highlanders and Lowlanders with every dialect over the border. In one line of trenches the German soldiers listened to part-songs sung in such trained harmony that it was as if a battalion of opera-singers had come into the firing-line. The Welshmen spoke their own language. For a time no officer received his command unless he spoke it as fluently as running water by Aberystwyth, and even orders were given in this tongue until a few Saxons, discovered ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... thinking for herself Forgetfulness is like a closing sea Fortitude leaned so much upon the irony Good nerve to face the scene which he is certain will be enacted Government of brain; not sufficient Insurrection of heart Grand air of pitying sadness Had taken refuge in their opera-glasses Hated tears, considering them a clog to all useful machinery He is in the season of faults He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two He postponed it to the next minute and the next Her singing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... confirmed at the church of St Kund, Odense, and began to turn his thoughts to the future. It was thought that he was best fitted to be a tailor; but as nothing was settled, and as Andersen wished to be an opera-singer, he took matters into his own hand and started for Copenhagen in September 1819. There he was taken for a lunatic, snubbed at the theatres, and nearly reduced to starvation, but he was befriended by the musicians Christoph Weyse and Siboni, and afterwards by the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the 'idle songs' fit for the hot dining-halls and the guests there! Amos was indignant at the profanation of art, and thought it best used in the service of God. What would he have said if he had been 'fastened into a front-row box' and treated to a modern opera? ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... forehead and he carried his handkerchief at his face. But the streets were dark and few people were abroad. At a little distance to his left he saw above the housetops a glow of light in the air which marked the Opera-House. Wogan avoided it; he kept again to the alleys and emerged before the Chevalier's lodging. This he passed, but a hundred yards farther on he turned down a side street and doubled back upon his steps along a ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... "Just so. 'After the opera is over,' you know. That's the penalty one pays for one's first dance. And you were queer last night, too, weren't you? Why didn't ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... Antiocheni in Marcum, et Titi Bostrorum Episcopi in Evangelium Lucae commentarii; ante hac quidem nunquam in lucem editi, nunc vero studio et opera Theodori Peltani luce simul et Latinitate donati. Ingolstadt. ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... theological student, but the march of civilization had been such at Bleighton that a prospective shepherd of souls might listen to one of Beethoven's symphonies in a city opera-house without having any sin imputed unto him! Such music-loving inhabitants of Bleighton as listened to one of these symphonies, which was also heard by Mr. Brown and Miss Elserly, noticed that when the young couple exchanged words and glances, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... clad in deep mourning, is brought by a professional opera singer: a babe in arms, a boy and girl aged two and four, evidently born in a much higher sphere—pretty, refined children. At their mother's death this young woman took charge of them, their father ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... glass may strain and tire your eyes, but that difficulty will pass in a short time. Expertness will soon be won in the use of a binocular, so that you will be able, almost instantly, to get the desired object within its field, even though the object be quite tiny. An opera glass is a great deal better than no glass at all; a field glass is better still, and a Bausch & Lomb binocular of six to eight magnifying power is the best of all; being almost equal to having the bird in hand. The observer ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... too fond of playing a trick upon the king he is going to fight with,—of dancing at the house of Lord Germaine minister for the English colonies, and at the house of Lord Rawdon, who had just returned from New York,—and of seeing at the opera that Clinton, whom he was afterwards to meet at Monmouth. But whilst I concealed my intentions, I openly avowed my sentiments; I often defended the Americans; I rejoiced at their success at Trenton; and my spirit of opposition obtained for me an invitation ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... he said. "I have sometimes felt sorry for having begun the struggle, and yet perhaps it is just as well, since it must have come sooner or later. Ten years hence I shall want to take her occasionally to the theatre or opera, or perhaps now and then to a ball, and unless I can eradicate these ridiculously strict notions she has got into her head, she will be sure to rebel then, when she will be rather too old to punish, at least in the same way in which ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... where most were to be found. They swarmed in the Palais Royal. Fewer were seen in the Avenue de l'Opera than in the Rue de la Paix, while the right side of the boulevard was more frequented ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... I should just love it! Why, I've never been to the Theater in all my life! Not even to the Opera House in Hawesville!" ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... energetic assistants, was the soul of the enterprise, and the real founder of St. Louis. He was one of that stock of Frenchmen who put the imprint of their nation, never to be effaced, upon the map of North America—a kind of Frenchman unspeakably different from those who figured in the comic opera and the masquerade ball of the late corrupt and effeminating empire. He was a genial and generous man, who rewarded his followers bountifully, and took the lead in every service of difficulty and danger. While on a visit to New Orleans he died of one of the diseases of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... "wan," as Molly said, all the rest of the evening; or it may have been the effect of a green dress she wore. Certainly she was somewhat piano in manner, too; and despite her pal's slap at Caspian, the princess didn't treat him as if he were the dragon of the opera. On the contrary, she sat out several dances with him. I bear her no grudge, though! She hadn't the air of enjoying ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Cornwall. This most romantic yet most human tale must be accounted one of the world's supreme love stories. It has inspired some of our greatest poets, and moved Richard Wagner to the composition of a splendid opera. ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... has announced himself as the enemy of Greece, and the prop of the Ottoman Empire. At the subscription ball given at the Opera in Berlin, did he not walk arm-in-arm with Ghalik Bey, the Turkish Ambassador, and authorise him to telegraph to the Sultan that, under existing conditions, he might count upon his sense of justice and his good-will? Does not this constitute an ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... and in a moment Daisy Dow and Bill Farnsworth appeared. They were in gay spirits, having been to see a new comic opera, which proved such a bore that they left before ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... wipe it up;" and up he jumped to fetch something to wipe it with, and before I could see what he was about, what do you think he had done? He had seized my Lady Florimel's opera cloak, which was lying on a chair—of course it shouldn't have been lying about, I know—and scrubbed up the ink with it all in a minute. The cloak was black silk outside, so he thought it was just a piece of black stuff lying about—but ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... six in all, whereof I was the only woman, and we occupied a large box on the first tier near the stage, a position of prominence which caused me a certain embarrassment, when, as happened at one moment of indefinable misery, the opera glasses of the people in the dress-circle and stalls were turned ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... says Miss Branghton(2) in Evelina (meaning the opera), 'because it is not vulgar.' That is, she likes it, not because there is anything to like in it, but because other people are prevented from liking or knowing anything about it. Janus Weathercock, Esq., laugheth to scorn and spitefully entreateth and hugely condemneth ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... (whether or not they might prove able to execute what they decreed) the people were highly delighted. It was the custom to serenade the royal family on New Year's morning. On this New Year's day, the band of the National Guard played under the king's windows an opera air which went to the words, "But our creditors are paid, and we are consoled." They would play nothing but this air; and finished it, stopped and resumed, over and over again. They might have been very sure that the king knew ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... stand? What places should he frequent with the greatest likelihood of meeting her? Theatres, the opera, art galleries, railway ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... now. It's acted itself all to me right here in this shack. It was acting itself to me up there in that ruined shack across the river, when you handed me your talk of Murray's purpose, only I guess I wasn't sitting in the front row, and hadn't the opera glasses ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... evening, by the statue of Shakespeare, with the rain-drops coursing one another down its innocent nose. Those inscrutable pigeon-hole offices, with nothing in them (not so much as an inkstand) but a model of a theatre before the curtain, where, in the Italian Opera season, tickets at reduced prices are kept on sale by nomadic gentlemen in smeary hats too tall for them, whom one occasionally seems to have seen on race-courses, not wholly unconnected with strips of cloth ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... King of Great Britain much that he would never otherwise have known as to public opinion in a country where the courses of freedom were uncontrolled by custom and unshackled by precedent or tradition. A feature of the visit to Philadelphia was a splendid concert given in the Opera House, at which Patti and others sang to a brilliant audience amidst striking decorations. To the verses of "God Save the Queen" were ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... turning away, and hurrying on to the house. I heard him laugh lightly, and hum an opera-air as he rode off, sitting his horse with the easy seat of a thorough horseman. He would never set up a carriage as long as he could ride like that. I watched him out of sight, and then went in to seek ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... element of costume; and the two Miss Wentworths, when they came over to see her, were somewhat bewildered by the obtrusive distribution of her wardrobe. There were India shawls suspended, curtain-wise, in the parlor door, and curious fabrics, corresponding to Gertrude's metaphysical vision of an opera-cloak, tumbled about in the sitting-places. There were pink silk blinds in the windows, by which the room was strangely bedimmed; and along the chimney-piece was disposed a remarkable band of velvet, covered ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... riches acquired by fraud and violence might be employed. "Gold," says Christopher Columbus, in his last letter* (Lettera rarissima data nelle Indie nella isola di Jamaica a 7 Julio dei 1503.—"Le oro e metallo sopra gli altri excellentissimo; e dell' oro si fanno li tesori e chi lo tiene fa e opera quanto vuole nel mondo[?], e finel[?]mente aggionge a mandare le anime al Paradiso.") to King Ferdinand, "gold is a thing so much the more necessary to your majesty, because, in order to fulfil the ancient prophecy, Jerusalem is to be rebuilt by a prince of the Spanish monarchy. Gold ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... her remarkable garb, and the brown-haired child, with the strange, glaring eyes, that seemed to affix themselves on the three scout girls. Altogether she seemed quite unlike other children. Her heavy brown braids hung over her shoulders like a picture of Marguerite in the opera, while her white gauzy dress was banded around with rows of black velvet, just like the artistic costumes worn in Greek plays. This style on so young a child gave a very stagy and quaint effect. She, like the woman, had a piece of lace on her head, but ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... off," he said. "I have been given a seat for the Opera-Comique to-night. It would be ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... had acquired in rural labour—I think I see her look around on the brick walls and narrow street which presented themselves before our windows, as she concluded with a sigh the favourite old ditty, which I then preferred, and—why should I not tell the truth?—which I still prefer to all the opera airs ever minted by the capricious brain of an Italian ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... On these occasions he was dressed carelessly, like any ordinary young man, and the better to ensure a complete disguise, he kept continually changing either the colour of his moustache or the colour and cut of his clothes. One evening, on leaving the opera, just as he was about to open his carriage door, a man approached him with a great air of mystery, and tendering a pamphlet, begged him to buy it. To get rid of the importunate fellow, his Majesty purchased the book, and never glanced at its ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... surface—are so normal that there is even a lively operatic fight on in Munich, where the personal friction between Musical Director Walters and the star conductor, Otto Hess, has caused a crisis in the affairs of the Royal Munich Opera, rivaling in interest the fighting ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... imagine him the country small boy. Keen, hard, alert in all the ways of a great city, it was difficult to conceive him in his early youth, well as I knew it; difficult to reflect that his dreams at night were not of the varying results of some late scheme, nor of white shoulders at the opera, nor the mood of the Ninth Ward, nor of the drift of business, but of some farm-house's front yard in mid-summer with a boy aiming a long shot-gun at a red-winged poacher in a cherry tree, or that ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... drovers' whistling, and "hooroar" and hissing of some of our theatres as part of the legitimate drama. On the Christmas day, when I had the option of getting gloriously fuddled with a select party of English friends, or of entertaining myself in some less orthodox way, I preferred to witness the opera of "Norma" at the Stadt Theatre, and think I was the better for the choice. "Hamlet" was the source of another Sunday evening's gratification (an anniversary play of the Hamburgers, and intensely popular with the Danes), although with unpardonable barbarity the German censors entirely blotted out ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... vas orchestra leader at the Theater Royal in Stuttgart, unt our king haf complimented me many times. But I vas foolish. I vas foolish enough to think that ven a man iss great he can stay great. I married me to a clefer prima donna, unt composed a great opera, which vas finer as anything Herr Wagner has efer done. Eh? But dere vas jealousness at work to opposition me. Von day ven my fine opera vas all complete I vent to the theater to lead mine orchestra. To my ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and museums, libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture galleries, the Pantheon, Jardin des Plantes, the opera, the circus, the legislative body, the billiard rooms, the barbers, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... might infer that London was very richly supplied with playhouses in Pepys's day. But public theatres in active work at this period of our history were not permitted by the authorities to exceed two. "The Opera" and "the Duke's House" are merely Pepys's alternative designations of the Lincoln's Inn Field's Theatre; while "the Theatre," "Theatre Royal," and "the King's House," are the varying titles which he bestows ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... Angli [sic] mediolanensis opera. Legatio Babylonica, Oceani Decas, Poemata, Epigrammata. Cum privilegio. Impressum Hispali cum summa diligentia per Jacobum Corumberger Alemanum, anno millesimo quingentessimo XI, mense vero ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... first is in can, but not in may; My second in opera, not in play; My third is in shine, but not in bright; My fourth is in string, but not in kite; My fifth is in tea, but not in coffee; My sixth in candy, also in taffy; My seventh is in rain, but not in hail; My eighth is in bucket, but not in pail; My ninth is in ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... of the nineteenth century an American adaptation of a French comic opera, 'La Mascotte', was for two or three seasons very popular. The heroine of its story was believed to have the gift of bringing luck. So it is that Americans now call any animal which has been adopted by a racing crew or by an athletic team (or even by a regiment) a mascot; and ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... was. And perhaps he did not care that it should be known that he had some means, whatever they might have been—sufficient, at any rate, to enable him to lend money to people. These two had a duet down there, like conspirators in a comic opera, of "Sh—ssh, shssh! Secrecy! Secrecy!" It must have been funny, because they were very ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... violin tremulous with melody, and Caesar delivered an oration at Rome; at thirteen Henry M. Stanley was a teacher; at fourteen Demosthenes was known as an orator; at fifteen Robert Burns was a great poet, Rossini composed an opera, and Liszt was a wizard in music. At the age of sixteen Victor Hugo was known throughout France; at seventeen Mozart had made a name in Germany, and Michael Angelo was a rising star in Italy. At eighteen Marcus Aurelius was made a consul; at nineteen ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... Mrs. Upton, one cold January morning, a great light of possibilities dawning upon her troubled soul, "don't you want to take me to the opera next Saturday? Calve is to sing in 'Cavalleria,' and I am very anxious to hear ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... poetic names in French or English,—while Mary surveyed her with a pleased and innocent surprise, as a revelation of character altogether new and different from anything to which she had been hitherto accustomed. She was to her a living pantomime, and brought into her unembellished life the charms of opera and theatre ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... for granted, Gretz is a less inspiring place than Barbizon. I give it the palm over Cernay. There is something ghastly in the great empty village square of Cernay, with the inn tables standing in one corner, as though the stage were set for rustic opera, and in the early morning all the painters breaking their fast upon white wine under the windows of the villagers. It is vastly different to awake in Gretz, to go down the green inn- garden, to find the river streaming through the bridge, and to see the dawn begin across ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... friend, you say that I must be able to give a just view of the present state of French society, and of the best parts of it, because I have not, like some of my countrymen, hurried about Paris from one spectacle to another, seen the opera, and the play-houses, and the masked balls, and the gaming-houses, and the women of the Palais Royal, and the lions of all sorts; gone through the usual routine of presentation and public dinners, drunk French wine, damned French ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... 15), does not tell for much either way. In his Hebrides (Works, ix. 55), he shews his pleasure in singing. 'After supper,' he writes, 'the ladies sung Erse songs, to which I listened, as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the sound of words which I did not understand.' Boswell records (Hebrides, Sept. 28) that another day a lady 'pleased him much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guitar.' Johnson himself shews that if his ear was dull to music, it was ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... don't know just what we will do with it. Landry is as careful of me as though I were a wax doll. But I do wish he would think more of his own health. He never will wear his mackintosh in rainy weather. I've been studying his tastes so carefully. He likes French light opera better than English, and bright colours in his cravats, and he ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... owing to the small size and bark-like colour of its nest, the latter is very difficult to find. On the 8th April I fired at a specimen and missed it; it then flew off and settled in a fork of another tree about 30 feet from the ground. On looking carefully with an opera-glass, I found that it was sitting on its nest. I drove it off and shot it. The nest was very small and shallow, cup-shaped, and wedged in between two small boughs at their junction, and not appearing either above or ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... was staying with Sir Charles Bassett offered her three years' education in Do, Ra, Mi, Fa, preparatory to singing at the opera. ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... as far as the opera-house, when we were caught in the jam of carriages in front; the last afternoon opera of the season was just over. I was so busy thinking what would be my next move that I didn't notice much outside—and I didn't want to move, Tom, not a bit. Playing the Bishop's ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... continued favourable. One night we went to the opera to hear a celebrated prima donna. When we returned home Miriam and I were sitting in her room, chatting over the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... forward, staring into the watercourse. Maurice saw her face changing. A look of intense surprise, of intense inquiry, came into it. She took one hand swiftly from the door, put it behind her—ah, she had a pair of opera-glasses at her eyes now! The train went on faster. It was nearly off the bridge. But she was waving her hand. She was calling. She had seen Gaspare. And he? Maurice saw him start forward as if to run to the bridge. But the train was gone. The boy stopped, ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... some sort of conversation, which (after our public overtures had glutted their pride), at a cautious and jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation. What was the event? A strange uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with three-coloured plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in the mock heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who came to make the representation into the custody ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... came into Paris, the nearly empty streets seemed to him to be crowded with people. Never had he seen the city so beautiful. He whirled through the avenue de l'Opera, whizzed past the place de la Concorde, and thought he must be dreaming as he realized the gigantic leap that he had taken within the hour. He compared all that was now around him with the sights on that plain of death but a few miles away. No; no, it was not possible. One of the extremes ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... impossible to support a Royal English Opera House with its special commodity of English Opera, that is, Opera composed by an Englishman to an Englishman's libretto, and played by English operatic singers. Ivanhoe, a genuine English Opera, by a genuine English Composer ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... too, the only difference being that the little mob drew away outside the hedge while the man made way in; for, seeing who were mounted on the great animal's neck, he ran towards the house to meet the Doctor, who, followed by the other masters, was now coming toward the gap with a small opera-glass ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... piece called Grandpapa, which I regret to say is not thought to be of the nature that will suit this theatre; but as there appears to be much merit in it, Mr. Kemble strongly recommends that you should send it to the English Opera House, for which it seems to be excellently adapted. As you have already been kind enough to be our medium of communication with Mr. Payne, I have imposed this trouble upon you; but if you do not like to act for Mr. Payne in the business, and have no means of disposing of the piece, I will ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... shadowy sombre, enshrined, embosomed in those purple clouds; and momently ran lightning forks like rapiers through the growing mass. Everything around, meanwhile, was quiet in the grass-grown streets. The only sound was a high, clear boy's voice chanting an opera tune. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... last he was glad to be employed by one of the peasants who came to Naples to load their asses with manure out of the streets. They often follow very early in the morning, or during the night-time, the trace of carriages that are gone, or that are returning from the opera; and Piedro was one night at this work, when the horses of a nobleman's carriage took fright at the sudden blaze of some fireworks. The carriage was overturned near him; a lady was taken out of it, and was hurried by ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... longed for rest; during the last nights of the season, when Siegmund's fingers had pressed too hard, when Siegmund's passion, and joy, and fear had hurt, too, the soft body of his little beloved, the violin had sickened for rest. On that last night of opera, without pity Siegmund had struck the closing phrases from the fiddle, harsh in his impatience, wild ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... be, five years later, one of the leaders in that curious conspiracy, the MacKenzie-Mann-Berthiaume-La Presse deal—the details of which as told by Professor Skelton read like a detective yarn—which was turned into opera bouffe by Laurier's decisive and timely interference. In 1902, Tarte, in Laurier's absence and in the belief that he could not resume the premiership on account of illness, attempted to seize the successorship by pre-emption, and was promptly dismissed from office by Laurier. Tarte ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... question; 'Les Fourchambault' (The Fourchambaults), a plea for family union; 'La Chasse au Roman' (Pursuit of a Romance), and 'L'Habit Vert' (The Green Coat), with Sandeau and Alfred de Musset; and the libretto for Gounod's opera 'Sappho.' Augier wrote one volume of verse, which he modestly called 'Parietaire,' the name of a common little vine, the English danewort. In 1858 he was elected to the French Academy, and in 1868 became a Commander of the Legion of Honor. He died at Croissy, October ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... the monotonous quality or lack of color in the voice of a famous opera star to lack of nasal resonance, Madame Lehmann speaks of the consummate art of Marcella Sembrich who "in recent years appears to have devoted very special study to nasal resonance, whereby her voice, especially ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... he laughed. "It's the opening song in a very charming comic opera I once committed. But it was too good for the present frivolous age, and so I ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... absurd, to see the dying scene of Romeo and Juliet sung out in an opera!" remarked Lawrence Egerton, one morning; "all the music of the spheres could not have made that scene, last night, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... "Despair of Philene," the "Death of Ugolina," by Vincent Galileo, father of the astronomer, which Vincent Galileo sang his own music, and accompanied himself on his viol de gamba; as well as all the first attempts of the Italian opera which, from 1580, substituted free inspiration ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... versatile Mr. LEGION," a compliment which never failed to annoy him hugely. Sated with popular applause, he turned into a vein of new poetry, and produced The Song of the Spud, which, his admirers averred was "racy of the soil." A grand English Opera, on the Pilgrimage of Grace, was performed, at immense expense, LEGION being the Librettist. It was patriotic, but not exactly popular. Still, with all these claims on his country, LEGION lived in hopes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... National, doubled its capital stock. The ice and lighting plants were enlarged, and the city bought a site up the river, built a dam, installed pumping engines and constructed water mains into the city. An opera house was built, which, though its walls never re-echoed to the high soprano notes of a prima donna; had trembled to their foundations at the invectives of E. T. Franks; had shed sections of blistered plaster at the sad wailings of Gus Wilson, and had been moved by the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... I have once before spoken of her voice,—an organ more often cultivated by my fair country-women for singing than for speaking, which, considering that much of our practical relations with the sex are carried on without the aid of an opera score, seems a mistaken notion of theirs,—and of its sweetness, gentle inflexion, and musical emphasis. She had the advantage of having been trained in a musical language, and came of a race with whom ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... of." "Subscriptions are always in order, you know, and pretty Miss Campbell will give you her sweetest smile if you hand her a handsome check." "I've heard this Phebe Moore, and she really has a delicious voice such a pity she won't fit herself for opera!" "Only sings three times tonight; that's modest, I'm sure, when she's the chief attraction, so we must give her an encore after the Italian piece." "The orphans lead off, I see. Stop your ears if you like, but don't fail to applaud or the ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... honorarium for his university lecture had its advantages. People in San Francisco wanted to hear what the editor had to say as well as to read his utterances. He was invited to give the Fourth of July oration at the Grand Opera House—a very great compliment. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... and produced in no other way than by the combination of the three arts in harmonious action. This is the reason why no parlor readings can ever take the place of the theatre, and no concert performance can ever take the place of the opera. This is the reason why all attempts to suppress the theatre and opera are and always will be in vain. They are attempts to suppress the expression and awakening of a life which can neither be expressed nor awakened in any other way; and suppression of life, however successfully ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... spite of the fact that I had forgotten every line and word. I was bathed in a coward sweat whilst I stood near the central doors of the stage-chamber into which I was shortly to walk like a sheep to the slaughter. The cue came, and I entered mechanically crushing an opera-hat against my shirt-front. I know that if the audience could have seen the face below the grease-paint and the powder, they would have seen something very like the ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... saw Trotsky was at the Opera in Moscow. The British Labour Delegation were occupying what had been the Tsar's box. After speaking with us in the ante-chamber, he stepped to the front of the box and stood with folded arms while the house cheered itself ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... reads, not skims, the daily paper; and if one's comments are leisurely, perhaps they are all the better. At any rate one is not tempted to see the end of the world in a strike, or a second Bonaparte in Signor d'Annunzio. To me that poet seems rather a comic-opera brigand. I suspect him of a green velvet jacket with a two-inch tail. But if you regard him sub specie eternitatis, then I fear we must see in him all Italy in epitome. That was how Italy went to war—but you must ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... was never a brilliant success. To be sure, such sterling actors as Mr. and Mrs. John Barnes and the Hilsons played there, and during a short season of Italian opera, in which Daponte was enthusiastically interested, Adelaide Pedrotti was the prima donna. And one of New York's first "opera idols" sang there—Luciano Fornasari, generally acclaimed by New York ladies as the handsomest man who had ever been in the ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... she had begun to idealize the efforts of Wilfred Compton. He need not have been afraid. To her imagination, "big people" were not living in dugouts, or tents, far from civilization; "big people" were going to the opera every night, and riding in splendid carriages along imposing boulevards every day. Brick and Bill had contrived to live as well as they desired from profits on skins obtained in the mountains and the small tract of ground they had cultivated in a desultory manner had done little ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... negligence of the culture of her | |mind, telling her that she lacks grey | |matter. The climax comes when Mr. | |Constable tries to get away from his wife | |on the evening of their wedding | |anniversary to dine with Mrs. Alloway. | |Kitty tries the emancipated woman idea | |and goes to the opera with another man | |and has dinner with him in his | |apartments. She lets her husband know of | |her plans and he comes to the room in a | |rage. By thus playing first on his | |jealousy and then by ridiculing his | |ideas, ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... demanded, "to going down to the opera house to hear the President of the United States speak? Here I 've been shut up all day, and forgot what was going on till I picked up the paper just now. I'm ripe for some excitement, the mood which in my undergraduate days would have tempted me to go out and paint the town." He threw himself into ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... of the Grand Opera season opened to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles another avenue for her astonishing social activities. With rare shrewdness she had contrived to outwit Mrs. Ames and secure the center box in the "golden horseshoe" at the Metropolitan. There, like a gaudy ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... opera singer chooses professional success instead of love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is stronger ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... a long, dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a narrow street. It is trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre* or wish to get off quietly o' foot when the opera is done. At the end of it, toward the theater, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... German infantry; furious and bloody grapplings in the streets of little villages of northeastern France. There was one thing at least of which he could still feel the spirit of a debutante. In this matter of war he was not, too, unlike a young girl embarking upon her first season of opera. Walkely, the next morning, saw this mood sitting quaintly upon Coleman and cackled with astonishment and glee. Coleman's usual manner did not return until he detected Walkely's appreciation of his state and then he ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... introduction, and his comments on chap. i, verse 12; the quotations from Luther's commentary are taken mainly from the translation by Henry Cole, D.D., Edinburgh, 1858; for Melanchthon, see Loci Theologici, in Melanchthon, Opera, ed. Bretschneider, vol. xxi, pp. 269, 270, also pp. 637, 638—in quoting the text (Ps. xxiii, 9) I have used, as does Melanchthon himself, the form of the Vulgate; for the citations from Calvin, see his ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and a writer in the magazines. We find his work in the old "Monthly Magazine" where Dickens made his debut; and when Boz was installed as editor of "Bentley's," we find him admitting much of his father-in-law's writing. His "Memoirs of the Opera" are well-known. There is a charming outline sketch of Maclise's, showing the profiles of two of the sisters with Dickens, all three of the most refined and interesting cast—but Boz's face is certainly the handsomest of the three. He must have been a most attractive young man—something ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... loculamenta; jam enim inter balnearia et thermas bibliotheca quoque ut necessarium domus ornamentum expolitur. Ignoscerem plane, si studiorum nimia cupidine oriretur: nunc ista conquisita, cum imaginibus suis descripta et sacrorum opera ingeniorum in speciem et cultum parietum ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... resurrected itself in him. There had been the celebrated occasion in the Promenade at the Empire, a few months before the war, when a man standing in front of him had failed to remove his hat during the playing of "The King." It was an opera hat, and Vane removed it for him and shut it up. The owner turned round just in time to see it hit the curtain, whence it fell with a thud into the orchestra. . . . Quite inexcusable, but the fight that followed was all that man could wish for. The two of them, with a large chucker-out, ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Looking over, some time ago, at the Bibliotheque Nationale, the original manuscript slips made in 1684 by the royal librarian, Nicolas Clement, for his catalogue of the books confided to his care, I found one inscribed: "Will. Shakspeare, poeta Anglicus. Opera poetica, continentia tragoedias, comoedias et historiolas, Anglice, Londres, Th. Cotes, 1632, fol." And to this, considering that he had to deal with a thoroughly unknown person, Clement was careful to add a note that people might be informed what was to be thought of the ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... while the Beecher-Tilton case was being tried in Brooklyn, she delivered her speech on "Social Purity" at the Chicago Grand Opera House, in the Sunday dime-lecture course, facing with trepidation the immense crowd which gathered to hear her. Even the daring Mrs. Stanton had warned her that she would never be asked to speak in Chicago ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... at a summer party at the Hammersmiths. To my amazement, my wife, who scarcely can play "The Fisher's Hornpipe," interrupted us by asking Mrs. Wilberforce if she could give her the idea of an air in "The Butcher of Turin." Mrs. Wilberforce had never heard that opera,—indeed, had never heard of it. My angel-wife was surprised,—stood thrumming at the piano,—wondered she could not catch this very odd bit of discordant accord at all,—but checked herself in her effort, as soon as I observed that her long notes and short notes, in their ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... too, must become rather a red-letter diversion than a regular feature of our existence, if it has been so. Whatever enthusiasm we may possess for the opera, an occasional visit, with its midnight return, will soon come to satisfy us. Our pet lectures, club life, participation in public affairs, frequent mail delivery, convenience of shopping, two-minute car service, and freedom from time tables—these suggest ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... place de l'Opera a fellow passed me whom I knew and yet did not know; I could not recall where it was we had met. I turned and followed him, racking my brains the while. ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... whether the cause thereof was a philosopher or a poodle; so Hume had a great success in the Parisian world. Great nobles feted him, and great ladies were not content unless the "gros David" was to be seen at their receptions, and in their boxes at the theatre. "At the opera his broad unmeaning face was usually to be seen entre deux jolis minois," says Lord Charlemont.[13] Hume's cool head was by no means turned; but he took the goods the gods provided with much satisfaction; and everywhere ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... botany. I knew a lady who combined it happily and ingeniously with photography, and so preserved pictures of plants in their flowering state. When you are out under starry skies with breadth of heaven in view, astronomy with an opera-glass—and Galileo's telescope was no better—is an agreeable temptation which the cheap and neat charts of the skies now to be readily obtained make ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... of sultan or high Turk catching the sight occasionally. Caiques similar to your own are darting about in all directions, following, passing or meeting you, until at length you reach your destination, indicated by the crowd of caiques tied up there, like cabs on a grand-opera night waiting for their customers. Those of high Turkish functionaries or foreign ambassadors are very different from yours—as different as a coach-and-four from a common cab. Many of these have twelve rowers, all in fancy uniforms—red fezzes and jackets embroidered with gold—while ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... arrange for the admission of children or adults to the hospitals, etc.; others organise entertainments, teach singing, drawing, needlework, and cooking classes. The premises are used in turn by working-girls learning sewing, or others rehearsing some play or opera chorus. Almost all the Sisterhoods possess a permanent Kindergarten for the children of women who are obliged to work outside their homes, and an employment bureau. All the ladies, except the Directress, give their services gratis. For all help given by the Sisterhood, except in ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... devil to snare souls are they! The world reflecting from every corner the lurid glare of hell, who can do any thing else but shudder and pray? "Who could spare any attention for the vicissitudes of cotton and the price of shares, for the merits of the last opera and the bets upon the next election, if the actors in these things were really swinging in his eye over such a verge ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the green sward in every direction. The waters of the lake had been carefully led here and there, in order apparently that they might be crossed by rustic bridges which seemed transplanted from an opera. Little windmills made pretty waterwheels to revolve, which in turn set in motion mechanical toys and models of race-courses in open booths and ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... beautiful hats. Let us choose the very prettiest of them all, for I must go and show myself to the people. Order an open carriage, that every one may see my face, and no one may say that the queen envies the maternal joys of the Countess d'Artois. Tonight we are to have the opera of 'Iphigenia'—it is one of my magnificent teacher's chefs-d'oeuvre. The emperor and I are to go together to listen to our divine Gluck's music, and Paris must believe that Marie Antoinette is happy—too happy to envy any woman! Come, Campan, and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... now a little picture, very vividly coloured, and in this picture were figures that moved. Not only did they move, but they were conversing in clear small voices. It was exactly like reality viewed through an inverted opera glass and heard through a long tube. His interest was seized at once by the situation, which presented a man pacing up and down and vociferating angry things to a pretty but petulant woman. Both were in the picturesque ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells |
