[Wikipedia] April 14: Agrippina (opera)

Agrippina (HWV 6) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric
Handel, from a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani. Composed for the
1709–10 Venice Carnevale season, the opera tells the story of
Agrippina, the mother of Nero, as she plots the downfall of the Roman
Emperor Claudius and the installation of her son as emperor. Grimani's
libretto, considered one of the best that Handel set, is an
"anti-heroic satirical comedy", full of topical political allusions. It
premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo on 26
December 1709, and was an immediate success. Observers were full of
praise for the quality of the music—much of which, in keeping with the
contemporary custom, had been borrowed and adapted from other works.
Despite the evident public enthusiasm for the work, Handel did not
promote further stagings. There were occasional productions in the
years following its premiere but, when Handel's operas fell out of
fashion in the mid-18th century, it and his other dramatic works were
generally forgotten. In recent years performances of the work have
become more common, with innovative stagings at the New York State
Theater and the London Coliseum in 2007. Modern critical opinion is
that Agrippina is Handel's first operatic masterpiece, full of
freshness and musical invention which have made it one of the most
popular operas of the continuing Handel revival.

Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippina_%28opera%29>

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1471:

Wars of the Roses: The Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the
Lancastrians near the town of Barnet, killing Richard Neville, Earl of
Warwick.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Barnet>

1865:

Abraham Lincoln assassination
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_assassination>

1894:

The first ever commercial motion picture house opened in New York City
using ten Kinetoscopes , a device for peep-show viewing using
photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetoscope>

1978:

Thousands of Georgians demonstrated in Tbilisi against an attempt by
the Supreme Soviet of the Georgian SSR to change the constitutional
status of the Georgian language.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_Georgian_demonstrations>

1994:

In an American friendly fire incident during Operation Provide Comfort
in northern Iraq, two United States Air Force aircraft mistakenly shot
down two United States Army helicopters, killing 26 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Black_Hawk_shootdown_incident>

1999:

A storm dropped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of hailstones in Sydney and
along the east coast of New South Wales, causing about A$2.3 billion in
damages, the costliest natural disaster in Australian insurance
history.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Sydney_hailstorm>

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Wiktionary's word of the day:

zetetic (adj):
Preceded by inquiry
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zetetic>

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Wikiquote quote of the day:

What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and
kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by
cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest
and most lovely of all arts. ... But you, I think, have always
comprehended this.
--James Branch Cabell
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell>

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