Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (SV 325, The Return of Ulysses to his
Homeland) is an opera by Claudio Monteverdi using a libretto by Giacomo
Badoaro. The opera, first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo
in Venice during the 1639–40 carnival, is based on the second half of
Homer's Odyssey. It tells how Ulisse (Odysseus) returns from the Trojan
Wars and recovers his kingdom. The loyal and virtuous characters are
ultimately rewarded, while treachery and deception are overcome. After
early performances in Venice and Bologna, the opera remained unperformed
until the 20th century. Since the 1970s it has become increasingly
popular, and has been widely performed and recorded. Monteverdi uses a
variety of musical styles to express the feelings and emotions of a
great range of characters, divine and human. In a division of critical
opinion, Il ritorno has been described as an "ugly duckling", and
conversely as the most tender and moving of Monteverdi's surviving
operas.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_ritorno_d%27Ulisse_in_patria>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1847:
Scottish physician James Young Simpson discovered the
anaesthetic qualities of chloroform.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroform>
1890:
London's City and South London Railway (locomotive pictured),
the first deep-level underground railway in the world, opened, running a
distance of 5.1 km (3.2 mi) between the City of London and Stockwell.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_and_South_London_Railway>
1921:
After a speech by Adolf Hitler in the Hofbräuhaus in Munich,
members of the Sturmabteilung, known as "brownshirts", physically
assaulted his opposition, an event which assumed legendary proportions
over time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung>
1995:
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by Yigal
Amir while at a peace rally at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Yitzhak_Rabin>
2010:
In the first aviation occurrence for an Airbus A380, Qantas
Flight 32 suffered an uncontained engine failure and safely made an
emergency landing at Singapore Changi Airport with no casualties.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
entelechy:
1. (Aristotelian philosophy) The complete realisation and final form of
some potential concept or function; the conditions under which a
potential thing becomes actualized.
2. A particular type of motivation, need for self-determination, and inner
strength directing life and growth to become all one is capable of
being; the need to actualize one's beliefs; having a personal vision and
being able to actualize that vision from within.
3. Something complex that emerges when a large number of simple objects are
put together.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/entelechy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself,
and is destroy'd by thought: Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out our powers, and leaves a blank behind.
--Charles Churchill
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Churchill_(satirist)>