#postale

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Jarmila Novotna by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 6837/1, 1931-1932. Photo: Walter Firner, Berlin. Czech soprano Jarmila Novotná (1907-1994) was one of the world-renowned opera luminaries of the 20th Century. Her film appearances were unfortunately few and far between. Jarmila Novotná was born in in Prague, Czech Republic in 1907. She studied singing with Emmy Destinn. In 1925, the 17-years-old Novotná made her operatic debut at the Prague Opera House as Marenka in Bedřich Smetana's Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride). Six days later, the lyric soprano sang there as Violetta in Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata. The following year, she made her film debut in the silent film Vyznavaci slunce/The Sun Disciples (Václav Binovec, 1926), starring Luigi Serventi. In 1928 she starred in Verona as Gilda opposite Giacomo Lauri-Volpi in Verdi's Rigoletto and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples as Adina opposite Tito Schipa in Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore. In 1929 she joined the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where she sang Violetta as well as the title roles of Giacomo Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Madama Butterfly. When talking pictures arrived, she headlined in German films like Brand in Der Oper/Fire in the Opera House (Carl Froelich, 1930), with Gustaf Gründgens, Der Bettelstudent/The Beggar Student (Victor Janson, 1931), and the film version of The Bartered Bride, Die Verkaufte Braut (Max Ophüls, 1932). Hal Erickson at AllMovie on Die Verkaufte Braut (1930): “The original libretto, involving the comic misadventures of two mismatched couples, is given a respectable amount of attention, but the film's biggest selling card is the photographic dexterity of Max Ophuls, who never met a camera crane he didn't like. Since filmed opera was seldom big box-office in 1932, Ophuls concentrates on the farcical elements of the story; especially worth noting are comic contributions by Paul Kemp and Otto Wernicke, who seldom let their German film fans down. Curiously, star Jarmila Novotna, whose ‘live’ appearances in The Bartered Bride were much prized by contemporary critics, doesn't come off all that well in this film version.” Other films followed such as Nacht Der Grossen Liebe/Night of the Great Love (Geza von Bolvary, 1933) with Gustav Fröhlich. In January 1933 she created the female lead in Jaromir Weinberger's new operetta Frühlingsstürme (Spring Storms), opposite Richard Tauber at the Theater im Admiralspalast, Berlin. This was the last new operetta produced in the Weimar Republic, and she and Tauber were both soon forced to leave Germany by the new Nazi regime. Jarmila Novotnà returned to Czechoslovakia to star in the film Skrivanci pisen/Lark's Songs (Svatopluk Innemann, 1933). In 1934, she left for Vienna, where she created the title role in Franz Lehár's operetta Giuditta opposite Richard Tauber. Her immense success in that role led to a contract with the Vienna State Opera, where she was named Kammersängerin. She also appeared there with Tauber in The Bartered Bride and Madama Butterfly. In the cinema, she starred in the Austrian operetta film Frasquita (Karel Lamac, 1934) with Heinz Ruhmann, the Austrian romantic thriller Der Kosak und die Nachtigall/The Cossack and the Nightingale (Phil Jutzi, 1935) with Iván Petrovich, and in the French-British operetta film La dernière valse/The Last Waltz (Leo Mittler, 1935), which was made in two language versions. She then left the film industry to concentrate on her stage work with the Viennese State Opera. After the Anschluss of Austria, she had to leave Vienna. In January 1940 she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as Mimí in Puccini's La bohème. From 1940 to 1956, Novotná performed regularly at the Met. In 1946 she returned before the cameras in a straight dramatic role in the Hollywood production The Search (Fred Zinnemann, 1946), starring Montgomery Clift. The Search is a semi-documentary film on the plight of WWII orphans. Novotná played a Czech mother who has lost contact with her young son when they were in Auschwitz and she now travels from one refugee camp to another in search of him. Novotna's then played turn of the century diva Maria Selka in the biopic The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951), featuring Mario Lanza. The film traces legendary tenor Enrico Caruso's ascension from adolescent choir singer in Naples to the uppermost ranks of the opera world. Mario Lanza's tenor voice made this film one of the top box-office draws of 1951, and this helped to popularize opera among the general public. On TV she appeared in The Great Waltz (Max Liebman, 1955), which charts the life and times of composer Johann Strauss, Jr. She also played Hans’ mother in the TV musical Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (Sidney Lumet, 1958), starring Tab Hunter. Her last screen appearance was as an interviewee in the documentary Toscanini: The Maestro (Peter Rosen, 1985). At 85, Jarmila Novotná passed away in 1994 in New York. Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

[francepittoresque]

ÉVÉNEMENT | Réforme postale en 1849 et ancêtre du timbre-poste en 1653 ➽ https://bit.ly/Reforme-Postale Si une tentative de mise en œuvre de la lettre à port payé eut lieu en France en 1653, elle resta cependant sans lendemain, et il faut attendre l’avènement de la Réforme postale en 1849, dans le sillage de celle menée en Angleterre, pour que l’acheminement de correspondances dont le prix est auparavant réglé à l’arrivée et dépend de la distance parcourue, devienne uniforme et acquitté sous forme de timbres-poste lors de l’expédition du pli

[jurijurijurious]

What kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government? Apart from, say, the average voter.

--Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA La Stampa di Oggi martedì, 24 dicembre 2024

[8pxl]

more pixel art stamp concepts (:

[engravedlives]

misc game stamps graphics

[liekadae]

Everytime Etho appeared in Pearl's trial chamber episode, he was COVERED in arrows

[your-average-teenage-mess]

Honestly, the fact that terry Pratchett has experience around nuclear power makes so much sense once you realize what magic is standing as a metaphor for in the discworld. Like, look at this fucking quote from going postal:

"That's why [magic] was left to wizards, who knew how to handle it safely. Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not "not doing magic" because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn't. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again."

Like... It feels incredibly obvious what he's talking about once you know the context.

[icepopcider]

the post office team :))

(some bgs!)

(the designs!! i remember something about pearl being a salmon at the beginning of this season? but i don't rly remember. tango is inspired by @/brick-rolled, their design is so good!! etho is inspired by todd from scott pilgrim lollll)

[equalopportunisticlunatic]

Every once in awhile I'll remember Running With Scissors responding to a transphobic gimmick account on Twitter and my day will instantly get ten times better

[r2b2grady]

“Do you understand anything I’m saying?” shouted Moist. “You can’t just go around killing people!” “Why Not? You Do.” The golem lowered his arm. “What?” Moist. “I do not! Who told you that?” “I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Eight People,” said the golem calmly. “I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr. Pump. I may be—all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!” “No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded, And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr. Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Did Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Baks. For Sport, Mr. Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”

– Going Postal, Chapter 4, by Sir Terry Pratchett

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Dorothy Gish by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: Vintage Swedish postcard. Nordisk Konst, No. 853. Triangle Film, '1919'. American actress Dorothy Gish (1898-1968) was the sister of silent film star Lilian Gish. D.W. Griffith discovered the two girls in 1912 and they starred in his epics Hearts of the World (1918) and Orphans of the Storm (1921).

[crustaceousfaggot]

Discworld is so delightful because you get lines like "When banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve" except it's spoken by a 7 foot tall sentient clay statue named Pump 19 and directed to a man whose name is Moist von Lipwig

[seawaveleo]

doc's mailbox discussion from tango's stream today

[primepaginequotidiani]

PRIMA PAGINA La Stampa di Oggi domenica, 22 dicembre 2024