Roberto Abbado  (born 30 December 1954, Milan) is an Italian opera and symphonic music conductor. Currently he is Artistic Partner of The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In 2015 he has been appointed music director of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. From 2018 he's Music Director of the Festival Verdi in Parma. Previously he held the position of Chief Conductor of Münchner Rundfunkorchester (Munich Radio Orchestra).

Childhood and education
Born into a musical family, Mr. Abbado is a son of the pianist and composer Marcello Abbado, for more than twenty years Director of Conservatorio di Musica "Giuseppe Verdi" in Milan. His grandfather was the violinist and teacher Michelangelo Abbado and his uncle the conductor Claudio Abbado.
In his teens, Roberto Abbado studied at Conservatorio "G. Rossini" in Pesaro and then piano with Paolo Bordoni and composition with Bruno Bettinelli at Milan Conservatory.  He studied conducting with Mario Gusella in Milan and Franco Ferrara at Teatro La Fenice in Venice and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also attended the last summer course of Hans Swarowsky in Vienna in 1975.

Career
In 1975, Piero Farulli funded the "Vincenzo Galilei" Orchestra and Chorus at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa to perform Bach Cantatas. Mario Gusella recommended Mr. Abbado to Piero Farulli in order to conduct the orchestra in a series of concerts.

In 1977, the musicians of Accademia di Santa Cecilia Symphony Orchestra asked Mr. Abbado to conduct a concert in Rieti, while he was still studying at Accademia, for a fellow student a privilege never to be. In the same year he won Second Prize at Malko Competition for young conductors in Copenhagen, promoted by Danish Radio and Television.

In 1978, he conducted concerts with leading Italian and Scandinavian orchestras such as Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, Orchestra Sinfonica della Rai di Milano, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony Orchestra.
His first appearance as opera conductor, aged 23, was in Macerata, Arena Sferisterio in 1978, in a new production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, featuring Renato Bruson, Cesare Siepi and Ilva Ligabue.
He conducted the season opening night at Teatro La Fenice in December 1979 with a new production of Rossini's Il Turco in Italia.

In 1980, he conducted Verdi's Aida at Teatro Massimo in Palermo: one of the performance was attended by the Intendant of Wiener Staatsoper Seefelner, who immediately engaged Mr. Abbado.

In 1981, he conducted the world première of Flavio Testi's Il sosia at Piccola Scala in Milan. In the same year he conducted a new production of Rossini's La Cenerentola at Wiener Staatsoper, staged by Gian Carlo Menotti and featuring Agnes Baltsa, Francisco Araiza, Enzo Dara, and Giuseppe Taddei.

In 1982, he conducted Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at Opernhaus in Zurich with Edita Gruberova and Araiza. In summer he conducted at Edinburgh Festival Rossini's La pietra del paragone staged by Eduardo De Filippo with Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala. In November he conducted Verdi's Don Carlo at Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona with a stunning cast including Montserrat Caballé, Elena Obraztsova, José Carreras, Leo Nucci and Martti Talvela.

He made his debut at Teatro alla Scala in 1984 conducting Donizetti's Don Pasquale, in a production featuring Sesto Bruscantini in the title role and Lucia Aliberti. In the same house he also conducted the world première of Testi's Riccardo III in 1987, Ponchielli's La Gioconda in 1997, Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor in 2006, the world première of Fabio Vacchi's Teneke in 2007 and Rossini's La donna del lago with Joyce DiDonato, Daniela Barcellona and Juan Diego Flórez in 2011.

In 1985, he made his Paris debut with Orchestre National de France and Yo Yo Ma as soloist. Mr. Abbado has conducted many leading orchestras in Europe, including Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Orchestre de Paris, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Dresden Staatskapelle, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra (Hamburg), Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

In 1987, he was appointed music director of the Municipal Theatre of Santiago in Chile, a position held till 1989.

In 1989, he made his debut at Münchner Opernfestspiele of Bayerisches Staatsoper with Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur with Mirella Freni and Plácido Domingo. He also conducted there new productions of La Traviata and Aida, furthermore Manon Lescaut, Don Pasquale, Carmen and Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges. From 1991 to 1998 he served as Chief Conductor of Münchner Rundfunkorchester (Munich Radio Orchestra).

In 1993, he toured in Japan with Teatro Comunale di Bologna.

In 1994, he made his debut at Metropolitan Opera in New York with Adriana Lecouvreur. He also conducted there Giordano's Fedora with Freni and Domingo (new production) in 1997, Verdi's La Traviata in 2000, Verdi's Ernani in 2008. In USA he also conducted operas in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Houston.

In 1995, he made his debut at Opéra Bastille with Lucia di Lammermoor featuring Mariella Devia.
He conducted his Carnegie Hall debut in 1996 with The Orchestra of St. Luke's, further he also conducted there the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony.

In 1998 he conducted a new production of Verdi's I vespri siciliani at Wiener Staatsoper, staged by Herbert Wernicke. In the same year he made his debut at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino conducting Rossini's Le comte Ory. He also conducted in Florence Verdi's Attila and I Lombardi alla prima crociata,  Henze's Phaedra and Donizetti's Anna Bolena.

In 1998, he made a successful Boston Symphony Orchestra debut, opening his symphonic career in the USA. He also conducted many concerts with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Washington D.C., Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

In 1999, he made his debut with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In 2005 he became Artistic Partner of the Orchestra, the longest position in an artistic team ranking Jeremy Denk, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Edo de Waart, Christian Zacharias and Thomas Zehetmeir.

In 2003, he conducted a new production of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at Teatro Regio (Turin), staged by Graham Vick. He worked again with the English stage-director in Turin for Mozart's La clemenza di Tito in 2008, and at Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro for Mosè in Egitto in 2011. He also conducted for the same Festival Ermione in 2008 and Zelmira in 2009.

In 2008, he conducted the season opening night at Teatro Comunale in Bologna with Marschner's Der Vampyr, staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi. He also conducted the season opening night in 2013 with Verdi's MacBeth staged by Bob Wilson and in 2014 with Wagner's Parsifal staged by Romeo Castellucci.

In 2012, he conducted a new production of Berlioz's La damnation de Faust staged by Terry Gilliam at Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

In 2013, he took on tour the Neapolitan Teatro di San Carlo to Hong Kong with La Traviata staged by Ferzan Ozpetek.

In 2014, he made his Salzburg Festival debut with Donizetti's La favorite with Elina Garanča, Juan Diego Florez and Ludovic Tezier.

In 2015, after his debut with Don Pasquale, he was appointed music director of Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. Also in 2015 he conducted Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor staged by Luca Ronconi at Teatro dell'Opera di Roma with Jessica Pratt and Stefano Secco. At same house he previously conducted Rossini's Maometto II staged by Pier Luigi Pizzi in 2014, Ponchielli's La Gioconda in 2012, Verdi's Luisa Miller in 1990 and the world premiere of Ferrero's Charlotte Corday in 1989.

He also premiered many new orchestral works of leading composers, including Claudio Ambrosini, Giorgio Battistelli, Niccolò Castiglioni, Aldo Clementi, Azio Corghi, Michele dall'Ongaro, Luca Francesconi, Ned Rorem, Steven Stucky, Giampaolo Testoni, Fabio Vacchi, Charles Wuorinen, and new operas by Lorenzo Ferrero and Marco Tutino.

More recently he was on the podium of the Opera di Roma with Benvenuto Cellini and Andrea Chénier, of the Palau de les Arts in Valencia with A Midsummer Night's Dream, I vespri siciliani and Tancredi, of the Teatro Real in Madrid with Norma, of the Shanghai Opera House with La traviata, of the Rossini Opera Festival with Le Siège de Corinthe and of the Théâtre des Champs Elysées with Lucia di Lammermoor.

From 2015 Abbado has led the orchestras of San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and Minnesota, the New World Symphony, the MDR-Sinfonieorchester of Leipzig, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic and the Orquestra Sinfónica de Madrid.

Prizes and awards
In 2009 Roberto Abbado was appointed Conductor of the Year – "Franco Abbiati" Award by Associazione Nazionale dei Critici musicali, Italian top classical music award. In 2012, he won the "Franco Abbiati" Award - Best performance and production for Rossini Opera Festival Mosè in Egitto.

CDs
Verdi: Macbeth – Roberto Abbado/ Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma & Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini/ Parco Ducale di Parma, Italy, Festival Verdi 2020, Sept 2020 Dynamic CDS7915.02 DDD
Verdi: Le trouvère – Roberto Abbado/ Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Comunale di Bologna / Gipali/ Gipali/ Vassallo, Oct. 2018 Dynamic.
Verismo Arias – Roberto Abbado/ Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice / Mirella Freni, 1992
Puccini: Turandot – Roberto Abbado/Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Eva Marton/Ben Heppner/Margaret Price, 1993 Sony/RCA
Donizetti: Don Pasquale – Roberto Abbado/Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Renato Bruson/Eva Mei/Frank Lopardo/Thomas Allen, 1994 Sony/RCA
Rossini: Tancredi – Roberto Abbado/Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Vesselina Kasarova/Eva Mei/Ramón Vargas/Veronica Cangemi, 1996 Sony/RCA. Echo der Klassik 1997.
Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi – Roberto Abbado/Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Vesselina Kasarova/Eva Mei/Ramón Vargas/Umberto Chiummo/Simone Alberghini, 1998 Sony/RCA. Pick of the Year 1999, BBC Music Magazine.
Luca Francesconi: Cobalt Scarlet – Rest - Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI/Anssi Karttunen/Roberto Abbado, 2005 Stradivarius
Florez, Arias for Rubini (Rossini/Bellini/Donizetti) – Roberto Abbado/S. Cecilia, 2007 Decca
Garanca, Bel Canto – Elīna Garanča/Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna/Roberto Abbado, 2009 Deutsche Grammophon. Echo der Klassik 2010.
Flórez, L'amour – Roberto Abbado/Orch. Bologna, 2013 Decca. Diapason d'Or 2014.
Garanca, Revive (Arie da opere) – Roberto Abbado/Orch. Valencia, 2016 Deutsche Grammophon

DVDs and Blu-ray
Giordano, Fedora – Abbado Roberto/Freni/Domingo, 1997 Deutsche Grammophon
New Year's Concert 2008 – Roberto Abbado/ Orch. e Coro del Teatro La Fenice/Frittoli/Fraccaro/Furlanetto/Ezralow, 2008 Hardy Classic Video
Rossini, Zelmira – Roberto Abbado/Florez/Aldrich/Kunde, 2009 Decca
Rossini, Ermione – Roberto Abbado/Ganassi/Kunde, 2009 Dynamic
Rossini, Mosé in Egitto – Roberto Abbado/Ganassi/Zanellato/Korchak, 2012 Opus Arte

Notes

References
 Pâris, Alain, ed. (2015). Le nouveau dictionnaire des interprètes. Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont.

1954 births
Living people
Italian male conductors (music)
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia alumni
Musicians from Milan
21st-century Italian conductors (music)
21st-century Italian male musicians
20th-century Italian conductors (music)
20th-century Italian male musicians
Bayerischer Rundfunk people
Milan Conservatory alumni

Roberto Abbado


Ice skating is skating on ice as a sport, entertainment or pastime. Ice skates, a special type of boot with metal blades on the bottom, are worn to skate on ice. Figure skating and speed skating are the sport forms of ice skating. Hockey is also played on ice, with players wearing ice skates. The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international governing body for figure skating and speed skating.

History

Ice skating probably began in Scandinavia as early as 1000 BCE, as a way to travel in the winter. The sport of skating started in the Netherlands. Since the Middle Ages, people in the Netherlands have skated on canals. The first skating club was created in Scotland in 1742. In 1850, Edward Bushnell created steel-bladed skates which allowed skaters to make difficult turns and movements on the ice. Figure skating was included in the Olympics in 1908. It was the first winter sport included in the Olympics. Today, ice skating is a popular pastime. Ice shows, like Ice Follies and Ice Capades, are a popular form of entertainment.

Equipment

Modern figure skates have two edges on the blades and a toothed toepick on the front of the blade. The toepick is used for jumps and spins. Figure skating boots are made of leather. Ice hockey skates also have two edges, but no toepick. Speedskating ice skates have a single edge on the blade.

Figure skating

Men's singles, women's singles, pairs and ice dance are the four types of competitive figure skating. In singles competitions, skaters perform a short technical routine and a longer, creative free routine. The skaters are judged on their performance of jumps, spins and spirals, as well as their artistry. In pairs competitions, two skaters perform two original routines together and are judged on their skills, artistry, and synchronization. In ice dancing, two skaters perform two compulsory routines and an original routine together.

Speed skating

Speed skating is racing on ice. Skaters are judged on their speed. Speed skating has been an Olympic sport since 1924.

References

Skating

Ice skating


The Tainter gate is a type of radial arm floodgate used in dams and canal locks to control water flow. It is named for its inventor, Wisconsin structural engineer Jeremiah Burnham Tainter.

Tainter, an employee of lumber firm Knapp, Stout and Co., invented the gate in 1886 for use on the company's dam that forms Lake Menomin in the United States.

Description
A side view of a Tainter gate resembles a slice of pie with the curved part of the piece facing the source or upper pool of water and the tip pointing toward the destination or lower pool. The curved face or skinplate of the gate takes the form of a wedge section of cylinder.  The straight sides of the pie shape, the trunnion arms, extend back from each end of the cylinder section and meet at a trunnion which serves as a pivot point when the gate rotates.

Principle
Pressure forces on a submerged body act perpendicular to the body's surface.  The design of the Tainter gate results in every pressure force acting through the centre of the imaginary circle of which the gate is a section, so that all resulting pressure force acts through the pivot point of the gate, making construction and design easier.

When a Tainter gate is closed, water bears on the convex (upstream) side. When the gate is rotated, the rush of water passing under the gate helps to open and close the gate. The rounded face, long radial arms and bearings allow it to close with less effort than a flat gate. Tainter gates are usually controlled from above with a chain/gearbox/electric motor assembly.

A critical factor in Tainter gate design is the amount of stress transferred from the skinplate through the radial arms and to the trunnion, with calculations pertaining to the resulting friction encountered when raising or lowering the gate. Some older systems have had to be modified to allow for frictional forces which the original design did not anticipate. In 1995, too much stress during an opening resulted in a gate failure at Folsom Dam in northern California.

Use
The Tainter gate is used in water control dams and locks worldwide.  The Upper Mississippi River basin alone has 321 Tainter gates, and the Columbia River basin has 195. A Tainter gate is also used to divert the flow of water to San Fernando Power Plant on the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

See also
 Roller dam

References

Structural engineering
Canals
Dams
Hydrology
Flood barriers

Tainter gate


Jacques Bernard Edmon Martin Henry "Jacky" Ickx (; born 1 January 1945) is a Belgian former racing driver who won the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times (second-highest of all time) and achieved eight wins and 25 podium finishes in Formula One. He greatly contributed to several World Championships for Makes and World Sports Car championships: Ford (1968), Ferrari (1972), Porsche (1976–1977) and (1982–1985) by his 37 major World Sports Car wins. He also won the Can-Am Championship in 1979 and the 1983 Paris–Dakar Rally.

Ickx twice finished as championship runner-up in Formula One, in the consecutive years of  and . He won the majority of his races for Scuderia Ferrari, for which he was the team's leading driver for several seasons in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Early racing career

Born on 1 January 1945 in Brussels, Ickx was introduced to motorsports when he was taken by his father, motoring journalist Jacques Ickx, to races which he covered. Despite this family background, Ickx had limited interest in the sport until his father bought him a 50 cc Zündapp motorcycle.

He began to compete in road racing and motorcycle trials. He won the 50 cc class at the 1962 Mettet Grand Prix road race, then demonstrated impressive talent when he defeated future motocross world champion Roger De Coster in the 1963 Belgian 50 cc trials national championship. Soon afterwards, Ickx won 8 of 13 races at the first season and the European 50 cc trials title.

He took another two titles before he moved to racing a Lotus Cortina in touring car racing, taking his national saloon car championship in 1965, as well as winning the Spa 24 Hours race in 1966 driving a BMW 2000TI. He also competed in sports car races where he had already significant experience from taking part in the 1000 km races at the Nürburgring.

Formula One

Early career
Ickx entered his first Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in 1966, driving a Matra MS5-Cosworth one-litre Formula Two (F2) car, entered by Ken Tyrrell. However, a first lap collision with John Taylor at Flugplatz caused both cars to retire and Taylor later died as a result of burns received in the accident, after his car caught fire. In 1967, Ickx again drove at the Nurburgring, with an F2 Matra MS7-Cosworth 1.6-litre, also entered by Tyrrell. Despite the greater power of the Formula One cars, only two drivers qualified with a faster time than Ickx: Denny Hulme and Jim Clark. As Ickx was racing in the separate F2 class, he started the race behind all of the Formula One cars, but within four laps of the 28 km circuit he was up to fifth place, having overtaken 12 Formula One cars. He was forced to retire after 12 laps with a broken front suspension, but set the fastest lap of the F2 runners.

At Monza in 1967, he made his Formula One debut in a Cooper T81B-Maserati, finishing sixth, despite suffering a puncture on the last lap. He also drove for Cooper in the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen but retired on lap 45 with overheating.

1968: Ferrari

In 1968 Ickx drove in Formula 1 for Ferrari. He retired from his first two races, but at his home race at Spa-Francorchamps he started from the front row and finished third. At the French Grand Prix at Rouen he took his first win, in heavy rain. Ickx also finished third at Brands Hatch and fourth at the Nürburgring after driving almost the entire race in heavy rain without his helmet visor. At Monza he finished the race in third position. In Canada he crashed and broke his left leg during practice, thus did not start and also missed the subsequent United States Grand Prix. He returned in time for the final race of the season in Mexico. Ickx scored 27 points in the 1968 Formula One season finishing in fourth place behind Graham Hill, Jackie Stewart and Hulme.

1969: Brabham
In 1969, Ickx moved to Brabham, partly at the instigation of the John Wyer team for whom he'd had considerable success in sports cars. Wyer's main sponsor, Gulf Oil were keen to ensure that they retained his services rather than possibly lose him to Ferrari's sports car team. His first results at Brabham were poor, but after Jack Brabham broke his foot in a testing accident, Ickx's results improved: Alan Henry suggests that Ickx performed better with the whole team focussed on him. Ickx finished third in France, second in Great Britain and won in Canada and in Germany at the Nürburgring, where he also took pole position and fastest lap, in the last Formula One race there before 'The Ring' was made less bumpy and dangerous. In the 1969 Mexican Grand Prix Ickx finished second and ended the year as runner-up in the drivers' world championship, behind Stewart. He returned to the Ferrari team for the 1970 season, a move he had been considering since the Italian Grand Prix.

1970–1973: Ferrari
As in 1969, Ickx had a disappointing start to the 1970 season. On the first lap of the Spanish Grand Prix he collided with the BRM of Jackie Oliver and his car caught fire. It took at least 20 seconds for him to leave the burning car and he was hospitalized with severe burns. After 17 days he was back in his car at the Monaco Grand Prix, where he ran fifth before retiring with a driveshaft failure. The car started to improve and at the German Grand Prix (held at Hockenheim as his favourite Nürburgring was boycotted for safety reasons) he fought with Jochen Rindt for the win, but finished a close second. At the Austrian Grand Prix it was Ickx that took the win. At Monza, Rindt died in an accident during qualifying. Ickx was the only driver with a chance to take the championship from Rindt who had already won five of nine races in that season, with four more to go. Monza saw a win by Ferrari teammate Clay Regazzoni while Ickx's car broke down. The Belgian took the win at Canada and if he could win at the remaining two events, he would overtake Rindt and win the championship. However, in the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen he only finished fourth, with Rindt's replacement Emerson Fittipaldi scoring his first career win, and thus was mathematically eliminated from the championship chase. Despite winning the last race in Mexico, Ickx could not beat Rindt's points total. Ickx later stated in a 2011 article in the British magazine Motor Sport, that he was glad he did not win the 1970 World Championship.  He did not want to win against a man who could not defend his chances, referring to the deceased Rindt.

In 1971, Ickx and Ferrari started as favourites, but the championship went to Jackie Stewart with the new Tyrrell. Ferrari traditionally started the season with its full attention on the sports car championship rather than Formula One, a fact that had already caused John Surtees to leave in the middle of the 1966 season. Ickx won at Zandvoort in the rain with Firestone wet tyres, while Stewart had no chance with his Goodyear rubber. After that, he had a lot of retirements, while Stewart took one win after the other, despite Ickx giving him a good challenge at the Nürburgring once again, where both drivers shared victories from 1968 to 1973. That long and very challenging track was the favourite of Ickx, while Stewart had called it the 'Green Hell' as well as being a driving force behind the driver boycott of 1970 that urged the Germans to rework the layout of the track, which had been built in 1927. Stewart said the only thing that had changed since then were the trees growing bigger. As requested, those near the track were cut and replaced with a small run-off area, and armco. So, the Scot and the Belgian not only fought on the track, but also off the track. Stewart was constantly fighting for more safety in Formula One, while Ickx thought by doing that the challenge was taken out of the sport.

In 1972, Ickx stayed at Ferrari and finished second in Spain and Monaco. After that the Ferrari only got noticed for its retirements. Yet, once again it was the Nürburgring where Ickx was eager to show it was his track, giving his great rival Stewart no chance at all. As for Stewart one year later, and other champions such as Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957, it turned out that the last Formula One win for Ickx came at Nürburgring, where superior driving skill could beat superior machinery.

In 1973, the Ferrari 312B3 was no longer competitive, and Ickx only managed one fourth place at the opening Grand Prix of the season. While being successful with their sports cars, which were driven to several wins by Ickx himself, the Formula One programme of the Italians was outclassed, and they even had to skip some races, notably at the Nürburgring. This was not acceptable to Ickx, who left the team halfway through the season (after the 1973 British Grand Prix, where he finished eighth). Instead, he competed in the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring in a McLaren, and scored a sterling third place behind the all-conquering Tyrrells of Stewart and François Cevert. Ickx returned to Ferrari for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza again finishing eighth but drove for Williams in the 1973 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen finishing seventh.

1974–1975: Lotus

When Ickx signed with Team Lotus in 1974, a difficult period awaited. Lotus had problems replacing the successful but ageing Lotus 72 (which debuted in 1970) with the troublesome Lotus 76 and, during the opening races of the championship, Ickx only managed a solitary third place in Brazil. Ickx demonstrated that he was still the Rain Master when he won the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch after having passed Niki Lauda on the outside at Paddock Bend. After the Brazilian Grand Prix his season deteriorated, the Lotus-Ford retiring in five consecutive races until an eleventh-place finish at Zandvoort. However, in mid season Ickx recovered some form, rising through the field in the British Grand Prix to finish a strong third. Even better was his drive in the German Grand Prix. For most of the race Ickx dueled for fourth place with his teammate Ronnie Peterson who was using a Lotus 76, which had been grafted to the back end of a Lotus 72, Mike Hailwood in a McLaren M23 and Jochen Mass in a Surtees running on his home circuit on Firestone tyres well suited to the circuit. It was a classic duel on the daunting circuit, which still lacked armco around half the track in 1974. Two laps from the end Hailwood crashed badly ending his World Championship career. On the last two laps Ickx was getting close to third place Carlos Reutemann, but on the final lap, Ronnie Peterson slipstreamed past to claim 4th. In Austria, Ickx, this time in the Lotus 76, moved up the field but went off while attempting to take Depailler for second. In the last races of the year, tyre issues with Goodyears unsuitable for the Lotus 72 and 76 meant Lotus were not competitive.

1975 was even more disastrous for Lotus and Ickx left the team halfway through the season, even though he managed a second place in the chaotic Spanish Grand Prix which was overshadowed by accidents and stopped before half distance. Ickx was generally qualifying about 0.8 seconds slower than teammate Peterson. Ickx was stood down after the 1975 French GP with the promise that Chapman might re-employ him when a competitive new Lotus was ready to race. Ickx did not compete in Formula One for the remainder of 1975.

Later career: 1976–1979
It seemed that the end of Ickx's career was near. After Fittipaldi left McLaren, Ickx was thought likely to get the drive, but tobacco company promoter John Hogan preferred James Hunt. In 1976 Ickx began the season with Wolf–Williams Racing (then entering as "Frank Williams Racing Cars"), but after three races signed with the new team of Walter Wolf Racing, which had substantial financial backing from Wolf. The Wolf team were also running the Wolf–Williams FW05 which was essentially a rebadged Hesketh 308C from 1975 and was uncompetitive. However, at the Race of Champions, Ickx was challenging Hunt and Alan Jones for the lead, when Ickx's visor ripped off. In the world championship races he failed to qualify on four occasions, (a first in his career) achieving a degree of respectability only with a 7th in Spain and a good drive to 10th out of 19 finishers in the French GP in a car which, in the estimate of James Hunt and Chris Amon, was worse than useless. Nevertheless, for a large payment from Wolf, Amon agreed to swap drives with Ickx and Ickx raced the rest of the season in the fast and fragile Lotus styled Ensign N176, in which design Amon had suffered horrific breakages at Zolder and in the Swedish GP. For most of the Dutch GP, Ickx moved through the field, running the third fastest lap and on most laps was the fastest car in the race. With a newer Cosworth engine, Ickx probably would have won, but the under-maintained engine expired ten laps from the end. In the Italian race, Ickx drove at competitive pace in a Grand Prix for the last time, when he finished tenth, only 30 seconds behind winner Ronnie Peterson, hard on the tail of Carlos Reutemann in a works Ferrari 312T2 in ninth. After a bad crash at the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen which he was lucky to have survived with only ankle injuries, Ickx only competed sporadically. In 1977 Ickx competed in only one Grand Prix at Monaco for Ensign finishing tenth. In 1978 he entered four Grands Prix, again for Ensign but only achieved a twelfth place at Zolder. In the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp Ickx failed to qualify.

In 1979, he ended his career as a Grand Prix driver at Ligier, standing in for the injured Patrick Depailler, gaining a fifth and sixth, but finding the ground effect cars dangerous and disconcerting, ill-suited to his precise style. Outside of Formula One, Ickx continued to win races in various sports car series, which he had decided to concentrate on exclusively.

Endurance racing

Career

In 1966, Ickx teamed up with Hubert Hahne in a BMW 2000TI to win the Spa 24 Hours endurance race in his native Belgium. In 1967, Ickx won the 1000km of Spa with Dick Thompson in the Gulf-liveried JW Automotive Mirage M1. In 1968, Ickx won the Brands Hatch six-hour endurance race partnered with Brian Redman in a John Wyer entered Ford GT40 Mk1. Ickx would go on to win the Brands race on a further three occasions, in 1972 for Ferrari alongside Mario Andretti and 1977 and 1982 driving Porsches with Jochen Mass and Derek Bell respectively.

Ickx won the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans, his first victory in that race. This race also saw the first appearance of the Porsche 917 at Le Mans, which was regarded by far as the favourite. The Ford GT40 that Ickx drove with Jackie Oliver appeared at that time to be an obsolete car, outperformed by the new Porsche 917 but also by the older Porsche 908 and the new generation of 3-litre prototypes from Ferrari, Matra and Alfa Romeo.

As Ickx was opposed to the traditional Le Mans start which he considered to be dangerous, he slowly walked across the track to his machine, instead of running. He locked the safety belt carefully and thus was the last to start the race, chasing the field. On lap one, private driver John Woolfe, who had not taken time to belt himself in, had a fatal accident in his new and powerful 917.

During the race the Porsche 917 cars proved unreliable, and none finished. The last four hours of the race turned into a duel between the Porsche 908 of Hans Herrmann/Gérard Larrousse and the Ford GT-40 of Ickx/Oliver. In the last hour, Ickx and Herrmann continually leapfrogged each other, the Porsche being faster on the straights owing to having less aerodynamic drag, while being passed again under braking as the brake pads were worn and the team reckoned there was not enough time left to change them. Ickx won the race by the smallest of competitive margins ever, with less than  between the two cars, despite having lost a bigger distance intentionally at the start. He also won his case for safety: from 1970, all drivers could start the race sitting in their cars with the belts tightened properly.

In later years, Ickx won a record six times at the 24h race at Le Mans, becoming known as "Monsieur Le Mans". Three of the wins were with Derek Bell: this would become one of the most legendary partnerships. In 2005, Tom Kristensen surpassed Ickx's record and when Kristensen announced his proposed retirement at the end of the 2014 season had nine victories.

From 1976 on, he was a factory driver for Porsche and their new turbocharged race cars, the 935 and especially the 936 sports car, which he drove to wins in Le Mans three times. These drives, as well as the losing effort in 1978, often in the rain and at night, were some of the finest ever. Ickx considers the 1977 24 Hours of Le Mans race to be his favourite win of all time. Retiring earlier on in another Porsche 936, which he shared with Henri Pescarolo, the team transferred him to the car of Jürgen Barth and Hurley Haywood which was in 42nd place. Ickx made up for lost laps to lead the race by early morning, but suffered a mechanical problem which forced the car to pit. The mechanics resolved the issue by switching off one cylinder, and Ickx went on to win the race. The win in 1982 came with the new and superior Porsche 956 model, though, which carried him to two titles as world champion of endurance racing, in 1982 and 1983.

In 1983, Ickx was the team leader at Porsche, but a new teammate was faster than he was: young German Stefan Bellof set new lap records at the Nürburgring in the last ever sports car race held on the original configuration of Ickx's favourite track. As it turned out, Ickx and Bellof would become involved in controversial events later on.

In 1984, Ickx acted as Formula One race director in Monaco. He stopped the race before half distance due to heavy rain, just as leader Alain Prost was being caught by a young Ayrton Senna and Bellof. Prost thus won the race but was awarded only half the points for a win (4.5); the Frenchman subsequently lost the 1984 World Championship to McLaren team-mate Niki Lauda by half a point.

In 1985, Ickx was involved with Bellof again, but with fatal consequences. Bellof raced a privateer Porsche while waiting to join the Ferrari in 1986, which had promised him a seat after his performance in Monaco, similar to what they had done for Lauda after he outclassed Ickx there in 1973. At Spa, Ickx's home track, the young German in the private Porsche 956 of Walter Brun tried to pass the experienced Belgian in the factory Porsche 962 for first place after being behind Ickx for three laps. At Eau Rouge corner, Bellof attempted to pass from the left, but Ickx turned left from the right side at the entry of the Eau Rouge and they collided and crashed, Bellof dying an hour later after he crashed the barrier in the "Raidillon" part of the track head-on, while Ickx was shaken but unharmed. He retired from professional circuit racing at the end of the season.

24 hours of Le Mans victories

1969 – Jacky Ickx / Jackie Oliver (Ford GT-40)
1975 – Jacky Ickx / Derek Bell (Mirage GR8)
1976 – Jacky Ickx / Gijs van Lennep (Porsche 936)
1977 – Jacky Ickx / Hurley Haywood / Jürgen Barth (Porsche 936)
1981 – Jacky Ickx / Derek Bell (Porsche 936)
1982 – Jacky Ickx / Derek Bell (Porsche 956)

Other races
Ickx also co-drove to victory with Allan Moffat at the 1977 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 in Australia, becoming the last debutant to win the race until 2011, when Nick Percat matched this feat partnering two-time winner Garth Tander. The victory at the Bathurst 1000 was in a Ford XC Falcon Group C Touring Car manufactured in Australia with limited modifications for racing. After only days practice in a car he had never driven before he was doing lap times the same or quicker than drivers who drove nothing else and who were familiar with the circuit.

In 1979, in the newly-reborn Can-Am series for rebodied covered wheel Formula 5000 cars, Ickx won against strong opposition from Keke Rosberg, Elliot Forbes-Robinson and Bobby Rahal. Formula One fledgling Rosberg drove his Can Am car with ferocity, but often went off the road trying to match the pace of Ickx, who won the series decisively at the season finale at Riverside.  The previous weekend, on the dangerous and undulating Laguna Seca circuit near Monterey, Ickx elected to race conservatively rather than going after leaders Forbes-Robinson and Rosberg, but film of the race indicates the brutal nature of this late generation of Can Am racing. Ickx did not return to defend his title the following season.

One of his other Le Mans victories in a non-driving capacity was when he consulted for the Oreca team who were running a Mazda 787B for Mazdaspeed in 1991. Ickx was also selected to participate in the 1978 and 1984 editions of the International Race of Champions.

Although he had never driven a stock car before, Ickx was entered to race in the 1969 Daytona 500, in a car owned by Junior Johnson. A few days before the race, Ickx crashed the car during practice, and although he was not injured, the car was damaged beyond repair. The team's only backup car was needed by eventual race winner LeeRoy Yarbrough, so Ickx did not have the opportunity to race.

After he retired from his professional racing career, he continued to compete in the Paris-Dakar Rally, even competing with daughter Vanina in recent years. He won the event in 1983 driving a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Nowadays, he appears in historic events as a driver, such as the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the Monterey Historics, usually on behalf of Porsche and Ferrari. He still acts as the Clerk of the Course for the Monaco Grand Prix and is still a resident of Brussels.

Awards and honours

Awards

RACB Belgian driver's champion: 1967->1974, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1982 (record)
Belgian National Sports Merit Award: 1968
Belgian Sportsman of the Year: 1982
ACO Spirit of Le Mans trophy: 2004
Paris International Automobile Festival Palme d'Or: 2012
Autosprint - Helmet Legend: 2014
World Sports - Legends Award: 2017
Autosport Awards - Gregor Grant Award: 2018

Honours
Named as an 'Honorary Citizen of Le Mans' prior to the 2000 race, the first sports person to be so.
Inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2002
RTBF Best Belgian Sportsman Ever (3rd place, after Eddy Merckx, in between Jean-Michel Saive and Stefan Everts): 2014
In honour of his 75th birthday in 2019, Porsche made a special edition of its 911 (992) model called the Carrera 4S Belgian Legend Edition. The car is painted in X-Blue with white trim around the side windows, referring to Ickx's iconic helmet design.
Inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2020

Decorations
  Officer in the Belgian Order of the Crown: 2000
  Officer in the Monegasque Order of Saint-Charles: 2000
  Grand Officer in the Belgian Order of Leopold II: 2007

Personal life

Jacky Ickx is married to singer Khadja Nin. The couple were guests at the wedding of Prince Albert of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock in July 2011. Ickx became a resident of Monaco in the early 1980s.

Ickx's father Jacques Ickx (1910–1978) and older brother Pascal Ickx (born 1937) were racing drivers. His daughter, Vanina Ickx (from his first marriage with Catherine Ickx) followed in her father's footsteps to become a racing driver as well.

Racing record

Career summary

 Graded drivers not eligible for European Formula Two Championship points

Complete British Saloon Car Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap.)

† Events with 2 races staged for the different classes.

Complete Formula One World Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One non-championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete European Formula Two Championship results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

 Graded drivers not eligible for European Formula Two Championship points

Complete 24 Hours of Le Mans results

Complete Bathurst 1000 results

Dakar Rally results

Complete Canadian-American Challenge Cup results
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Films and books
Films
Grand Prix: The Killer Years by Richard Heap: 2011
Frankly ... Jacky Ickx by Philip Selkirk: 2011
1: Life on the Limit by Paul Crowder: 2013
Books

See also
 Dakar Rally
 24 Hours of Le Mans
 Porsche 956

References

External links

Tribute to Jacky Ickx

LeMans.org
Jacky Ickx miniature book, hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries Digital Collections

1945 births
Living people
24 Hours of Daytona drivers
24 Hours of Le Mans drivers
24 Hours of Le Mans winning drivers
24 Hours of Spa drivers
Bathurst 1000 winners
Belgian expatriates in Monaco
Belgian Formula One drivers
Belgian motorcycle racers
Belgian racing drivers
Brabham Formula One drivers
Cooper Formula One drivers
Dakar Rally drivers
Dakar Rally winning drivers
Ensign Formula One drivers
European Formula Two Championship drivers
European Touring Car Championship drivers
Ferrari Formula One drivers
Formula One race winners
International Motorsports Hall of Fame inductees
International Race of Champions drivers
Ligier Formula One drivers
McLaren Formula One drivers
Off-road racing drivers
Racing drivers from Brussels
Team Lotus Formula One drivers
Tyrrell Formula One drivers
Walloon sportspeople
Williams Formula One drivers
Wolf Formula One drivers
World Sportscar Championship drivers
12 Hours of Sebring drivers
Porsche Motorsports drivers

Jacky Ickx


Giselle; or, The Wilis is a romantic ballet in two acts. Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier wrote the story of the ballet. They based it on a short prose passage in Heinrich Heine's De l'Allemagne. They also used Victor Hugo's poem "Fantômes". Adolphe Adam wrote the music. Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot designed the dances. Carlotta Grisi danced the role of Giselle in the first production. The scenery was created by Pierre Cisceri.

The story is set in Germany during the Renaissance. Giselle is a peasant girl. She falls in love with Albrecht. He is a nobleman pretending to be a peasant boy. Giselle is shocked to discover Albrecht is going to marry the princess Bathilde. Her heart breaks. She goes mad (insane, crazy) and dies. One night, she rises from her grave. She wants to protect Albrecht from the Wilis. The Wilis are the ghostly spirits of dead girls. They force men to dance to their deaths.

The ballet was first performed in Paris on Monday 28 June 1841 at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique. It was a great success. It was staged almost at once by other ballet companies in Europe, Russia, and the United States. Grisi was declared another Taglioni. Taglioni was the age's greatest ballerina. Ballet historian Grace Robert writes "Giselle ... is the archetype of the ballets of the romantic age".

Story

Act 1
The ballet opens on an autumn morning in Germany. Giselle and Albrecht are in love. Hilarion is in love with Giselle, too. She does not love him though. He grows jealous. He promises to take revenge. Albrecht's gentle manners arouse Hilarion's suspicions. Albrecht is really a Duke. He is pretending to be a peasant. The peasant boys and girls start a waltz. Giselle asks Albrecht to dance with her. Giselle's mother says her daughter has a weak heart. She will die if she does not give up dancing. She is afraid that Giselle will become one of the Wilis. The Wilis are ghostly female spirits. They dance men to death.

A hunting horn is heard in the distance. Albrecht becomes nervous. He hurries away with the peasants. The Prince of Courland, his daughter Bathilde, and their courtiers enter. They are looking for a place to rest after the hunt. Giselle and her mother bring them food and drink. Bathilde takes an interest in Giselle. They each say that they are in love, and soon to be married. Albrecht returns with the peasants. Bathilde says he is her future husband. Giselle is shocked. She goes mad and dies in her mother's arms. Albrecht is chased away by the peasants.

Act 2

It is midnight in a dark wood. A pool of water is in the distance. Gamekeepers enter. Hilarion warns them that the spot is haunted by the Wilis. The gamekeepers run away. The Queen of the Wilis rises from the weeds to call the Wilis together. Giselle is about to become one of them. She rises from her grave. She dances. Albrecht enters to pray at Giselle's grave. He sees Giselle. They dance. The Wilis trap Hilarion. They force him to dance. They throw him into the pool to his death. The Queen of the Wilis wants Albrecht to die too. Giselle does not want this. She wants to save his life. Day breaks. The Wilis disappear. Giselle returns to her grave. Bathilde and the courtiers enter. They are looking for Albrecht. He falls into their arms exhausted.

Background
The French Revolution (17891799) created a French middle class. These people did not like tastes and values of the aristocracy. These tastes and values had influenced French art and literature since the reign of Louis XIV. The power of the aristocracy had ended with the Revolution. Thousands of aristocrats had died on the guillotine, or in massacres. Many died in prisons, or had fled France for safety in other lands.

After the Revolution, French ballet directors and designers turned their attention to stories based on the Greek and Roman mythologies. The aristocracy liked these stories. The directors and designers however turned instead to the stories the middle class liked. These stories were based on real life, real places, past times, everyday people, and the supernatural.

Two ballets with such stories caused great excitement in Paris in the 1830s. In November 1831, Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable had its first performance. It included a short ballet called The Ballet of the Nuns. In this little ballet, dead nuns rise from their graves. They dance in the moonlight. The public loved this ballet. In March 1832, the ballet La Sylphide was performed. This ballet is about a beautiful sylph (fairy). She loves James, a young Scotsman. Tragedy occurs. James accidentally kills the sylph.

This ballet brought Marie Taglioni before the French public.  She was the first to dance en pointe. She did this for artistic reasons rather than spectacle. She was also the first to wear the white, bell-shaped, calf-length ballet skirt. This skirt is now considered an essential feature of the romantic ballet. Poet and critic Théophile Gautier attended the first performance of La Sylphide. His ideas for Giselle would show touches of La Sylphide ten years later. It would be set in a real place and in the past, for example, and would be about everyday people and supernatural women.

Story development

In an 1841 news article announcing the first performance of Giselle, Théophile Gautier recorded his part in the creation of the ballet. He had read Heinrich Heine's description of the Wilis in De l'Allemagne, and thought these evil spirits would make a "pretty ballet". He planned their story for Act 2, and settled upon a verse by Victor Hugo called "Fantômes" to provide the inspiration for Act 1. This verse is about a beautiful 15 year old Spanish girl who loves to dance. She becomes too warm at a ball, and dies of a chill in the cool morning.

Heine's prose passage in De l'Allemagne tells of supernatural young women called the Wilis. They have died before their wedding day and rise from their graves in the middle of the night to dance. Any young man who crosses their path is forced to dance to his death. In another book, the Wilis are said to be jilted young women who have died and become vampires. This is assumed to be the reason that they hate men.

Gautier thought Heine's Wilis and Hugo's fifteen year old Spanish girl would make a good ballet story. His first idea was to present an empty ballroom glittering with crystal and candlelight. The Wilis would cast a spell over the floor. Giselle and other dancers would enter and whirl through the room, unable to resist the spell to keep them dancing. Giselle would try to keep her lover from partnering other girls. The Queen of the Wilis would enter, lay her cold hand on Giselle's heart, and the girl would drop dead.

Gautier was not satisfied with this story. It was basically a succession of dances with one moment of drama at its end. He had no experience writing ballet stories so he called upon Vernoy de St. Georges, a man who had written many stories for the ballet.  St. Georges liked Gautier's basic idea of the frail young girl and the Wilis. He wrote the story of Giselle as it is known today in three days, and sent it to Léon Pillet, the director of the Paris Opéra.

Pillet wanted to present a beautiful young Italian dancer named Carlotta Grisi to the public. He considered La Sylphide, but Adèle Dumilâtre reminded him that the role had been promised to her. A ballet in preparation, La Rosière de Gand, was suggested, but Grisi objected. The role was too long and the story was not suitable for dance. Pillet needed a good story, and he found it in Giselle. Grisi liked the story as much as Pillet did, so Giselle was put into development at once.

Music

Adolphe Adam was a popular writer of ballet and opera music in early 19th-century France. He wrote with great speed. He completed Giselle in about two months. The music was written in the smooth, song-like style of the day called cantilena. This style is well known to music lovers from Bellini's opera Norma and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Adam used several leitmotifs in the ballet. A leitmotif is a short musical phrase that is associated with a certain character, event, or idea. Adam's leitmotifs are heard several times throughout the ballet. A leitmotif is associated with Giselle, and another with Albrecht. Hilarion's motif marks his every entrance. It suggests the Fate theme in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Another leitmotif is associated with the "he loves me, he loves me not" flower test in Act 1. This leitmotif is heard again in the mad scene, and in Act 2 when Giselle offers flowers to Albrecht. The Wilis have their own motif. It is heard in the overture, in Act 1 when Berthe tells the story of the Wilis, and in the mad scene. It is heard again in Act 2 when the Wilis make their first entrance.  The hunting horn motif marks sudden surprises. This motif is heard when Albrecht is exposed as a nobleman.

The music was completely original with Adam. A critic noted however that Adam had borrowed eight bars from a romance by a Miss Puget and three bars from the huntsman's chorus in Carl Maria von Weber's opera Euryanthé. In addition, two pieces by Friedrich Burgmüller were put into the ballet. One was a waltz called "Souvenir de Ratisbonne". The other music was a group of dances performed by Giselle's friends. It is unknown who put these pieces into the ballet.

One dance historian writes:

Dance and pantomime

Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot designed the dances for Giselle. Perrot and Carlotta Grisi were lovers, and Perrot designed all of Grisi's dances and all of her pantomime. Everyone in the Paris dance world knew that Perrot had designed Grisi's dances, and Coralli said so, but Perrot was given no official credit in the printed materials such as posters and programs. This was most likely done to prevent Perrot from collecting royalties (money, profits) on the ballet. Perrot liked bold touches and planned several rapid aerial swoops on wires in Act 2 for Giselle. Grisi was afraid of these swoops. A stage hand was brought in to test the swoops. He crashed face-first into the scenery. The swoops were abandoned.

Cyril Beaumont writes that Giselle is made up of two elementsdance and mime. Act 1 features short mimed scenes, he points out, and episodes of dancing which are fused with mime. In Act 2, mime has become fused entirely with dance. He writes that the choreographic vocabulary is composed of a small number of simple steps:
Movements: developpe, grand rond de jambe
Poses: arabesque, attitude
Gliding steps: chasse, glissade, pas de basque, pas de bouree
Hopping steps: ballone, temps leve
Turning steps: pirouette, petit tour, tour en l'air
Leaping steps: (vertical) ballotte, entrechat, sisonne, rond de jambe en l'air saute, (horizontal) cabriole, jete, grande jete, soubresaut
Beaumont speculates that the simple steps were deliberately planned to allow the "utmost expressiveness."

Parts of Giselle have been cut or changed since the ballet's first night. Giselle's Act 1 pantomime scene in which she tells Albrecht of her strange dream is cut. The peasant pas de deux in Act 1 is cut back a bit. The Prince of Courland and his daughter Bathilde used to make their entrance on horseback, but today they walk on. In the original production, the Prince and Bathilde were present at Giselle's death, but now they leave the scene before she dies. The machines used to make Giselle fly and to make her disappear are no longer used. A trapdoor is sometimes employed to make Giselle rise from her grave and then to make her sink into it at the end of Act 2.

At the end of Act 2, Bathilde formerly entered with the courtiers to search for Albrecht. He took a few unsteady steps toward them and collapsed into their arms. This moment was an artistic parallel to the Act 1 finale when the peasants gathered about the dead Giselle.  Now, Bathilde and the courtiers are cut, and Albrecht slowly leaves the stage alone.

Ethnic music, dance, and costume

Ethnic music, dance, and costume were a large part of romantic ballet.  At the time Giselle was written, people thought of Germany when they heard a waltz because the waltz was of German origin. Giselle makes her first entrance to the music of a waltz, and the audience would have known at once that the ballet was set in Germany. Adam wrote three waltzes for Giselle: two for Giselle and one for the Wilis. Adam wrote that the "Giselle Waltz" in Act 1 has "all the German color indicated by the locality." People agreed. One critic wrote: "A lovely waltz ... in the Germanic spirit of the subject".

At first, Gautier thought that some of the dancers in the Act 2 waltz for the Wilis should dress in ethnic costume and dance ethnic steps. Adam put bits of French, Spanish, German, and Indian -sounding music in the waltz for this purpose. Gautier's "ethnic" idea was dropped as the ballet developed however, and it has not been picked up by modern producers. Today, Act 2 is a ballet blanca "white" ballet in which all the ballerinas and the corps de ballet are dressed in full, white, bell-shaped skirts and the dances have a geometric design.

Original designs

Costumes

The historical period for Giselle is not indicated in the story. Paul Lormier, the chief costume designer at the Paris Opéra, probably consulted Gautier on this matter. It is also possible that Pillet had the ballet's budget in mind and decided to use the many Renaissance-style costumes in the Opéra's wardrobe for Giselle. These costumes were said to have been those from Rossini's William Tell (1829) and Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (1838). Lormier certainly designed the costumes for the principal characters. His costumes were in use at the Opéra until the ballet was dropped from the repertory in 1853.

Giselle was revived in 1863 with new costumes by Lormier's assistant, Alfred Albert. Albert's costumes are closer to those of modern productions than those of Lormier, and were in use at the opera until 1868. The ballet was revived again in 1924 with scenery and costumes by Alexandre Benois. He wanted to revive the costumes of the original production but dropped the idea, believing the critics would charge him with a lack of imaginative creativity.

Sets
Pierre Luc Charles Ciceri was the chief set designer at the Paris Opéra from 1815 to 1847. He designed the sets for the first production of Giselle. Gautier was not specific about the ballet's locale, but placed it in "some mysterious corner of Germany ... on the other side of the Rhine". This would have been the eastern side.

Giselle was two months in rehearsal. This was a very long rehearsal time for the period. Even so, Ciceri did not have enough time to design sets for both acts and focused on the second act. The sets for the first act were actually those designed for the 1838 ballet, La Fille du Danube by Adam. An illustration from Les Beautés de l'Opera of 1845 shows Giselle's cottage with a roof of straw on the left, and Albrecht's cottage on the right. The two cottages are framed by the branches of two large trees on either sides of the stage. Between the two cottages, in the distance, appears a castle and slopes covered with vineyards. Although this scene was not designed for Giselle, it has remained the model for most modern productions. Ciceri's set was in use until the ballet was dropped from the repertoire in 1853. At that time, Gautier noticed that the sets were falling apart: "Giselle's cottage has barely three or four straws on its roof."

The Act 2 illustration from Les Beautés shows a dark wood with a pool of water in the distance. The branches of aged trees create an arch overhead. Beneath these branches on the left is a marble cross with 'Giselle' written on it. From one of its arms hangs the crown of grape leaves Giselle wore as Queen of the Vintage. On the stage, thick weeds and wildflowers (200 bulrushes and 120 branches of flowers) were the undergrowth. The gas jets of the footlights and those overhead suspended in the flies were turned low to create a mood of mystery and terror.

A circular hole was cut into the backdrop and covered with a transparent material. A strong light behind this hole represented the moon. The light was occasionally manipulated to suggest the passage of clouds. Gautier and St. Georges wanted the pool to be made of large mirrors. Pillet rejected this idea because of its cost. In the 1868 revival however, the mirrors were acquired for this scene.

Adam thought Ciceri's backdrop for Act 1 was "not so good ... it is all weak and pale" but he liked the set for Act 2: "[Ciceri's] second act is a delight, a dark humid forest filled with bulrushes and wild flowers, and ending with a sunrise, seen at first through the trees at the end of the piece, and very magical in its effect." The sunrise also delighted the critics.

First performance

The balletomanes of Paris became very excited as the opening night of Giselle approached. News reports kept their interest alive. Some reports said that Grisi had had an accident. Some reports said that the conductor was ill with a tumour. Still others said that the stage hands feared for their safety.

Hopes that the ballet would be ready in May were dashed. Opening night was postponed several times. Grisi was absent for a few days and her return was delayed to protect her health. Lighting, trapdoors, and scene changes needed further rehearsals. Cuts were made in Grisi's role to spare the dancer's health. Instead of returning to her tomb at the end of the ballet, it was decided Giselle would be placed on a bed of flowers and sink slowly into the earth. This touch preserved the romantic mood of the Act 2 finale.

At last, on Monday 28 June 1841, the curtain rose on Giselle in the Salle Le Peletier. Grisi played Giselle with Lucien Petipa as her lover Albrecht, M. Simon as the gamekeeper Hilarion, and Adèle Dumilâtre as Myrtha, the Queen of the Wilis. Typical of the theatrical practices of the time, Giselle was preceded by an excerpt from another productionin this case, the third act of Rossini's opera, Moise.

In spite of the chief machinist shouting orders to his crew that could be heard by the audience, Giselle was a great success. Grisi was a sensation. Ballet-goers regarded her as another Taglioni, the greatest ballerina of the period.

Characters in the first performance

 Duke Albert of Silesia, in the attire of a villager
 The Prince of Courland
 Wilfride, the Duke's squire
 Hilarion, the game-keeper
 An Old Peasant Man
 Bathilde, the Duke's fiancée
 Giselle, a peasant girl
 Berthe, Giselle's mother
 Myrtha, Queen of the Wili
 Zulmé, a Wili
 Moyne, a Wili

Contemporary reviews and comments
Giselle was a great artistic and commercial success. Le Constitutionnel praised Act 2 for its "poetic effects". Moniteur des théâtres wrote that Grisi "runs [and] flies across the stage like a gazelle in love". One critic made a detailed analysis of the music in La France Musicale. He thought the Act 1 waltz "ravishing", and noted that the scene of Berthe's narrative was filled with "quite new" harmonic modulations. He praised other moments in Act 1 (especially the mad scene), and was in raptures with the music of Act 2, singling out the entrance of the Wilis and the viola solo played through Giselle's last moments. He thought the flute and harp music accompanying Giselle as she disappeared into her grave at ballet's end "full of tragic beauty."

Coralli was praised for the Act 1 peasant pas de deux and for the "elegance" of Act 2. Coralli followed a suggestion made by Gautier and picked the most beautiful girls in the company to play the peasants and the Wilis. One observer thought the selection process cruel: the almost-beautiful girls were turned away without a second thought.

Grisi and Petipa were great successes as the tragic lovers. Gautier praised their performance in Act 2, writing that the two dancers made the act "a real poem, a choreographic elegy full of charm and tenderness ... More than one eye that thought it was seeing only [dance] was surprised to find its vision obscured by a tearsomething that does not often happen in a ballet ... Grisi danced with a perfection ... that places her in the ranks between Elssler and Taglioni ... Her miming surpassed every expectation ... She is nature and artlessness personified."

Adam thought Petipa "charming" as both dancer and actor, and that he had "rehabilitated" male dancing with his performance. Of Dumilâtre he wrote, "... in spite of her coldness, [Dumilâtre] deserved the success she achieved by the correctness and the 'mythological' quality of her poses: perhaps this word may seem a little pretentious, but I can think of no other to express such cold and noble dancing as would suit Minerva in a merry mood, and in this respect [Dumilâtre] seems to bear a strong resemblamce to that goddess."

Giselle made 6500 francs between June and September 1841. This was twice the amount for the same time period in 1839. Grisi's salary was increased to make her the top earner among the dancers at the Opéra. Souvenirs were sold. Pictures of Grisi as Giselle were printed, and sheet music arrangements were made for social dancing. The sculptor Emile Thomas made a statuette of Giselle in her Act 2 costume. A silk cloth was manufactured called façonné Giselle, and Madame Lainné, a milliner, sold an artificial flower called 'Giselle'. The ballet was parodied at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in October 1841.

Early productions

Giselle was performed in Paris from its debut in 1841 to 1849. It was then dropped from the repertory. Grisi always danced the title role. The ballet was revived in 1852 and 1853, but without Grisi. The work was dropped from the repertory after 1853. It was revived in 1863 for a Russian ballerina then dropped in 1868. It was revived almost 50 years later in 1924 for the debut of Olga Spessivtzeva. This production was revived in 1932 and 1938.

Giselle was produced by other ballet companies in Europe and America almost immediately after its first night. The British had their first taste of Gisellenot with the ballet but with a drama based on the ballet called Giselle, or The Phantom Night Dancers by William Moncrieff. He had seen the ballet in Paris the same year. The play was performed on 23 August 1841 at the Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells.

The actual ballet was first staged in London at Her Majesty's Theatre on 12 March 1842 with Grisi as Giselle and Perrot as Albrecht. The dances were credited to Perrot and one Deshayes. It was revived many times, once in 1884 with a Mlle. Sismondi in the role of Albrecht. This production was received with little enthusiasm. It was preceded by the operetta Pocahontas.

The ballet was staged by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1911 at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden with Tamara Karsavina and Nijinsky as Giselle and Albrecht. Anna Pavlova danced Giselle with her own company in 1913. Alicia Markova danced the role with the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1934, and Margot Fonteyn took the role in 1937 when Markova left the company. The English loved Giselle. In 1942, for example, three different companies were dancing the ballet in London.

Giselle was first performed in Russia at the Bolshoi Theatre, St. Petersburg, on 18 December 1842. Gedeonov, the Director of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, sent his Ballet Master Titus to Paris to find a new ballet for ballerina Elena Andreyanova. Titus picked Giselle. The Ballet Master then staged the work completely from memory in St. Petersburg. Perrot produced Giselle in St. Petersburg in 1851. He made many changes to the ballet in his years of service to the Imperial Ballet. In the 1880s, Ballet Master Marius Petipa made many changes to the Perrot production.

Giselle was first staged in Italy at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 17 January 1843. The music however was not Adam's, but that of one N. Bajetti. The dances were not the original either, but those of one A. Cortesi. It is possible, but unknown if, the ballet was first staged in the provincial theatres.

In 1844, American ballerina Mary Ann Lee arrived in Paris to study with Coralli for a year. She returned to the United States in 1841 with the directions for Giselle and other ballets. Lee was the first to present Giselle in the United States. She did this on 1 January 1846 in Boston at the Howard Athenæum. George Washington Smith played Albrecht. Lee danced Giselle (again with Smith) on 13 April 1846 at the Park Theatre in New York City.

Modern productions

Nijinsky was going to dance Albrecht for the first time in St. Petersburg in January 1911. The Czar and his family would be present. Diaghilev wanted Nijinsky to wear the Renaissance-style costume he had worn in Paris the same month. It was easier to dance in than the thick pants of traditional Russian Albrechts, but his genitals (though covered) could be detected. He was ordered not to wear it. Nijinsky said that he only wanted to dance well. According to Stravinsky, Nijinsky wore not much more than the tightest tights and a padded athletic supporter (jockstrap).  The next day, the angry director of the Imperial Theatres ordered Nijinsky to apologize. Complaints about the dancer were collected here and there. Nijinsky knew Diaghilev would give him work, so he resigned. On 24 January 1911 he was officially dismissed from the Imperial Theatres.

Structure
Act I
no.1 Introduction
no.2 Scène première
no.3 Entrée d'Albrecht
no.4 Entrée de Giselle
no.5 Scène dansante
interpolation - Pas de deux pour Mlle. Maria Gorshenkova (Ludwig Minkus; 1884; this piece was only included in Imperial-era productions)
no.6 Scène de Hilarion
no.7 Retour de la vendange
interpolation - Pas de cinq pour Mlle. Carlotta Grisi (Cesare Pugni; 1850; only included for Grisi's performance)
no.8 Valse
no.9 Scène dansante
no.10 Le récit de Berthe
no.11 Scène: Le chasse royale
no.12 Scène de Hilarion
no.13 Marche des vignerons
interpolation - Variation pour Mlle. Elena Cornalba (aka Pas seul) (likely composed by Riccardo Drigo, c. 1888)
interpolation - Pas de deux pour Mlle. Nathalie Fitzjames (aka Peasant pas de deux)
Fashioned from Souvenirs de Ratisbonne by Johann Friedrich Franz Burgmüller, c.1841 –
a. Entrée
b. Andante
c. Variation
d. Variation
interpolation - supplemental female variation (Mariinsky Theatre staging) (Riccardo Drigo?; from the ballet Cupid's Prank; 1890.)
e. Variation
f. Coda
no.14 Galop générale
no.15 Grand scène dramatique: La folie de Giselle

Act II
no.16 Introduction et scène
no.17 Entrée et danse de Myrthe
no.18 Entrée des Wilis
no.19 Grand pas des Wilis
no.20 Entrée de Giselle
no.21 Entrée d'Albrecht
no.22 L'apparition de Giselle
no.23 La mort de Hilarion
no.24 Scène des Wilis
no.25 Grand pas d'action —
a. Grand adage
b. Variation de Giselle
c. Variation d'Albert
interpolation - Variation pour Mlle. Adèle Grantzow (likely composed by Cesare Pugni; 1867)
d. Coda
no.26 Scène finale

Notes

References

Other websites

 "Fantômes" Hugo's original poem in French
 The Earliest Russian Giselles - discusses the first interpretors of the role of Giselle in imperial Russia
 Some dance history of Giselle by Suzanne McCarthy for the Royal Ballet

Ballets choreographed by Jules Perrot
Ballets
1841

Giselle


Tenerife is one of the seven Canary Islands. It is part of the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the province being on the island. The other province in the Canary Islands is Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. With 899.833 inhabitants, Tenerife is the most populated island of the Canary Islands and the second most populated island of Spain (after Mallorca).

The flag adopted by the island is that of a white St Andrew's cross on a navy blue background this is due to St Andrew being the patron saint of the island.

Geologically it grew up from a volcano, the Teide. This volcano has had many violent eruptions over its very long history, the most recent of those eruptions took place in 1909.
Island capital is Santa Cruz de Tenerife, other important cities are Puerto de la Cruz, La Orotava, Arona, Adeje and San Cristóbal de La Laguna, all in the north of the island. Also important town of Candelaria, where they worship the patron saint of the Canary Islands, the Virgin of Candelaria.

The island is currently dependent on the tourism industry for much of its income.

Tenerife has two international airports, one in the south near the centres of tourism in Playa de Las Americas, Costa Adeje and Los Cristianos, and one in the north near Santa Cruz, which is where the world's worst plane disaster happened on March 27, 1977. Two Boeing 747 planes collided on the runway and killed 583 people.

The biggest tourist attractions are the volcano Teide (top is more than 3,000 m above sea level) and the Loro Parque in Puerto de la Cruz.

References

Islands of the Canary Islands
Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Tenerife


Flash Gordon is a science fiction adventure story that began as a comic strip in 1934. Since then, the Flash Gordon story has been made into movies, TV shows and a radio show.

In the story, Flash Gordon and Dale Arden blast off into space in a rocket invented by the strange Dr. Hans Zarkov. They travel to the planet Mongo, where the evil Emperor Ming plans to take over the Earth. Flash, Dale and Zarkov have to make friends with the other people on Mongo, to battle Ming and stop his plans.

A new Flash Gordon TV show premieres on the Sci Fi Channel in August 2007.

Other websites

Science fiction

Flash Gordon


A Singspiel (; plural: ; ) is a form of German-language music drama, now regarded as a genre of opera. It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias which were often strophic, or folk-like. Singspiel plots are generally comic or romantic in nature, and frequently include elements of magic, fantastical creatures, and comically exaggerated characterizations of good and evil.

History
Some of the first Singspiele were miracle plays in Germany, where dialogue was interspersed with singing. By the early 17th century, miracle plays had grown profane, the word "Singspiel" is found in print, and secular Singspiele were also being performed, both in translated borrowings or imitations from English and Italian songs and plays, and in original German creations.

In the 18th century, some Singspiele were translations of English ballad operas. In 1736, the Prussian ambassador to England commissioned a translation of the ballad opera The Devil to Pay. This was successfully performed in the 1740s in Hamburg and Leipzig. A further version of this was made by Johann Adam Hiller and C. F. Weiße in 1766 (Der Teufel ist los oder Die verwandelten Weiber), the first of a string of such collaborations which led to Hiller and Weisse being called "the fathers of the German Singspiel."

French operas with spoken dialogue (opéras comiques) were frequently transcribed into the German and became very successful in Vienna in the late 1770s and early 1780s. By contrast, German translations of contemporary Italian opere buffe, which were quite successful in England and France at the time, were significantly less frequent. Singspiele were considered middle-to-lower class entertainment – as opposed to the predominantly aristocratic genres of opera, ballet and stage play – and were usually performed by traveling troupes (such as the Koch, Döbbelin and Koberwein companies), rather than by established companies within metropolitan centers.

Mozart wrote several Singspiele: Bastien und Bastienne (1768), Zaide (1780), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), Der Schauspieldirektor (1786), and finally Die Zauberflöte (1791). E. T. A. Hoffmann, who admired him, composed Singspiele, such as Liebe und Eifersucht in 1807.

In 1927, Kurt Weill created a new word, "Songspiel", to describe his work Mahagonny-Songspiel.

References
Notes

Sources
Barbara Russano Hanning, Donald Jay Grout: Concise History of Western Music, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Singspiel."

External links

Opera genres
Opera terminology
German music history
German literature

Singspiel


Pedro Jaime Abreu Martínez, known as Pedro Martínez (born October 25, 1971), is a Dominican pitcher who played for five Major League Baseball teams from 1992 to 2008—the Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and Philadelphia Phillies. Martínez is one of 18 pitchers in MLB history with 3,000 career strikeouts, was named to eight All-Star Game rosters, won the Cy Young Award as the top pitcher in the National League once and the American League twice, and helped the Red Sox to a World Series victory in 2004, the team's first since 1918. Martínez was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015, the first year in which he could be elected.

He is also notable for having pushed aside New York Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer during a baseball brawl.

1971 births
Living people
Dominican Republic baseball players

Pedro Martinez


Jeff Bova (born Jeffrey Bova in 1953) is an American musician. He has been active in the music industry since the mid-1970s, contributing to recordings by significant mainstream artists like Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Bill Laswell and Herbie Hancock, Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson, Meat Loaf, Missing Persons, Iron Maiden and Billy Joel among others.

Early life
Born in Washington D.C., he grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Being the son of a professional trumpet player, he took the instrument up for himself during elementary school and continued with it at the Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. Although he also had arranging and composition lessons by trumpet legend Maury Deutsch, he would choose to specialize in keyboards instead. After leaving college he participated in a Connecticut-based jazz fusion band called "Flying Island" and later on he moved back to New York to find a place into the R&B group Change (from 1982 to 1984).

Career

1980s
In 1983, and after having worked with Nona Hendryx, he met avant-garde bassist and record producer Bill Laswell, who was set to produce Herbie Hancock's Future Shock (the first part of the latter's "techno-funk" trilogy). The tour in support of that album found Bova on Hancock's live band, as he was proficient in the ARP Chroma (a much-heard instrument on Future Shock). He would work with him for the next five years, contributing to the recordings of the final part of the trilogy (Perfect Machine), while he also programmed and composed tracks for several of the soundtracks Hancock has been working on, including that of the Sean Penn film Colours. Soon after, he started working on numerous projects that were held in the Power Station and eventually obtained a room of his own there (courtesy of the studio's owners Tony Bongiovi and Bob Walters). In 1987, fellow Power Station "resident", bassist Bernard Edwards (of Chic), formed the rock-funk supergroup Distance, with Bova on keyboards, Tony Thompson (also of Chic) on drums, future Bad Company member Robert Hart on lead vocals and Eddie Martinez on guitars. They released only one album, Under the One Sky (1989) on Reprise Records, which failed to chart.

1990s
During the 1990s, Bova achieved great commercial success as a producer of Celine Dion's Grammy Award-winning album Falling into You. He also played Hammond organ and synthesizers with Meat Loaf on Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. "Back Into Hell", an instrumental track on Bat Out of Hell II, was arranged and performed entirely by him, while "Fiesta De Las Almas Perdidas", a short song also written by Bova, was featured on Meat Loaf's 1995 album Welcome to the Neighborhood.

Partial discography
Partial Jeff Bova's discography, as a keyboardist, composer, arranger and producer:
Visions – Bunky Green (Vanguard, 1978)
 Riptide - Robert Palmer, 1985
 Starpeace - Yoko Ono, 1985
 True Colors - Cyndi Lauper, 1986
 Eat 'Em and Smile - David Lee Roth, 1986
 The Bridge - Billy Joel, 1986
 Color in Your Life - Missing Persons, 1986
 Hearts In Motion - Air Supply, 1986
 Floodland - The Sisters of Mercy, 1987
 Perfect Machine - Herbie Hancock, 1988
 Instinct - Iggy Pop, 1988
 Ooh Yeah! - Hall & Oates, 1988
 Original Sin - Pandora's Box, 1989
 A Night to Remember - Cyndi Lauper, 1989
 Jody Watley - Jody Watley, 1989
 Under the One Sky - Distance, 1989
 Journeyman - Eric Clapton, 1989
 Stranger in This Town - Richie Sambora, 1991
 Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell - Meat Loaf, 1993
 Blink of an Eye - Michael McDonald, 1993
 HIStory - Michael Jackson, 1995
 Welcome to the Neighborhood - Meat Loaf, 1995
 Falling into You - Celine Dion, 1996
 Stories Told & Untold - Bad Company, 1996
 In Deep - Tina Arena, 1997
 Brave New World - Iron Maiden, 2000
 Talk to Me - Joe McIntyre, 2006
 Bag of Bones - Europe, 2012
 Opus - Jane Badler, 2014
 The Book of Souls - Iron Maiden, 2015
 Gracia - Mari Hamada, 2018
 Soar'' - Mari Hamada, 2023

Notes
"Jeff Bova Website"
"Mix" interview

External links
Change biography
Interview

Living people
1953 births
American keyboardists
American male composers
21st-century American composers
Record producers from Washington, D.C.
Record producers from Connecticut
Musicians from Washington, D.C.
Grammy Award winners
People from Old Greenwich, Connecticut
21st-century American male musicians
Change (band) members

Jeff Bova


The Night Riviera is a sleeper train operated by First Great Western. It is one of only two sleeper trains on the railway in Great Britain (the other being the Caledonian Sleeper). It runs two trains per night, six days a week (Sun-Fri) between London Paddington and Penzance, with one train departing in each direction.

Rail transport in England

Night Riviera


The banner o Poland consists o twa horizontal stripes o equal width, the upper ane white an the lawer ane reid. The twa colors are defined in the Polish constitution as the naitional colors. A variant o the banner wi the naitional coat o airms in the middle o the white stripe is legally reserved for offeecial uise abroad an at sea. A seemilar banner wi the addition o a swallow-tail is uised as the naval ensign o Poland.

White an reid wur offeecially adoptit as naitional colors in 1831. Thay are o heraldic oreegin an derive frae the tinctures (colors) o the coats o airms o the twa constituent naitions o the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, i.e. the White Eagle o Poland an the Pursuer (, ) o Lithuanie, a white knight ridin a white horse, baith on a reid shield. Prior tae that, Polish sodgers wore cockades o various colour combinations. The naitional banner wis offeecially adoptit in 1919. Syne 2004, Pols Banner Day is celebratit on Mey 2.

The banner is flewn continuously on the biggins o the heichest naitional authorities, sic as the parliament an the presidential palace. Ither institutions an mony Polish fowk flee the naitional banner on naitional holidays an ither special occasions o naitional significance. Current Polish law daes no restrict the uise o the naitional banner athoot the coat o airms as lang as the banner is no disrespectit.

Horizontal bicolor o white an reid bein a relatively widespread design, thare are several flags that are seemilar but unrelatit tae the Polish ane, maist notably those o Bohemie in the Czech Republic an Tyrol in Austrick, an twa naitional banners wi the reid stripe abuin the white ane: those o Indonesie an Monaco. In Poland, mony banners based on the naitional design an aa featur the naitional colors.

Poland
Poland
Naitional seembols o Poland

Banner o Poland


Plug and play is the name for a number of technologies used in computing. Technologies that support plug and play allow to connect new devices to a computer. After a short while, these devices can simply be used. When they are no longer needed, they can be disconnected again. Plug and play does not require the user to load a specific device driver to access the device.

Plug and play is used to refer to both the configuration of devices at boot time, as well as to system that support adding a device later on. Examples for  systems that support plug and play are USB and Firewire.

References

Computer hardware

Plug and play


The World According to Garp is a 1982 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by George Roy Hill and starring Robin Williams in the title role. Written by Steve Tesich, it is based on the 1978 novel The World According to Garp by John Irving. For their roles, John Lithgow and Glenn Close (in her film debut) were respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 55th Academy Awards.

Plot
T.S. Garp is the out-of-wedlock son of a feminist mother, Jenny Fields, who wanted a child but not a husband. A nurse during World War II, she encounters a dying ball turret gunner known only as Technical Sergeant Garp ("Garp" being all he is able to utter) who was severely brain damaged in combat, whose morbid priapism allows her to rape him and get impregnated. She names the resultant child after Garp.

Garp grows up and becomes interested in wrestling and fiction writing, topics his mother has little interest in. Garp's writing piques the interest of Helen Holm, the daughter of the school's wrestling coach. She is wary of him. His mother observes his interest in sex and is intellectually curious about it, having little more than clinical interest herself. She interviews a prostitute and offers to hire her for Garp. Immediately after, Jenny decides to write a book on her observations of lust and human sexuality.

Her book is a partial autobiography, called Sexual Suspect, and is an overnight sensation. Jenny becomes a feminist icon. She uses the proceeds from the book to fund a center at her home for troubled and abused women. Meanwhile, Garp's first novel is published, which impresses Helen. The two marry and eventually have two children, Duncan and Walt. Garp becomes a devoted parent and successful fiction writer, while Helen becomes a college professor.

Garp spends time visiting his mother and the people who live at her center, including transgender ex-football player Roberta Muldoon. He also first hears the story of Ellen James, a girl who was raped at the age of eleven by two men who then cut out her tongue so that she could not identify her attackers. A group of women represented at Jenny's center, "Ellen Jamesians," voluntarily cut out their own tongues as a show of solidarity. Garp is horrified by the practice and learns that the Jamesians have received a letter from Ellen James begging them to stop the practice, but they have voted to continue. Garp flirts with and possibly seduces his children's 18-year-old babysitter while driving her home.

Having learned about his wife's infidelity with one of her students, Garp rushes home with his children in the back seat and crashes into his wife's lover's car parked in their driveway, while his wife is in the car performing fellatio on the student. As a result, Walt is killed and Duncan loses an eye. Garp, through the aid of his mother, learns to forgive himself and his wife. The couple reconcile and have a baby daughter they name after Jenny.

Jenny receives death threats because of both her center and her book. To Garp's dismay, she dismisses the danger and decides to publicly endorse a politician who supports her message. Garp writes a book about the life of Ellen James and its aftermath. The book is very successful and well-regarded, but is highly critical of the Jamesians. Garp begins receiving death threats from them himself.

During a political rally, Jenny is shot and killed by an anti-feminist fanatic. The women of Jenny's center hold a memorial for her, but forbid all men from attending. Garp, dressed as a woman, is infiltrated into the memorial by Muldoon. He is identified by Pooh, a Jamesian he knew when they both were in school. A commotion breaks out and Garp is in danger of being hurt, until a woman leads him out of the memorial to a taxi. The woman reveals herself to be Ellen James, and uses the gesture to thank Garp for his book about her. The Jamesians are further outraged that Garp attended the memorial.

Garp returns to his old school as the wrestling coach. One day during practice, Pooh enters the gymnasium and shoots him at close range with a pistol. Garp is airlifted by helicopter with his wife. He flashes back to an earlier time when his mother would toss him into the air.

Cast

 Robin Williams as T.S. Garp
James "J.B." McCall as young Garp
 Mary Beth Hurt as Helen Holm
 Glenn Close as Jenny Fields
 John Lithgow as Roberta Muldoon
 Hume Cronyn as Mr. Fields
 Jessica Tandy as Mrs. Fields
 Swoosie Kurtz as The Hooker
 Peter Michael Goetz as John Wolf
 Mark Soper as Michael Milton
 Warren Berlinger as Stew Percy
 Brandon Maggart as Ernie Holm
 Amanda Plummer as Ellen James
 Jenny Wright as Cushie (Steering School)
 Jillian Kaplan Reich Ross as Young Cushie
 Brenda Currin as Pooh
 John Irving as wrestling referee
 George Roy Hill as airplane pilot
 Nathan Babcock as Duncan Garp
 Kate McGregor-Stewart as Real Estate Lady

Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of 21 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 6.2/10. On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 63 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, by which he was "entertained but unmoved," three stars as a "palatable" interpretation of the novel, considering it "wonderfully well-written" yet "cruel, annoying and smug," and wrote:

I thought the acting was unconventional and absorbing (especially by Williams, by Glenn Close as his mother, and by John Lithgow as a transsexual). I thought the visualization of the events, by director George Roy Hill, was fresh and consistently interesting. But when the movie was over, my immediate response was not at all what it should have been. All I could find to ask myself was: What the hell was that all about?

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that "the movie is a very fair rendering of Mr. Irving's novel, with similar strengths and weaknesses. If the novel was picaresque and precious, so is the film – although the absence of the book's self-congratulatory streak helps the movie achieve a much lighter, more easy-going style."

Film critic Pauline Kael wrote, "There's no feeling of truth in either the book or the movie," and that this "generally faithful adaptation, seems no more (and no less) than a castration fantasy."

However, Leonard Maltin, in his annual Movie Guide, gave the film a rare four-star review—one of only 408 films out of nearly 16,000 given the designation during the 45-year period that it was published. Calling Garp "dazzling" and "beautifully acted by all, especially Close (in her film debut)...and Lithgow," Maltin went on to praise the film as an "absorbing, sure-footed odyssey through vignettes of social observation, absurdist humor, satire and melodrama."

References

External links

1982 films
Films based on works by John Irving
Films about writers
Films set in 1944
1980s English-language films
1980s romantic comedy-drama films
American romantic comedy-drama films
Films about trans women
Warner Bros. films
Films directed by George Roy Hill
1982 LGBT-related films
American LGBT-related films
Adultery in films
Films set in New Hampshire
Films shot in New Jersey
Films about rape
1982 comedy films
LGBT-related comedy-drama films
Films about mother–son relationships
1980s American films

The World According to Garp (film)


In epidemiology, the standardized mortality ratio or SMR, is a quantity, expressed as either a ratio or percentage quantifying the increase or decrease in mortality of a study cohort with respect to the general population.

Standardized mortality ratio
The standardized mortality ratio is the ratio of observed deaths in the study group to expected deaths in the general population. This ratio can be expressed as a percentage simply by multiplying by 100.

The SMR may be quoted as either a ratio or a percentage. If the SMR is quoted as a ratio and is equal to 1.0, then this means the number of observed deaths equals that of expected cases. If higher than 1.0, then there is a higher number of deaths than is expected. SMR constitutes an indirect form of standardization. It has an advantage over the direct method of standardization since age-adjustment is permitted in situations where age stratification may not be available for the cohort being studied or where strata-specific data are subject to excessive random variability.

Definition
The requirements for calculating SMR for a cohort are:
 The number of persons in each age group in the population being studied
 The age specific death rates of the general population in the same age groups of the study population
 The observed deaths in the study population

Expected deaths would then be calculated simply by multiplying the death rates of the general population by the total number of participants in the study group at the corresponding age group and summing up all the values for each age group to arrive at the number of expected deaths. The study groups are weighted based on their particular distribution (for example, age), as opposed to the general populations's distribution. This is a fundamental distinction between an indirect method of standardization like SMR from direct standardization techniques.

The SMR may well be quoted with an indication of the uncertainty associated with its estimation, such as a confidence interval (CI) or p value, which allows it to be interpreted in terms of statistical significance.

Example
An example might be a cohort study into cumulative exposure to arsenic from drinking water, whereby the mortality rates due to a number of cancers in a highly exposed group (which drinks water with a mean arsenic concentration of, say 10 mg) is compared with those in the general population. An SMR for bladder cancer of 1.70 in the exposed group would mean that there is {(1.70 - 1)*100} 70% more cases of death due to bladder cancer in the cohort than in the reference population (in this case the national population, which is generally considered not to exhibit cumulative exposure to high arsenic levels).

Standardized mortality rate
Standardized mortality rate tells how many persons, per thousand of the population, will die in a given year and what the causes of death will be.

Such statistics have many uses:
 Life insurance companies periodically update their premiums based on the mortality rate, adjusted for age.
 Medical researchers can track disease-related deaths and shift focus and funding to address increasing or decreasing risks.
 Organizations, both non- and for-profit, can utilize such statistics to justify their missions.
 Regarding occupational uses:
Mortality tables are also often used when numbers of deaths for each age-specific stratum are not available. It is also used to study mortality rate in an occupationally exposed population: Do people who work in a certain industry, such as mining or construction, have a higher mortality than people of the same age in the general population? Is an additional risk associated with that occupation? To answer the question of whether a population of miners has a higher mortality than we would expect in a similar population that is not engaged in mining, the age-specific rates for such a known population, such as all men of the same age, are applied to each age group in the population of interest. This will yield the number of deaths expected in each age group in the population of interest, if this population had had the mortality experience of the known population. Thus, for each age group, the number of deaths expected is calculated, and these numbers are totaled. The numbers of deaths that were actually observed in that population are also calculated and totaled. The ratio of the total number of deaths actually observed to the total number of deaths expected, if the population of interest had had the mortality experience of the known population, is then calculated. This ratio is called the standardized mortality ratio (SMR). The SMR is defined as follows: SMR = (Observed no. of deaths per year)/(Expected no. of deaths per year).

See also
 Age-specific mortality rate
 Crude death rate
 Vulnerability index

References

External links
 PAMCOMP Person-Years Analysis and Computation Program for calculating SMRs

Epidemiology
Biostatistics
Medical statistics
Statistical ratios

Standardized mortality ratio


The North Avenue Irregulars is a 1979 movie starring Edward Hermann, Ruth Buzzi, Steven Franken, and Cliff Osmond.

Plot

The movie is about a newly installed minister, who entrusts, despite objections by the founding pastors daughter, the churches "sinking fund" money into the hands of a congregate whom he does not even know, with instructions to increase the amount in the fund.

The money is bet on a horse race, and upon hearing this, the Pastor gives the shortest sermon in history and begins a pursuit of the money and the organized crime syndicate, amid the hijinx of assorted feminine members of the congregation in a pursuit of the "money trail".

1979 comedy movies
American comedy movies
English-language movies

The North Avenue Irregulars


The Shapley Supercluster or Shapley Concentration (SCl 124) is the largest concentration of galaxies in our nearby universe.

It is a gravitationally interacting unit 650 million light years away (z=0.046). This means it pulls itself together, instead of expanding with the universe. It is an overdensity in the distribution of galaxies in the constellation of Centaurus.

History
In the late 1920s, Harlow Shapley and his colleagues at the Harvard College Observatory started a survey of galaxies in the southern sky, using photographic plates obtained at the 24-inch Bruce telescope at Bloemfontein, South Africa. He found a 'cloud' in the constellation of Centaurus to be the most striking concentration of galaxies.

In recent times, the Shapley Supercluster was rediscovered, in a survey of galaxies of galaxies at the University of Cambridge in England. In this paper, the supercluster was named after Shapley, in recognition of his pioneering survey of galaxies in which this concentration of galaxies was first seen. Around the same time, others had noticed a remarkable concentration of clusters in the Abell catalogue of galaxy clusters: they had named it the Alpha concentration.

References

Galaxy clusters

Shapley Supercluster