175th Anniversary of the death of Vincenzo Bellini

On 23 September 1835 the great Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini died at the tragically young age of 33.

He died near Paris of acute inflammation of the intestine. In 1876 his remains were transferred to his home town Catania in Sicily.

He was a child prodigy and led a busy productive life. He was a bit of a dandy and very popular. He never married, but had several relationships with beautiful society women.

You can find out more about him at 52composers.com

Leoncavallo's 90th anniversary

Today 9th August is the 90th anniversary of the death of the Italian opera composer Ruggero Leoncavallo in Montecatini, Tuscany in 1919.
He is buried in the Cimitero Monumentale delle Porte Sante, Florence.
I hope they have a party up there!

Happy Birthday Leos Janacek

Another birthday this week - this time the Czech composer Leos Janacek, born on 3 July 1854.

Best known for his 9 operas. He was most productive and creative in the last 15 years of his 74 year long life. Credit is often given to his muse Kamila Stösslová, a young married woman 30 years his junior.

For more information click on the title.

Happy Birthday Giacomo Puccini !!

Today, 22 December, is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Giacomo Puccini.

Next year's opera season at the Arena of Verona features two of his operas; Tosca and Turandot.

I have also featured him of course in my 2009 Opera Calendars which are available on eBay UK and on Cafepress

New Wagner Portrait

Here is the portrait of Wagner I have been working on. It is a 2 plate photoetching from my pencil drawing. The coloured surround is a collagraph printed at the same time on Somerset paper. Prints and merchandise are available as follows:
Fine prints (framed or unframed) from Imagekind
Poster from artist-rising.
Giftware from Cafepress

Which CALENDAR printer to use?
It's time to prepare and publish my 2008 calendars. Following the success of my 2007 calendar I have decided to try publishing some online. But which service to use? I have found three sites which I will certainly try out: cafepress, Zazzle and Lulu. I'll write here my experiences.
Today I have just published my Great Composers calendar on cafepress.

• There are 4 styles: a single page calendar print and three spiral bound 12page wall calendars.
• You have the option to set your own selling price which is good.
  
• It is a US based service so postage is likely to be expensive for international orders.
• Quick and easy to implement.
• Affiliate program available
• They take the order, print, ship, collect the money and pay you your markup.
  

You will find it on the front page of my cafepress store here:
http://www.cafepress.com/paulhelmshop