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Melba, Dame Nellie

(Encyclopedia)Melba, Dame Nellie, 1861–1931, Australian soprano, whose name originally was Helen Porter Mitchell. After study with Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, she made her operatic debut in Brussels in 1887. Famo...

Monticelli, Adolphe

(Encyclopedia)Monticelli, Adolphe ädôlfˈ môNtēsĕlēˈ [key], 1824–86, French painter. He worked in Paris and, after 1870, in his native Marseilles. Influenced by Watteau and Delacroix, he portrayed subjects...

Nanterre

(Encyclopedia)Nanterre näNtârˈ [key], city (1990 pop. 86,627), capital of Hauts-de-Seine dept., N central France, on the right bank of the Seine River. It is an administrative and industrial center where metals,...

Nordica, Lillian

(Encyclopedia)Nordica, Lillian nôrˈdĭkə [key], 1857–1914, American soprano, b. Farmington, Maine, as Lillian Norton. She studied in Milan, where she made her operatic debut in 1879. She sang in St. Petersburg...

Nodier, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Nodier, Charles shärl nôdyāˈ [key], 1780–1844, French novelist and poet. From 1824 he was librarian of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris. His salon was the nucleus of the beginning romanti...

ophicleide

(Encyclopedia)ophicleide ŏfˈĭklīd [key] [Gr.,=serpent with keys], brass wind musical instrument of relatively wide conical bore, largest of the keyed bugles; invented in 1817 by Jean-Hilaire Asté of Paris. It ...

Palsgrave, John

(Encyclopedia)Palsgrave, John pălzˈgrāv, pôlzˈ– [key], d. 1554, English scholar, educated at Oxford and at the Univ. of Paris. Palsgrave was tutor to Henry VIII's daughter Mary (later Mary I), who used her i...

MacMonnies, Frederick William

(Encyclopedia)MacMonnies, Frederick William məkmŏnˈēz [key], 1863–1937, American sculptor and painter, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., studied with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and with Falguière in Paris. His fountain for the...

Maisonneuve, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de

(Encyclopedia)Maisonneuve, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de pōl də shômdāˈ syör də māzôNnövˈ [key], 1612–76, founder and first governor of Montreal, b. France. A soldier, he fought in European wars before be...

Malte-Brun, Conrad

(Encyclopedia)Malte-Brun, Conrad kônˈräᵺ mälˈtə-bro͞onˌ, Fr. mältə-brôNˈ [key], 1775–1826, Danish geographer, b. Jutland but later settled in Paris; originally named Malthe Konrad Bruun. He is respo...