TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you're given passages that contain mentions of names of people, places, or things. Some of these mentions refer to the same person, place, or thing. Your job is to write questions that evaluate one's understanding of such references. Good questions are expected to link pronouns (she, her, him, his, their, etc.) or other mentions to people, places, or things to which they may refer. Do not ask questions that can be answered correctly without understanding the paragraph or having multiple answers. Avoid questions that do not link phrases referring to the same entity. For each of your questions, the answer should be one or more phrases in the paragraph, and it should be unambiguous.
PROBLEM: Passage: Handel's earliest opera compositions, in the German style, date from his Hamburg years, 1704–06, under the influence of Johann Mattheson. In 1706 he traveled to Italy where he remained for three years, developing his compositional skills. He first settled in Florence where he was introduced to Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti. His first opera composed in Italy, though still reflecting the influence of Hamburg and Mattheson, was Rodrigo (1707, original title Vincer se stesso ê la maggior vittoria), was presented there. It was not particularly successful, but was part of Handel's process of learning to compose opera in the Italian style and to set Italian words to music.Handel then spent time in Rome, where the performance of opera was forbidden by Papal decree, and in Naples. He applied himself to the composition of cantatas and oratorios; at that time there was little difference (apart from increasing length) between cantata, oratorio and opera, all based on the alternation of secco recitative and aria da capo. Works from this period include Dixit Dominus and the dramatic cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, written in Naples. While in Rome, probably through Alessandro Scarlatti, Handel had become acquainted with Cardinal Grimani, a distinguished diplomat who wrote libretti in his spare time, and acted as an unofficial theatrical agent for the Italian royal courts. He was evidently impressed by Handel and asked him to set his new libretto, Agrippina. Grimani intended to present this opera at his family-owned theatre in Venice, the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, as part of the 1709–10 Carnevale season.

SOLUTION: What is the name of the person that traveled to Italy in 1706?

PROBLEM: Passage: The Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, also known as the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (Polish: Symfonia pieśni żałosnych), is a symphony in three movements composed by Henryk Górecki in Katowice, Poland, between October and December 1976. The work is indicative of the transition between Górecki's dissonant earlier manner and his more tonal later style and "represented a stylistic breakthrough: austerely plaintive, emotionally direct and steeped in medieval modes." It was premièred on 4 April 1977, at the Royan International Festival, with Stefania Woytowicz as soprano and Ernest Bour as conductor.A solo soprano sings Polish texts in each of the three movements. The first is a 15th-century Polish lament of Mary, mother of Jesus, the second a message written on the wall of a Gestapo cell during World War II, and the third a Silesian folk song of a mother searching for her son killed by the Germans in the Silesian uprisings. The first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, and the second movement from that of a child separated from a parent. The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood and separation through war.
Until 1992, Górecki was known only to connoisseurs, primarily as one of several composers from the Polish School responsible for the postwar Polish music renaissance. That year, Elektra-Nonesuch released a recording of the 15-year-old symphony performed by the London Sinfonietta, that topped the classical charts in Britain and the United States. To date, it has sold more than a million copies, vastly exceeding the expected lifetime sales of a typical symphonic recording by a 20th-century composer. This success, however, has not generated similar interest in Górecki's other works.

SOLUTION: What is the alternative name of the symphony that premiered on 4 April?

PROBLEM: Passage: Though she did not again win the Sulman, she was successful in having works hung in that competition on many occasions, including the 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950 shows. Bellette continued to paint classical scenes, and around 1950 produced the work Chorus without Iphigenia. Purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1976, this oil painting shows five figures, "posed like statues in a tableau vivant, [and who] possess a kind of erotic energy". Anne Gray, the National Gallery's curator, interpreted the scene chosen by Bellette:
Although nothing is happening in this image, we associate the figures with tragedy, with death and mourning – with the classical reference in the painting's title. Iphigenia, Agamemnon's daughter, gave her life for her country when the goddess Artemis asked for it in exchange for favourable winds so that the Greek ships could sail to Troy. Bellette's melancholic painting might be supposed to portray Iphigenia's friends mourning her death.
In 1951, Bellette came second in the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Competition, behind the young Jeffrey Smart. The following year, she won a competitive exhibition sponsored by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, with Girl With Still Life.Although Haefliger never critiqued his wife's exhibitions, others occasionally stepped in to provide reviews in the Herald. Describing her 1950 exhibition at the Macquarie Galleries, one critic considered it "one of the most stimulating and refreshing that has been seen here for a long time" and that "She paints with a strong, sombre palette and her forms are sculptured with great decision. She uses paint sensuously and passionately, as paint, not as so many contemporary Australians do, as mere colour".Two years later, the same reviewer, attending another of the artist's solo Sydney shows, observed that Bellette: 
is one of the few Australian artists here who combines a firm technique with a sensitive and rich emotion. In some of the lighter landscapes in this exhibition, Miss Bellette seems to have been trying to solve some of the particular difficulties of painting Australian landscapes. The clear, strong light tends to flatten the form and bleach the colour; a problem that doesn't lend itself to the dramatic tensions and dark moods that are characteristic of her work. It requires a colder and more dispassionate approach. But when she finds landscapes to her taste, such as the rugged hills and beetling clouds in No. 8, the earth decaying with erosion in No. 19, or the prickly desolation of "Rough Country", No. 14, she handles them with great skill and effectiveness. Her figure drawings are decisively drawn and firmly modelled. The girls have a pensive dignity as though they are pondering the burdens and joylessness of a future to be spent as caryatids. The still lives and the interior are admirable exercises in formal organisation, the colours being sombre yet rich.

SOLUTION:
What is the name of the painting by the woman who painted classical scenes that won an exhibition sponsored by Metro Goldwyn Mayer?