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Gwendolyn Bradley
Gwendolyn Bradley (Gwendolyn Bradley-Willemann) is an American soprano who performed on many opera and concert stages worldwide. Early life Bradley grew up in Bishopville, South Carolina as daughter of public school educators which were involved in the civil rights movement. After her high school music teacher recognized her talent, she received voice lessons at Coker College in Hartsville. Bradley was further trained at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. Singing career Gwendolyn Bradley's debut was as Nannetta in Verdis's opera '' Falstaff'' at the Lake George Opera in 1976. After a very successful concert in New York in 1979 she established herself at the Metropolitan Opera, starting in 1981 as Nightingale in '' L'Enfant et les sortilèges'' (Ravel) and continuing for the next nine seasons singing such roles as Fiakermilli in ''Arabella'', Blondchen in ''Die Entf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Saratoga
Opera Saratoga (until January 2011, named the Lake George Opera) is a professional opera company based in Saratoga Springs, New York. It performs an annual summer festival of three fully staged operas and operettas. The company and its associated Lake George Opera Festival were founded in 1962 by Fred Patrick, a New York-based singer/actor and Juilliard graduate, and the husband of Jeanette Scovotti, a soprano who sang at the Metropolitan Opera. Early performances took place at Diamond Point on the shores of Lake George in upstate New York and later moved to the nearby town of Queensbury. John Balme was the General Director from 1988 to 1992. Since 1998, Lake George Opera's performance base has been the Spa Little Theater at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Conductor John Douglas served as the company's chorusmaster and director of the LGO's young artist program from 2002 until his death in 2010. July 1, 2014, Lawrence Edelson became the ninth General and artistic director. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Opera
The Los Angeles Opera is an American opera company in Los Angeles, California. It is the fourth-largest opera company in the United States. The company's home base is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, part of the Los Angeles Music Center. Leadership Spanish tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo was general director of Los Angeles Opera from 2003 to 2019. Domingo sang 27 different roles with the company. He has also conducted 16 different operas and numerous concerts with the company. Domingo resigned in October 2019 following numerous accusations of sexual misconduct. Los Angeles Opera subsequently hired the law firm of Gibson Dunn, under the leadership of former United States Attorney and Superior Court Judge Debra Wong Yang, to conduct an independent investigation of the accusations. After interviewing 44 individuals, Gibson Dunn found that Domingo neither engaged in sexual quid pro quo nor any professional retaliation against women who rebuffed his advances. They also conclud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central City Opera
Central City Opera is the fifth-oldest opera company in the United States, founded in 1932 by Julie Penrose and Anne Evans. Each festival is presented in the 550-seat historic Central City Opera House built in 1878 in the gold mining era town of Central City, Colorado. Pelham G. Pearce was selected in 1996 as Managing Director for Central City Opera, and he was named General/Artistic Director in May 1998, when John Moriarty became Artistic Director Emeritus. Since 2006 John Baril is the first Music director of the opera. Most recent six-week summer festivals have included both traditional and progressive works. About forty performances, including those specifically for young people, are presented each season. 2007 marked the 75th anniversary of the company and a single-season move from 3 to 4 opera productions. "Short Works" (selected ten-minute opera scenes), selected one-acts, and "Lunch & a Song" (solo luncheon performances) are produced alongside the main opera season by assi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigoletto
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. The work, Verdi's sixteenth in the genre, is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, ''La maledizione'' (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by her father. C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porgy And Bess
''Porgy and Bess'' () is an English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play '' Porgy'', itself an adaptation of DuBose Heyward's 1925 novel of the same name. ''Porgy and Bess'' was first performed in Boston on September 30, 1935, before it moved to Broadway in New York City. It featured a cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time. A 1976 Houston Grand Opera production gained it a renewed popularity after languishing in the doldrums of the 1960s and early 1970s, and it is now one of the best known and most frequently performed operas. The libretto of ''Porgy and Bess'' tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black street beggar living in the slums of Charleston. It deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and Sportin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century classical music, composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernism (music), modernist music. Stravinsky's compositional career was notable for its stylistic diversity. He first achieved international fame with three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka (ballet), Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913). The last transformed the way in which subsequent composers thought about rhythmic structure and was largely responsible for Stravinsky's enduring reputation as a revolutionary who pushed the boundaries of musical design. His "Russian phase", which continued with works such as ''Renard (Stravinsky), Renar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Contes D'Hoffmann
''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in October 1880, four months before the premiere. Composition history and sources Offenbach saw a play, , written by Barbier and Michel Carré and produced at the Odéon Theatre in Paris in 1851. After returning from America in 1876, Offenbach learned that Barbier had adapted the play, which had now set to music at the Opéra. Salomon handed the project to Offenbach. Work proceeded slowly, interrupted by the composition of profitable lighter works. Offenbach had a premonition, like Antonia, the heroine of Act 2, that he would die prior to its completion. Offenbach continued working on the opera throughout 1880, attending some rehearsals. On 5 October 1880, he died with the manuscript in his hand, just four months before the opening. Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariadne Auf Naxos
(''Ariadne on Naxos''), Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work's principal themes: the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. First version (1912) The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play '' Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.'' Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. It was first performed at the Hoftheater Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail
' () ( K. 384; ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''; also known as ') is a singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's ''Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail''. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Constanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting. Origins The company that first sponsored the opera was the ''Nationalsingspiel'' ("national Singspiel"), a pet project (1778–1783) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. The Emperor had set up the company to perform works in the German language (as opposed to the Italian opera style widely popular in Vienna). This project was ultimately given up as a failure, but along the way it produced a number of successes, mostly a series of translated works. Mozart's opera emerge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabella
''Arabella'', Op. 79, is a lyric comedy, or opera, in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. Performance history It was first performed on 1 July 1933 at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater. The opera received its premiere in the UK on 17 May 1934 at London's Royal Opera House. Two decades later, on 10 February 1955, it was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Eleanor Steber in the title role. The Met has given numerous performances of the work since that date. At the 2008 Helpmann Awards, the production by Opera Australia won the Award for Best Opera. < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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