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Sonya Haddad
Sonya Haddad (November 9, 1936 – June 15, 2004) was a libretto translator and surtitles, surtitler for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Life and career Haddad was born in Canton, Ohio, on November 9, 1936, and grew up in Akron. She graduated from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester in 1958. She subsequently worked in the classical music division of Columbia Records, and at ''The New York Times'' radio station WQXR-FM, WQXR. From 1960 until the early 1970s she worked at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. During that time, she also lived part-time in Rome where she worked as an interpreter. She acted as courier with the kidnappers of John Paul Getty III in 1973. Haddad was fluent in German, Italian and French. She began working at the Metropolitan Opera in 1994 and was referred to in her obituary in ''The New York Times'' as "one of the country's leading practitioners of her art". She wrote surtitles or subtitles for the Washington National O ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libretto
A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as the Mass, requiem and sacred cantata, or the story line of a ballet. ''Libretto'' (; plural ''libretti'' ), from Italian, is the diminutive of the word '' libro'' ("book"). Sometimes other-language equivalents are used for libretti in that language, ''livret'' for French works, ''Textbuch'' for German and ''libreto'' for Spanish. A libretto is distinct from a synopsis or scenario of the plot, in that the libretto contains all the words and stage directions, while a synopsis summarizes the plot. Some ballet historians also use the word ''libretto'' to refer to the 15 to 40 page books which were on sale to 19th century ballet audiences in Paris and contained a very detailed description of the ballet's story, scene by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera News
''Opera News'' is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to engender the appreciation of opera and also support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City. ''Opera News'' was initially focused primarily on the Met, particularly providing information for listeners of the Saturday afternoon live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. Over the years, the magazine has broadened its scope to include the larger American and international opera scenes. Currently published monthly, ''Opera News'' offers opera related feature articles; artist interviews; production profiles; musicological pieces; music-business reportage; reviews of performances in the United States and Europe; reviews of recordings, videos, books and audio equipment; and listings of opera performances in the U.S. The Editor-in-Chief is currently F. Paul Driscoll. Regular contributors to the m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Donna Del Lago
''La donna del lago'' (English: ''The Lady of the Lake'') is an opera composed by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola (whose verses are described as "limpid" by one critic) based on the French translationOsborne, Charles 1994, p. 94 of '' The Lady of the Lake'', a narrative poem written in 1810 by Sir Walter Scott, whose work continued to popularize the image of the romantic Scottish Highlands. Scott's basic story has been noted as coming from "the hint of an incident stemming from the frequent custom of James V, the King of Scotland, of walking through the kingdom in disguise". It was the first of the Italian operas to be based on Scott's romantic works,Gossett and Brauner (2001), in Holden (Ed.), p. 785 and marked the beginning of romanticism in Rossini's work. Scott was "deeply influential in the development of Italian romantic opera"Commons 2007, pp. 9 - 12 to the extent that by 1840 (barely 20 years after this opera), there were 25 Italian operas bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States. The publication has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by the Times Mirror Company. The newspaper’s coverage emphasizes California and especially Southern California stories. In the 19th century, the paper developed a reputation for civic boosterism and opposition to labor unions, the latter of which led to the bombing of its headquarters in 1910. The paper's profile grew substantially in the 1960s under publisher Otis Chandler, who adopted a more national focus. In recent decades the paper's readership has declined, and it has been beset by a series of ownership changes, staff reductions, and other controversies. In January 2018, the paper's staff voted to unionize and fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capriccio (opera)
''Capriccio'', Op. 85, is the final opera by German composer Richard Strauss, subtitled "A Conversation Piece for Music". It received its premiere performance at the Nationaltheater München on 28 October 1942. Strauss and Clemens Krauss wrote the German libretto, but its genesis came from Stefan Zweig in the 1930s, and Joseph Gregor further developed the idea several years later. Strauss then took it on, but finally recruited Krauss as his collaborator. Most of the final libretto is by Krauss. The opera originally consisted of a single act lasting close to two and a half hours. This, in combination with the work's conversational tone and emphasis on text, has prevented it from achieving great popularity. But at Hamburg in 1957, , who directed the opera at its premiere in Munich, inserted an interval at the point when the Countess orders chocolate, and other directors have often followed suit, including performances at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The final scene for Countess Mad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. Strauss's compositional output began in 1870 when he was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. While his output of works encompasses nearly every type of classical compositional form, Strauss achieved his greatest success with tone poems and operas. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was '' Don Juan'', and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including '' Death and Transfiguration'', '' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks'', '' Also sprach Zarathustra'', '' Don Quixote'', ''Ein Heldenl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Vespri Siciliani
''I vespri siciliani'' (; ''The Sicilian Vespers'') is a five-act Italian opera originally written in French for the Paris Opéra by the Italian romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi and translated into Italian shortly after its premiere in June 1855. Under its original title, '' Les vêpres siciliennes'', the libretto was prepared by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier from their work ''Le duc d'Albe'', which was written in 1838 and offered to Halévy and Donizetti before Verdi agreed to set it to music in 1854.Everist, p. 12 The story is loosely based on a historical event, the Sicilian Vespers of 1282, using material drawn from the medieval Sicilian tract '' Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia''. After its June 1855 Paris premiere, an Italian libretto was quickly prepared using a new title because Verdi realized that it would have been impossible to place the story in Sicily. Based on Scribe's suggestions for changing the location,Budden, pp. 238–240 it became Portugal in 1640 while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falstaff (opera)
''Falstaff'' () is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from the play ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and scenes from '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan. Verdi wrote ''Falstaff'', the last of his 28 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following ''Macbeth'' and ''Otello''. The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the fat knight Sir John Falstaff to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth. Verdi was concerned about working on a new opera at his advanced age, but he yearned to write a comic work and was pleased with Boito's draft libretto. It took the collaborators three years from mid-1889 to complete. Although the prospect of a new opera from Verdi aroused immense ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
War And Peace (opera)
''War and Peace'' (Op. 91) (russian: Война и мир, ''Voyna i mir'') is a 1946 230-minute opera in 13 scenes, plus an overture and an epigraph, by Sergei Prokofiev. Based on the 1869 novel ''War and Peace'' by Leo Tolstoy, its Russian libretto was prepared by the composer and Mira Mendelson. The first seven scenes are devoted to peace, the latter six, after the epigraph, to war. Although Tolstoy's work is classified as a novel, the 1812 invasion of Russia by the French was a historical event, and some real-life people appear as characters in both the novel and the opera, e.g. Prince Mikhail Kutuzov and Napoleon Bonaparte. Composition history Mendelson and Prokofiev's original scheme for the libretto of the opera envisaged 11 scenes, and Prokofiev began composing the music in the summer of 1942, spurred on by the German invasion of the Soviet Union which began on June 22, 1941. The description "lyric-dramatic scenes" in the libretto accurately suggests both a homage to Tch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Queen Of Spades (opera)
''The Queen of Spades'' or ''Pique Dame'', Op. 68 (russian: Пиковая дама, ''Pikovaya dama'' , french: La Dame de Pique) is an opera in three acts (seven scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on the 1834 novella of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but with a dramatically altered plot. The premiere took place in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Composition history The Imperial Theatre offered Tchaikovsky a commission to write an opera based on the plot sketch by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1887/88. After first turning it down, Tchaikovsky accepted it in 1889. Toward the end of that year, he met with the theatre's managers to discuss the material and sketch out some of the scenes. He completed the full score in Florence in only 44 days. Later, working with the tenor who was to perform the lead character, he created two versions of Herman's aria in the seventh scene, using diff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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