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Andrew Foster-Williams
Andrew Foster-Williams (born in Wigan, Greater Manchester) is an English operatic bass-baritone, concert singer and recitalist. Andrew Foster-Williams read music at the Royal Academy of Music in London, graduating with a first-class honours degree. He has since been made a Fellow of the Royal Academy. He won many prizes whilst at the Royal Academy; including, amongst others, The Opera Prize, The Flora Nielsen Recital Prize and The Elena Gerhardt Lieder Prize. Opera appearances include Friedrich von Telramund in Lohengrin and Kurwenal in ''Tristan und Isolde'' at la Monnaie in Brussels, the Four Villains in ''Les Contes d'Hoffmann'' in Moscow, Gunther in Götterdämmerung, Lysiart in Weber's ''Euryanthe'' for Theater an der Wien, Golaud in '' Pelléas et Mélisande'' at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and in Basel, Escamillo in ''Carmen'' for the Bregenz Festival, Albert in ''Werther'' for Washington National Opera, Hidarot in a Barrie Kosky production of Gluck's opera '' Armide'' for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town has a population of 107,732 and the wider borough of 330,714. Wigan is part of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Lancashire. Wigan was in the territory of the Brigantes, an ancient List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes, Celtic tribe that ruled much of what is now Northern England. The Brigantes were subjugated in the Roman conquest of Britain and the Roman settlement of was established where Wigan lies. Wigan was incorporated as a Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in 1246, following the issue of a charter by Henry III of England, King Henry III of England. At the end of the Middle Ages, it was one of four boroughs in Lancashire established by royal charter. The Industrial Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werther
''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on Goethe's epistolary novel ''The Sorrows of Young Werther'', which was based both on fact and on Goethe's own early life. Earlier examples of operas using the story were made by Kreutzer (1792) and Pucitta (1802). Milnes R. Werther. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. Performance history Massenet started composing ''Werther'' in 1885, completing it in 1887. He submitted it to Léon Carvalho, the director of the Paris Opéra-Comique, that year, but Carvalho declined to accept it on the grounds that the scenario was too serious. With the disruption of the fire at the Opéra-Comique and Massenet's work on other operatic projects (especially ''Esclarmonde''), it was put to one side, until the Vienna Opera, pleased with the success ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age resulted in List of compositions by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, more than 800 works representing virtually every Western classical genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphony, symphonic, concerto, concertante, chamber music, chamber, operatic, and choir, choral repertoires. Mozart is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Classical music, Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, Mozart showed Child prodigy, prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. At age five, he was already competent on keyboard and violin, had begun to compose, and performed before European r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cities by population, ninth-largest in North America. It was founded in 1642 as ''Fort Ville-Marie, Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", and is now named after Mount Royal, the triple-peaked mountain around which the early settlement was built. The city is centred on the Island of Montreal and a few, much smaller, peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. The city is east of the national capital, Ottawa, and southwest of the provincial capital, Quebec City. the city had a population of 1,762,949, and a Census geographic units of Canada#Census metropolitan areas, metropolitan population of 4,291,732, making it the List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada, second-largest metropolitan area in Canada. French l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Requiem (Verdi)
The ''Messa da Requiem'' is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi admired, and therefore also referred to as the ''Manzoni Requiem''. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, conducted by the composer, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. It was followed three days later by the same performers at La Scala. Verdi conducted his work at major venues in Europe. Verdi composed the last part of the text, ''Libera me'', first, as his contribution to the '' Messa per Rossini'' that he had begun after Gioachino Rossini had died, already contained the music that later begins the ''Dies irae'' sequence. Considered too operatic to be performed in a liturgical setting, the Requiem is usually given in concert form; it takes around 90 minutes to perform. Musicologist David Rosen calls it "probably the most fr ... [...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 List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma, to a family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron, Antonio Barezzi. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also served 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 hims ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist, and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. He gave his final performance with the San Francisco Symphony in April 2025 while fighting brain cancer. Biography Tilson Thomas was born, on December 21, 1944, in Los Angeles, California, to Ted and Roberta Thomas, a Broadway stage manager and a middle school history teacher, respectively. He is the grandson of Yiddish theater stars Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, who performed in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan. The family talent goes back to Tilson Thomas's great-grandfather, Pincus, an actor and playwright, and before that to a long line of cantors; his father, Theodor Herzl Tomashefsky (Ted Thomas), was also a poet and painter. He was an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (founded in 1981) and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position. Among the orchestra's awards and honors are an Emmy Award and 15 Grammy Awards in the past 26 years. History The early years In 1909 the Musical Association (MA) was founded by a group of San Francisco citizens with the goal of establishing a professional symphony orchestra in San Francisco. Among the founding board members of the MA was composer, lawyer, and opera librettist Joseph Redding. Redding played an instrumental role in steering the MA's board during the est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the Transition from Classical to Romantic music, transition from the Classical period (music), Classical period to the Romantic music, Romantic era. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterised as heroic. During this time, Beethoven began to grow increasingly Hearing loss, deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Born in Bonn, Beethoven displayed his musical talent at a young age. He was initially taught intensively by his father, Johann van Bee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fidelio
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Opus number, Op. 72, is the sole opera by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. The opera premiered at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The following year, Beethoven's friend Stephan von Breuning (librettist), Stephan von Breuning rewrote the libretto, shortening the work from three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, a final version was performed at the Theater am Kärntnertor, Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. As these libretto revisions were going on, Beethoven was also revising some of the music. By convention, only the final version is called ''Fidelio'', and the others are referred to as ''Leonore''. The libretto tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", Rescue opera, rescues her husband Florestan from death ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Netherlands Opera
The Dutch National Opera (DNO; formerly De Nederlandse Opera, now De Nationale Opera in Dutch) is a Dutch opera company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its present home base is the Dutch National Opera & Ballet housed in the Stopera building, a modern building designed by Cees Dam and Wilhelm Holzbauer that opened in 1986. It received the "Opera Company of the Year" award at the 2016 International Opera Awards. History The DNO was established shortly after the end of World War II as a repertory company with a permanent ensemble. In the postwar period, it toured extensively in the Netherlands from its home base in the Stadsschouwburg, a ''fin de siècle'' theatre on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam. In 1964, it was renamed ''De Nederlandse Operastichting'' (The Dutch Opera Foundation), and the company adopted a ''stagione'' orientation, inviting different soloists and artistic teams for each new production. In 1986, the company moved to the new Stopera building, which it shares with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armide (Gluck)
''Armide'' is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck, set to a libretto by Philippe Quinault. Gluck's fifth production for the Parisian stage and the composer's own favourite among his works, it was first performed on 23 September 1777 by the Paris Opera, Académie Royale de Musique in the second Salle du Palais-Royal in Paris. Background and performance history Gluck set the same libretto Philippe Quinault had written for Jean-Baptiste Lully, Lully in 1686, based on Torquato Tasso's ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (''Jerusalem Delivered''). Gluck seemed at ease in facing French traditions head-on when he composed ''Armide''. Lully and Quinault were the very founders of serious opera in France and ''Armide'' was generally recognized as their masterpiece, so it was a bold move on Gluck's part to write new music to Quinault's words. A similar attempt to write a new opera to the libretto of ''Thésée (Mondonville), Thésée'' by Jean-Joseph de Mondonville in 1765 had ended in disaster, with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
