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Columbus (opera)
''Columbus'' is a 1933 opera by Werner Egk. Originally a radio opera, Egk revised it in 1942 for the stage. The Munich premiere was acclaimed in the press and joined the year's repertoire at the Freiburg Theatre, though some dissented. The lack of melody in the opera brought negative comment from Richard Strauss in comparison to Meyerbeer's grand opera on the life of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama ''L'Africaine''.Michael H. Kater ''Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits'', 0195099249 (2000) p.212: "To Werner Egk, in alliance with whom Strauss would face Joseph Goebbels over serious-music rights in 1941, Strauss reportedly said in his best Bavarian dialect around that time, with reference to Egk's ''Columbus'': 'So you are the new Meyerbeer but without melody." Recording *''Columbus'' - Ernst Gutstein, Fritz Wunderlich, Hans Herbert Fiedler, Willy Ferenz, Georg Pappas, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Werner Egk Werner Egk (, 17 May 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Egk
Werner Egk (, 17 May 1901 – 10 July 1983), born Werner Joseph Mayer, was a German composer. Early career He was born in the Swabian town of Auchsesheim, today part of Donauwörth, Germany. His family, of Catholic peasant stock, moved to Augsburg when Egk was six. He studied at a Benedictine Gymnasium (Germany), Gymnasium (academic high school) and entered the municipal Music school, conservatory. Egk demonstrated talents as a composer, graphic artist, and writer, and he moved first to Frankfurt to improve his piano talents and then, in 1921, to Munich. There, working as a theater composer and playing in the Orchestra pit, pit, he married Elizabeth Karl, a violinist. He derived his pen name "Egk" from his wife's initials: ''Elisabeth, Karl'' (Elisabeth, née Karl). His only son, Titus, was born in 1924. Egk moved to Berlin in 1928, meeting composers Arnold Schoenberg and Hanns Eisler. He intended to become a cinema composer and accompanied silent films. When radio broadcasting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Opera
Radio opera (German: 'Funkoper' or 'Radiooper') is a genre of opera. It refers to operas which were specifically composed to be performed on the radio and is not to be confused with broadcasts of operas which were originally written for the stage. Radio operas were generally shorter than staged operas and some occupied less than fifteen minutes. Plots were usually more straightforward than those of stage operas. Lionel Salter: ''Radio'' in Sadie, vol. 3, pp. 1212-1214. The earliest radio operas were broadcast in the 1920s and followed earlier broadcasts of plays with incidental music. The first radio opera seems to have been '' The Red Pen'', composed by Geoffrey Toye to a libretto by A. P. Herbert. It was originally aired by the British Broadcasting Corporation on March 24, 1925."Broadcasting", ''The Times'', 20 March 1925, p. 6 Germany followed with Gustav Kneip's Christmas opera for children, ''Christkinds Erdenreise'' (The Christ-child's journey on Earth), 24 December 192 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Kennedy (music Critic)
George Michael Sinclair Kennedy CBE (19 February 1926 – 31 December 2014) was an English music critic and author who specialized in classical music. For nearly two decades he was the chief classical music critic for both ''The Daily Telegraph'' (1986–2005) and ''The Sunday Telegraph'' (1989–2005). A prolific writer, he was the biographer of many composers and musicians, including Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Barbirolli, Mahler, Strauss, Britten, Boult and Walton. Other notable publications include writings on various musical institutions, the editing of music dictionaries as well as numerous articles for ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' and the subsequent ''Grove Music Online''. Life and career On 19 February 1926 Kennedy was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester, and attended Berkhamsted School. On 17 November 1941, he joined the Manchester office of ''Daily Telegraph'' at age 15, as a tea boy. In his youth, Kennedy auditioned for a role in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early Modernism (music), 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 harmony, 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. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was ''Don Juan (Strauss), 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 (Strauss), Don Quixote'', ''Ein Heldenleben'', ''Symph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and Orchestra, orchestras. The original productions consisted of spectacular design and stage effects with plots normally based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied (sometimes specifically used in its French-language equivalent grand opéra, ) to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1860; 'grand opéra' has sometimes been used to denote the Paris Opéra itself. The term 'grand opera' is also used in a broader application in respect of contemporary or later works of similar monumental proportions from France, Germany, Italy, and other countries. It may also be used colloquially in an imprecise sense to refer to 'serious opera without spoken dialogue'. Origins Paris at the turn of the 19th century drew in many composers, both French and foreign, especially those of opera. Several Italians working durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'Africaine
''L'Africaine'' (''The African Woman'') is an 1837 five-act French ''grand opéra'' by Giacomo Meyerbeer, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe. By 1852, the plot had been revised to depict fictional events in the life of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, adopting his Gallicized name as its working title, ''Vasco de Gama''. The full score was copied the day before Meyerbeer died in 1864. François-Joseph Fétis's published edition, ''L'Africaine'', premiered in 1865 at the Paris Opéra and was long performed. Since 2013, some productions and recordings have applied revisions, including the title ''Vasco de Gama'', based on Meyerbeer's manuscript, from which Casa Ricordi published a Historical editions (music), critical edition in 2018. Composition The first contract between Meyerbeer and Scribe for the writing of the libretto was signed in May 1837. The starting point for the story was "Le Mancenillier", a poem by Charles Hubert Millevoye, in which a girl sits under a tree releasin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Gutstein
Ernst Gutstein (15 May 1924 – 24 February 1998) was an Austrian operatic baritone. He made an international career and also performed regularly at the Vienna State Opera. His repertoire included both tragic and comic characters, one of his signature roles being Faninal in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' by Richard Strauss. Gutstein created several roles in world premieres, such as Fortner's Perlimplin at the 1962 Schwetzingen Festival. Life and career Born in Vienna, Gutstein studied singing at the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien with Josef Witt and the baritone Hans Duhan, among others. His debut as an opera singer took place in 1948 at the Landestheater Innsbruck as Don Fernando in Beethoven's ''Fidelio''. Engagements followed at the Theater Hagen (1952–1953), the Theater Heidelberg (1953–1954) and the Staatstheater Kassel (1954–1958). In the 1958/59 season he sang at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. From 1959 to 1962 he was a member of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Wunderlich
Friedrich "Fritz" Karl Otto Wunderlich (26 September 1930 – 17 September 1966) was a German lyric tenor, famed for his singing of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart repertory and various lieder. He died in an accident aged 35. Biography Wunderlich was born in Kusel in the Palatinate (region), Palatinate, Germany. His mother was a violinist and his father was a choirmaster. For a short time, the family kept the inn "Emrichs Bräustübl" (Emrich's Brewing Cottage). Fritz's father lost his job due to pressure imposed upon him by local Nazis, in addition to suffering from a severe battlefield injury. He died by suicide when Fritz was five years old. Fritz mastered several instruments while still a schoolboy and when he entered the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg in 1950, his principal study was the French horn, horn. Then the singing teacher discovered and trained his voice. Wunderlich was soon noted as a brilliant young tenor, especially in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozartian rol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (, BRSO) is a German radio orchestra. Based in Munich, Germany, it is one of the city's four orchestras. The BRSO is one of two full-size symphony orchestras operated under the auspices of Bayerischer Rundfunk, or Bavarian Broadcasting (BR). Its primary concert venues are the ''Philharmonie'' of the Gasteig Cultural Centre and the ''Herkulessaal'' in the Munich Residenz. History The orchestra was founded in 1949, with members of an earlier radio orchestra in Munich as the core personnel. Eugen Jochum was the orchestra's first chief conductor, from 1949 until 1960. Subsequent chief conductors have included Rafael Kubelík, Sir Colin Davis and Lorin Maazel. Mariss Jansons was the orchestra's chief conductor from 2003 until his death in 2019. Jansons regularly campaigned for a new concert hall during his tenure. In 2010, Sir Simon Rattle first guest-conducted the BRSO. In January 2021, the BRSO announced the appointment of Rattle as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1933 Operas
Events January * January 11 – Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover. * January 28 – "Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes (in Cambridge, UK) a pamphlet entitled ''Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?'', in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls "Pakistan, Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement. * January 30 ** Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany (German Reich), Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg. ** Édouard Daladier forms a government in France in succession to Joseph Paul-Boncour. He is succeeded on October 26 by Albert Sarraut and on November 26 by Camille Chautemps. February * February 1 – Adolf Hitle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German-language Operas
German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is also an official language of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol, as well as a recognized national language in Namibia. There are also notable German-speaking communities in other parts of Europe, including: Poland (Upper Silesia), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia), Denmark (North Schleswig), Slovakia (Krahule), Romania, Hungary (Sopron), and France (Alsace). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in the Americas. German is one of the major languages of the world, with nearly 80 million native speakers and over 130 million total speakers as of 2024. It is the most spoken native language within the European Union. German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language, after English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operas By Werner Egk
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libretto, librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, Theatrical scenery, 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 conducting, 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 Western culture#Music, Western classical music, and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an sung-through, entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include :Opera genres, numerous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
