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Donnie Ray Albert
Donnie Ray Albert (born January 10, 1950) is an American operatic baritone who has had an active international career since 1976. Life and career Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Albert graduated from McKinley Senior High School in 1968. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Louisiana State University in 1972. He went on to earn a Master of Music degree from Southern Methodist University where he studied with Thomas Hayward.East Baton Rouge Parish Library"Our African American Legacy: Donnie Ray Albert, M.M., Bass/Baritone" Albert made his professional opera debut in May 1975 at the Houston Grand Opera in Scott Joplin's ''Treemonisha''. The following year he returned to that house to sing the role of Jake Wallace in Giacomo Puccini's ''La Fanciulla del West'' and portray Porgy to the Bess of Clamma Dale in a highly lauded production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess''. The production was transported to Broadway in New York City where it ran for a total of 122 performances ... [...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 styles o ... [...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' Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tulsa Opera
Tulsa Opera is an American opera company based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Originally an amateur performance group named the Tulsa Opera Club (established 1948), the company was incorporated as a professional organization in 1953. Performances for the company were originally presented at the Tulsa Theater (the "Old Lady on Brady") until the Tulsa Performing Arts Center (TPAC) opened in 1977. The company currently presents an annual season of three staged operas at the TPAC. Numerous well known singers have performed in operas with the company, including Beverly Sills, Anna Moffo, Roberta Peters, Richard Tucker, Renata Scotto, Cornell MacNeil, Samuel Ramey, Simon Estes, and Jerry Hadley among many others. In addition to staged operas, the company has also presented concerts and recitals featuring artists like Barbara Cook, Susan Graham, Luciano Pavarotti, Leontyne Price, and Joan Sutherland. Opera composer and pianist Tobias Picker currently serves as the company's artistic director. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its performances take place in the Keller Auditorium and Newmark Theatre, both part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Portland Opera also produces a separate subscription series of touring Broadway musicals, which also take place at the Keller Auditorium. History Portland Opera was founded as the Portland Opera Association in 1964 by the conductor Henry Holt. Its first performance was Strauss' ''Die Fledermaus'', the only opera presented that season. Holt served as the company's General Director for the first two years of existence. The next General Director post was the Austrian conductor Herbert Weiskopf, who died of a heart attack in March 1970 after conducting a performance of ''Lucia di Lammermoor''. The conductor Stefan Minde then took over as General Director and served until 1984, followed by Robert Bailey, a stage director, and National Public Radio's first D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Orleans Opera
Opera has long been part of the musical culture of New Orleans, Louisiana. Operas have regularly been performed in the city since the 1790s, and since the early 19th century, New Orleans has had a resident company regularly performing opera in addition to theaters hosting traveling performers and companies. Earlier opera houses Operas were staged at a variety of theaters in the city, the first documented was André Grétry's ''Sylvain'' at the Theatre de la Rue Saint Pierre on 22 May 1796. On 30 January 1808, the Théâtre St. Philippe was opened with the U.S. premiere of Étienne Méhul's ''Une folie''. The U.S. premiere of Luigi Cherubini's '' Les deux journées'' took place at this theater on 12 March 1811. The city's most famous opera venue between 1819 and 1859 was the Théâtre d'Orléans. That theater was succeeded in 1859 by the French Opera House, located on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Living in a cosmopolitan city, New Orleans' inhabitants, whether high i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Worth Opera
Fort Worth Opera is the oldest continually-performing opera company in the state of Texas and among the oldest in the United States, according to the company. While originally presenting operas one at a time over a fall/winter season, it changed to a "festival" format in 2007. It now performs three to four operas per year each spring in Bass Performance Hall, located in the downtown area of Fort Worth, Texas. In 2021, as the company celebrated its 75th anniversary season, Fort Worth Opera left the Festival format after fourteen years and returned to year-round programming. History The Fort Worth Civic Opera Association, now known as Fort Worth Opera, was founded by three women, Eloise MacDonald Snyder and Betty Spain, both former opera singers, and pianist and composer Jeanne Axtell Walker. In seven months, the trio pulled together a full-scale production of Verdi's ''La Traviata,'' performed on November 25, 1946, in a building now known as the Cowtown Coliseum, located in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is an American opera company located in Dallas, Texas. The company performs at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, one venue of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. History The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Lawrence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.Loomis, George "''Otello'', Dallas Opera", ''Financial Times'', 26 October 2009).] In its first season, Maria Callas performed in an inaugural recital conducted by Rescigno, at Music Hall at Fair Park. Critic John Ardoin described the role of Laurence Kelly in establishing the company as follows: : “Everything must ride or fall on the taste of one man…. As it did with Kelly and his company. He went through all kinds of crap for 10 months out of the year -- mean fund-raising and playing social games and all -- to do what he loved the most for two months out of the ye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States (after the New York Metropolitan Opera). Beginning with its first season in 1920, Cincinnati Opera has produced operas in the summer months of June and July with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra providing orchestral accompaniment. History The company, originally named Cincinnati Opera Association, gave its first performance, Flotow's '' Martha'', on Sunday, June 27, 1920. During its early years, the company was under the direction of Ralph Lyford, an American composer and conductor whose single opera ''Castle Agrazant would receive its world premiere at Cincinnati Music Hall on April 29, 1926, following Lyford's departure from Cincinnati Opera in 1925. From 1956-1990 the company ran a singing competition known as the American Opera Auditions. For most of its first fifty years, Cincinnati Opera's performances were held at the Cincinnati Zoo Pav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltimore Opera
The Baltimore Opera Company (BOC) was an opera company in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A., based at the Baltimore Lyric Opera House. On 12 March 2009, the 58-year-old opera company announced plans to pursue Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation, the result of the company having filed a petition on 10 December 2008 under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. Amongst the reasons cited were "dwindling ticket sales and contributions". Productions of Gioachino Rossini's ''Il Barbiere di Siviglia'' and George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', scheduled respectively for March and May 2009, were canceled, and ticket-holders did not receive refunds. The former home of the now defunct BOC, the Lyric Opera House, is a music venue modeled after the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, building inaugurated on 31 October 1894 with a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Australian opera singer Nellie Melba as the featured soloist. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operissimo Concertissimo
Operissimo is an online database based in Zürich which is dedicated to recording details of classical music concerts and opera performances. The database currently includes biographies on over 7,500 composers and 44,000 performing artists,"Operissimo" encompassing both historical and contemporary figures. The biographies contain articles, without attribution, based on the third edition of the ''''. It also includes details on more than 47,000 performances, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lyric Opera Of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1954, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicola Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in ''Norma''. The company was re-organized by Fox in 1956 under its present name and, after her 1981 departure, it has continued to be of one of the major opera companies in the United States. The Lyric is housed in a theater and related spaces in the Civic Opera Building. These spaces are now owned by the Lyric. Opera in Chicago 1850–1954 The first opera to be performed in Chicago was Bellini's ''La sonnambula'', presented by a traveling opera company on 29 July 1850. Chicago's first opera house opened in 1865 but was destroyed in the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871. The second opera house, the Chicago Auditorium, opened in 1889. In 1929 the current Civic Opera House on 20 North Wacker Drive was opened, thoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington National Opera
The Washington National Opera (WNO) is an American opera company in Washington, D.C. Formerly the Opera Society of Washington and the Washington Opera, the company received Congressional designation as the National Opera Company in 2000. Performances are now given in the Opera House of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Opera in Washington, DC had become established after World War I and it did flourish for a time as the Washington National Opera Association until the Depression and World War Two years, and into the 1960s in various outdoor opera venues. However, with the establishment of the Opera Society of Washington in 1956–57, the way was laid for a company to function in the city, especially after the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971 and its move there in 1979. After making initial appearances with the company from 1986 onwards, tenor Plácido Domingo took over as general director in 1996, a post which he held until June 2011, after which the com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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