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Elaine Bonazzi
Elaine Bonazzi (August 28, 1929 – January 29, 2019) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career from the 1950s through the 1990s. A singer with an unusually broad repertoire that encompassed both classical and contemporary works, she notably created roles in the world premieres of operas by composers Dominick Argento, David Carlson, Carlisle Floyd, Gian Carlo Menotti, Thomas Pasatieri, and Ned Rorem. In the United States she was particularly active with the New York City Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, and the Washington National Opera. Life and career Born in Endicott, New York in 1929, Bonazzi earned a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from the Eastman School of Music in 1951. She then pursued graduate music studies at Hunter College and the Juilliard School, and studied privately with Elda Ercole in New York City. In 1955 she was the contralto soloist in Johann Sebastian Bach's '' Mass in B minor'' with the Oratorio Society of New York at Hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera News
''Opera News'' was an American classical music magazine. It was published from 1936 to 2023 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild—a non-profit organization, located at Lincoln Center, that was founded to promote opera and support the Metropolitan Opera ("the Met") of New York City. ''Opera News'' was initially focused almost exclusively on the Met and its activities, providing information for listeners of the Saturday afternoon live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts. Over the years, the magazine broadened its scope to include the larger American and international opera scenes. Published monthly, ''Opera News'' offered opera-related feature articles; artist interviews; production profiles; musicological pieces; music-business reportage; reviews of performances in the U.S. and Europe; reviews of recordings, videos, books and audio equipment; and listings of opera performances and recitals in the U.S. The final Editor-in-Chief was F. Paul Driscoll. Regular contributors to the mag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (German: Help:IPA/Standard German, [ˈjoːhan zeˈbasti̯an baχ]) ( – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque music, Baroque period. He is known for his prolific output across a variety of instruments and forms, including the orchestral ''Brandenburg Concertos''; solo instrumental works such as the Cello Suites (Bach), cello suites and Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (Bach), sonatas and partitas for solo violin; keyboard works such as the ''Goldberg Variations'' and ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the ' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and choral works such as the ''St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Reception of Johann Sebastian Bach's music, Bach Revival, he has been widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family had already produced several composers when Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuthering Heights (Floyd Opera)
''Wuthering Heights'' is an opera in a prologue and three acts with music and a libretto by Carlisle Floyd. The work is adapted from Emily Brontë's 1847 novel of the same name. The opera premiered at the Santa Fe Opera on July 16, 1958, in a production directed by Irving Guttman. A revised version of the work was performed at the New York City Opera in 1959 with a cast that notably included Phyllis Curtin, Patricia Neway, and Frank Porretta. Roles Recording ''Wuthering Heights'' Georgia Jarman Kelly Markgraf Florentine Opera Company; Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The orchestra performs primarily at the Bradley Symphony Center in Allen-Bradley Hall. The orchestra also serves as the orchestra for Floren ..., Joseph Mechavich Reference Recordings: FR-721 References Operas by Carlisle Floyd English-language operas Operas 1958 operas Operas set in England ... [...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 ''Henry IV, Part 2, Part 2'', by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan. Verdi wrote ''Falstaff'', the last of his 26 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following ''Macbeth (Verdi), 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera (British Magazine)
''Opera'' is a monthly British magazine devoted to covering all things related to opera. It contains reviews and articles about current opera productions internationally, as well as articles on opera recordings, opera singers, opera companies, opera directors, and opera books. The magazine also contains major features and analysis on individual operas and people associated with opera. The magazine employs a network of international correspondents around the world who write for the magazine. Contributors to the magazine, past and present, include William Ashbrook, Martin Bernheimer, Julian Budden, Rodolfo Celletti, Alan Blyth, Elizabeth Forbes, and J.B. Steane among many others. Format ''Opera'' is printed in A5 size, with colour photos, and consists of around 130 pages. Page numbering is consecutive for a complete year (e.g. September 2009 covers pages 1033–1168). All issues since February 1950 are available online to current subscribers (through Exact Editions). His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix Theatre (New York City)
The Phoenix Theatre was a pioneering off-Broadway theatre in New York City, extant from 1953 to 1982. The Phoenix was founded by impresario Norris Houghton and T. Edward Hambleton. The project was a pioneering effort in the establishment of off-Broadway theatre. Houghton and Hambleton wanted a theatre away from Times Square, that would host a permanent company, abjure the star system (players would be listed alphabetically), produce four or five plays a season for limited engagements (contributors would be asked to sponsor an entire season rather than individual productions), and with ticket prices much lower than on Broadway. The Phoenix Theatre was established in what is now the Village East Cinema at East 12th Street and Second Avenue in the East Village, far from Broadway. The building had opened in 1926 as the Yiddish Art Theatre. History 1926–59 The Phoenix opened on December 1, 1953, with a production of ''Madam Will You Walk?'', Sidney Howard's last play, starrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mother Of Us All
''The Mother of Us All'' is a two-act opera composed by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process, almost twenty years after their first collaborative project, the opera ''Four Saints in Three Acts''. Stein wrote the libretto in the winter of 1945–46 before sending it to Thomson in March. After Stein's death in July, Thomson began working on the score, which he finished within just a few months. The opera centers around Susan B. Anthony, one of the major figures in the fight for women's suffrage in the United States, with a supporting cast of characters both fictional and based on other historical figures. Thomson famously described the work as a "pageant". Composition According to experts, Gertrude Stein's exploration of rhythm and repetition within her writing lent itself to a musical setting. Both her libretto and Thomson's orchestration were highly idiomatic, matching patriotic dialogue with "hymns, marches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassicist, and a composer of "an Olympian blend of humanity and detachment" whose "expressive voice was always carefully muted" until his late opera ''Lord Byron'' which, in contrast to all his previous work, exhibited an emotional content that rises to "moments of real passion". Biography Early years Thomson was born in Kansas City, Missouri. As a child he befriended Alice Smith, great-granddaughter of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter-day Saint movement. During his youth he often played the organ in Grace Church, (now Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral), as his piano teacher was the church's organist. After World War I, he entered Harvard University thanks to a loan from Dr. Fred M. Smith, the president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Off-Broadway
An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer than 100. An "off-Broadway production" is a production of a play (theatre), play, musical theatre, musical, or revue that appears in such a venue and adheres to related trade union and other contracts. Some shows that premiere off-Broadway are subsequently produced on Broadway. History The term originally referred to any venue, and its productions, on a street intersecting Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in Midtown Manhattan's Theater District, New York, Theater District, the hub of the American theatre industry. It later became defined by the League of Off-Broadway Theatres and Producers as a professional venue in Manhattan with a seating capacity of at least 100, but not more than 499, or a production that appears in such a venue and adhe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon (gathering), salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet. In 1933, Stein published a quasi-memoir of her Paris years, ''The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'', written in the voice of Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. The book became a literary bestseller and vaulted Stein from the relative obscurity of the cult-literature scene into the limelight of mainstream attention. Two quotes from her works have become widely known: "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose", and "there is no there there", with the lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fra Diavolo (opera)
''Fra Diavolo, ou L'hôtellerie de Terracine'' (''Fra Diavolo, or The Inn of Terracina'') is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer Daniel Auber, from a libretto by Auber's regular collaborator Eugène Scribe. It is loosely based on the life of the Itrani guerrilla leader Michele Pezza, active in southern Italy in the period 1800-1806, who went under the name of Fra Diavolo ("Brother Devil"). Diavolo fought against the French, who occupied parts of Italy, pillaging different towns on his way. Once French occupation ended, Diavolo was pardoned. When Napoleon recaptured Naples, a price was put on Diavolos head and he was hung in the public marketplace. He is now celebrated in Italian folk legends and through works like this opera. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Ventadour in Paris on 28 January 1830 and an Italian version was prepared by Auber and Scribe for performance in London in 1857. This contained new recitatives and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Auber
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (; 29 January 178212 May 1871) was a French composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire. Born into an artistic family, Auber was at first an amateur composer before he took up writing operas professionally when the family's fortunes failed in 1820. He soon established a professional partnership with the librettist Eugène Scribe that lasted for 41 years and produced 39 operas, most of them commercial and critical successes. He is mostly associated with opéra-comique and composed 35 works in that genre. With Scribe he wrote the first French grand opera, ''La muette de Portici, La Muette de Portici'' (The Dumb Woman of Portici) in 1828, which paved the way for the large-scale works of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Auber held two important official musical posts. From 1842 to 1871 he was director of France's premier music academy, the Paris Conservatoire, which he expanded and modernised. From 1852 until the fall of the Second French Empire, Second Empire i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
