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Elizabeth Laurence
Elizabeth Laurence (born Elizabeth Jane Scott, 22 November 1949, Harrogate, England) is a classical mezzo-soprano singer. She is best known for her performances of 20th century operatic repertoire, and has created several operatic roles. Biography Elizabeth Laurence studied at Trinity College of Music, London. In 1986, Laurence performed Mallika (in Léo Delibes' ''Lakmé'') in Montecarlo; concerts of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1983). Often invited to sing Jocasta (Stravinsky's ''Oedipus rex'') in Madrid (1986, 1987, 2009) and Nancy (Britten's ''Albert Herring'') for Glyndebourne Touring Company (1987), she created the role of Anna Arild in Nigel Osborne's opera '' The Electrification of the Soviet Union'' (1988, 1989) and ''Terrible Mouth'' (1992). In 1988, she made the BBC film of ''Bluebeard's Castle'' by Bartok in London, having performed it in Colmar, Alsace; she premiered this work in Tbilisi (1999) and Tokyo (1997), and during concerts in Festival St Riquier, France ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brackets
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their names, that vary between British English, British and American English. "Brackets", without further qualification, are in British English the ... marks and in American English the ... marks. Other symbols are repurposed as brackets in specialist contexts, such as International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters, those used by linguists. Brackets are typically deployed in symmetric pairs, and an individual bracket may be identified as a "left" or "right" bracket or, alternatively, an "opening bracket" or "closing bracket", respectively, depending on the Writing system#Directionality, directionality of the context. In casual writing and in technical fields such as computing or linguistic analysis of grammar, brackets ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Un Re In Ascolto
''Un re in ascolto'' (''A King Listens'') is an opera by Luciano Berio, who also wrote the Italian language, Italian libretto. It is based on a short story from the collection ''Under the Jaguar Sun'' by Italo Calvino, but incorporates excerpts from Friedrich Einsiedel's 1778 libretto (as reworked by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter between 1790 and 1791) for an opera based on Shakespeare's ''The Tempest''. This became ''Die Geisterinsel (Fleischmann), Die Geisterinsel'' in 1798, set to music written by Friedrich Fleischmann. In addition, W. H. Auden's ''The Sea and the Mirror, The Sea and the Mirror: A Commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest'' was a source. Berio himself described the work as an ''azione musicale'' (musical action) rather than an opera. It falls into 19 sections grouped into two parts. The work was written from 1981 to 1983 and it received its premiere at the Kleines Festspielhaus in Salzburg on 7 August 1984, conducted by Lorin Maazel, directed by Götz Friedrich, with se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gambler (Prokofiev)
''The Gambler'' (Russian: Игрок — ''Igrok'' in transliteration) is an opera in four acts by Sergei Prokofiev to a Russian libretto by the composer, based on the 1866 story of the same name by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Prokofiev had decided on this story as an operatic subject in 1914, and the conductor Albert Coates, of the Mariinsky Theatre, encouraged Prokofiev to compose this opera and assured him of a production at that theatre. Prokofiev wrote the opera in piano score between November 1915 and April 1916, and completed the orchestration in January 1917. Vsevolod Meyerhold was engaged as stage director. However, in the wake of the 1917 February Revolution, that production never occurred. Performance history The opera did not receive its first performance until 1929, after it had been extensively revised (in 1927), at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Brussels. Prokofiev prepared an orchestral suite based on the opera in 1931 (see below). The Bolshoi Opera perform ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite ''Trois mouvements perpétuels'' (1919), the ballet ''Les biches'' (1923), the ''Concert champêtre'' (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (Poulenc), Organ Concerto (1938), the opera ''Dialogues des Carmélites'' (1957), and the ''Gloria (Poulenc), Gloria'' (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. He studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made the acquaintance of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialogues Des Carmelites
' (, ''Dialogues of the Carmelites''), FP 159, is an opera in three acts, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc, completed in 1956. Poulenc wrote the libretto for his second opera after the work of the same name by Georges Bernanos, itself based on ''The Song at the Scaffold'' by Gertrud von Le Fort. This is a fictionalized version of the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation. The world première of the opera occurred (in Italian translation) on 26 January 1957 at La Scala in Milan. The première of the French-language version took place in Paris on 21 June 1957. The United States première, in English, followed in San Francisco in September 1957. Development Bernanos had been hired in 1947 to write the dialogue for a film screenplay, throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Visage Nuptial
''Le Visage nuptial'' (''The Nuptial Face'') is a secular cantata for soprano, contralto, choir of women and orchestra by Pierre Boulez. Originally composed in 1946–47 on a poem by René Char for two voices, two ondes Martenot, piano and percussion, the work, revised in 1951–52 in a version for voices and orchestra, was premiered on 4 December 1957 in Cologne conducted by the composer. The score was further revised in 1989, removing the quarter tones present in the second and fifth parts of the 1951–52 version, while revising the orchestration. A version with final revisions by the composer was premiered on 25 February 2014 at the Cité de la Musique in Paris during the closing concert of the festival ''Présences'' of Radio France. Instrumentation The piece is scored for soprano solo, alto solo, women's choir, and an orchestra consisting of nine percussionists: ; Woodwinds :4 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo, 4th doubling on G flute) :3 oboes :English horn :3 clarinets ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armin Jordan
Armin Jordan (9 April 1932 – 20 September 2006) was a Swiss conductor known for his interpretations of French music, Mozart and Wagner. Armin Jordan was born in Lucerne, Switzerland. "Mr. Jordan was a large man, with a slab of a face and a full mouth, often twisted in a sardonic smile, and his powerful physical presence belied the careful near-understatement of his conducting", noted ''The New York Times'' in his obituary. Jordan was most unusual at a time when conductors flew about the world from one engagement to another. For the most part he stayed close to home in Switzerland and France. After leading a number of Swiss orchestras he became principal conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Geneva, in 1985, a position he held until 1997. Armin Jordan did not conduct in the United States until 1985. He appeared in Seattle and New York City. Seattle scheduled him for Wagner's ''Ring'' in 2000 and 2001, but he had to withdraw after a few performances in 2000 because of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gawain
Gawain ( ), also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Matter of Britain, Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and one of the premier Knights of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest Welsh sources. He has subsequently appeared in many Arthurian tales in Welsh, Latin, French, English, Scottish, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Italian, notably as the protagonist of the Middle English poem ''Sir Gawain and the Green Knight''. Other works featuring Gawain as their central character include ''De Ortu Waluuanii'', ''Diu Crône'', ''Ywain and Gawain'', ''Golagros and Gawane'', ''Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle'', ''L'âtre périlleux'', ''La Mule sans frein'', ''La Vengeance Raguidel'', ''Le Chevalier à l'épée'', ''Vulgate Cycle, Le Livre d'Artus'', ''The Awntyrs off Arthure'', ''The Greene Knight'', and ''The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Birtwistle (15 July 1934 – 18 April 2022) was an English composer of contemporary classical music best known for his operas, often based on mythological subjects. Among his many compositions, his better known works include '' The Triumph of Time'' (1972) and the operas '' The Mask of Orpheus'' (1986), '' Gawain'' (1991), and '' The Minotaur'' (2008). The last of these was ranked by music critics at ''The Guardian'' in 2019 as the third-best piece of the 21st century. Even his compositions that were not written for the stage often showed a theatrical approach. A performance of his saxophone concerto '' Panic'' during the BBC's Last Night of the Proms caused "national notoriety". He received many international awards and honorary degrees. Life and career Early life Harrison Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire around 20 miles north of Manchester. His parents, Fred and Madge Birtwistle, ran a bakery, and his interest in music was encourag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental music, experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia (Berio), Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work in electronic music. His early work was influenced by Igor Stravinsky and experiments with serial and electronic techniques, while his later works explore indeterminacy and the use of spoken texts as the basic material for composition. Biography Berio was born in Oneglia (now part of Imperia (City), Imperia), on the Ligurian coast of Italy. He was taught piano by his father and grandfather, who were both organ (music), organists. During World War II, he was conscripted into the army, but on his first day, he injured his hand while learning how a gun worked and spent time in a military hospital. Following the war, Berio studied at the Milan Conservatory under Giulio Cesare Paribeni and Giorgio Federic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (now known collectively as the Royal Ballet and Opera). The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
