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Friedenstag
''Friedenstag'' (''Peace Day'') is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, his Opus 81 and TrV 271, to a German libretto by Joseph Gregor. The opera was premiered at the National Theatre Munich on 24 July 1938 and dedicated to the leading singer Viorica Ursuleac and her husband, conductor Clemens Krauss. Strauss had intended ''Friedenstag'' as part of a double-bill, to be conducted by Karl Böhm in Dresden, that would include as the second part his next collaboration with Gregor, ''Daphne''. The opera thematically expresses anti-war sentiments, which William Mann has described as "a determined counter to the militaristic policies of Nazi Germany". These caused the work to be shelved after the outbreak of World War II. Composition history Stefan Zweig came up with the idea of the opera, which he outlined in a letter to Strauss following up a meeting between the two at the Salzburg Festival in 1934. Both Zweig and Strauss were united in their common opposition to the growing mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Gregor
Joseph Gregor (* 26 October 1888 Czernowitz – 12 October 1960 Vienna) was an Austrian writer, theater historian and librettist. He served as director of the Austrian National Library. Life and career Joseph Gregor was born in Czernowitz. He studied musicology and philosophy at Vienna University, graduating in 1911. He worked under Max Reinhardt as assistant director and from 1912-1914 as a lecturer in music at the Franz-Josephs-University of Chernivtsi. He was employed at the Austrian National Library in Vienna in 1918. There he founded the Theater Collection in 1922, in which he included film after 1929. He also taught from 1932–1938 and 1943–1945 at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar for actors, being granted the title "Professor" in 1933. Gregor wrote several illustrated pamphlets like the one published in 1930 and titled: ''Wiens letzte große Theaterzeit'' ("Vienna's Last Great Theater Epoch"). It was volume 12 in the series ''Denkmäler des Theaters'' ("Theater Monuments") wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alessandra Marc
Alessandra Marc, born Judith Borden (born July 29, 1957) is an American dramatic soprano who has appeared at many of the world's opera houses and orchestras. Marc is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, music of the Second Viennese School, and the title role in Puccini's ''Turandot''. Early life and education Alessandra Marc was born Judith Borden in Berlin, Germany to a German mother and an American father who worked for the United States Army. Marc spent much of her childhood traveling around the world as an "army brat". Her parents ultimately divorced, and she spent her high school years in the Baltimore area. Marc first became interested in becoming an opera singer while attending Glen Burnie High School, where she began taking voice lessons. Marc studied at the University of Maryland and privately with soprano Marilyn Cotlow, who originated the role of Lucy in Menotti's '' The Telephone''. Under C ... [...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] |
Viorica Ursuleac
Viorica Ursuleac (26 March 1894 – 22 October 1985) was a Romanian operatic dramatic soprano. Life and career Ursuleac was born the daughter of a Greek Orthodox archdeacon, in Chernivtsi, which is now in Ukraine, on 26 March 1894. Following training in Vienna, she made her operatic debut in Zagreb (Agram), as Charlotte in Massenet's ''Werther'', in 1922. The soprano then appeared at the Vienna Volksoper (1924–1926), Frankfurt Opera (1926–1930), Vienna State Opera (1930–1935), Berlin State Opera (1935–1937), and Bavarian State Opera (1937–1944). She met and later married the Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss in Frankfurt during her time there. Ursuleac was Richard Strauss's favorite soprano, and he called her ("the most faithful of all the faithful"). She sang in the world premieres of four of his operas: ''Arabella'' (1933), '' Friedenstag'' (which was dedicated to Ursuleac and Krauss, 1938), '' Capriccio'' (1942), and the public dress-rehearsal of '' Die Liebe der D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Theatre Munich
The National Theatre () on Max-Joseph-Platz in Munich, Germany, is a historic opera house, home of the Bavarian State Opera, Bavarian State Orchestra and the Bavarian State Ballet. With 2,101 seats, the theatre is the country's largest opera house. Building First theatre – 1818 to 1823 The first theatre was commissioned in 1810 by King Maximilian I of Bavaria because the nearby Cuvilliés Theatre had too little space. It was designed by Karl von Fischer, with the 1782 Odéon in Paris as architectural precedent. Construction began on 26 October 1811 but was interrupted in 1813 by financing problems. In 1817 a fire occurred in the unfinished building. The new theatre finally opened on 12 October 1818 with a performance of ''Die Weihe'' by Ferdinand Fränzl, but was soon destroyed by another fire on 14 January 1823; the stage décor caught fire during a performance of ''Die beyden Füchse'' by Étienne Méhul and the fire could not be put out because the water supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clemens Krauss
Clemens Heinrich Krauss (31 March 189316 May 1954) was an Austrian conducting, conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss and Richard Wagner. He founded the Vienna New Year's Concert, New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted it until 1954. Family and early life Krauss was born in Vienna to Clementine Krauss, then a 15-year-old dancer in the Vienna Vienna State Opera, Imperial Opera Ballet, later a leading actress and operetta singer, niece of the prominent nineteenth-century operatic soprano Gabrielle Krauss. His natural father, Chevalier Hector (1851-1916), came from a family of wealthy Phanariotes, Phanariot bankers resident in Vienna. Baltazzi's older sister Helene von Vetsera, Helene was married to Baron Albin von Vetsera and was the mother of Baroness Mary Vetsera, who was accordingly Clemens Krauss' first cousin. Krauss sang in the Hofkapelle (Imperial Choir) as a Vienna Choir Boy because ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter (19 January 19096 December 2003) was a German operatic bass-baritone. He stood and his appearance was striking. His voice and diction were equally recognisable. Early life and career Born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, Hotter studied with Matthäus Roemer in Munich. He worked as an organist and choirmaster before making his operatic debut in Opava in 1930. He performed in Germany and Austria under the Nazi regime, avoiding pressure on performers to join the Nazi Party, and made some appearances outside the country, including concerts under the baton of Bruno Walter in Amsterdam, who advised him that if Hotter could not leave his family members he had little alternative but to remain in Germany. Hotter was unable to pursue an international career until his Covent Garden debut in 1947. After that, he sang in all the major opera houses of Europe. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the title character in ''Der fliegende Holländer'' in 1950. In four seasons at the Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Lundberg
Mark Lundberg (25 March 1958 – 15 August 2008) was an American opera singer who had an active international career from the 1980s up until his sudden death in 2008. He began his career as a bass, then progressed to portraying baritone parts, and finally settled as a dramatic tenor, winning acclaim portraying Wagnerian heroes like Siegfried, Tristan and other standards of the dramatic repertoire. Samson from Saint-Saëns's '' Samson and Delilah'' and the title role in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Otello'' became "calling cards" for him. Standing at six and a half feet and possessing a big frame and a dark beard, Lundberg made a striking figure on stage. His shoulders measured 6 and a half feet around and the Denver Post once Described as "a big blonde bear of a man", a fitting description for such a large man Biography Born in Denver, Colorado, Lundberg was the son of an Episcopalian priest, and his earliest music experiences were singing in his father's church choir. He studied singing a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stefan Zweig
Stefan Zweig ( ; ; 28 November 1881 – 22 February 1942) was an Austrian writer. At the height of his literary career, in the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and popular writers in the world. Zweig was raised in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. He wrote historical studies of famous literary figures, such as Honoré de Balzac, Charles Dickens, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in ''Drei Meister'' (1920; ''Three Masters''), and decisive historical events in ''Decisive Moments in History'' (1927). He wrote biographies of Joseph Fouché (1929), Mary, Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart (1935) and Marie Antoinette (''Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman'', 1932), among others. Zweig's best-known fiction includes ''Letter from an Unknown Woman'' (1922), ''Amok (novella), Amok'' (1922), ''Fear (Zweig novella), Fear'' (1925), ''Confusion (novella), Confusion of Feelings'' (1927), ''Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman'' (1927), the Psychological fiction, psychologica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Schweigsame Frau
''Die schweigsame Frau'' (''The Silent Woman''), Op. 80, is a 1935 comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a libretto by Stefan Zweig after Ben Jonson's 1609 comedy '' Epicœne, or The Silent Woman''. Composition history Since '' Elektra'' and '' Der Rosenkavalier'', with only the exception of '' Intermezzo'', all previous operas by Strauss were based on libretti by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who died in 1929. Stefan Zweig, who was then a celebrated author, had never met Strauss, who was his senior by 17 years. In his autobiography '' The World of Yesterday'', Zweig describes how Strauss got in touch with him after Hofmannsthal's death to ask him to write a libretto for a new opera. Zweig chose a theme from Ben Jonson. Politics of the opera Strauss was seen as an important icon of German music by the Nazis, who had seized power in Germany in April 1933. Strauss himself co-operated with the Nazis and became the president of the in November 1933. Zweig knew Strauss well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daphne (opera)
''Daphne'', Op. 82, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, subtitled "Bucolic Tragedy in One Act". The German libretto was by Joseph Gregor. The opera is based loosely on the mythological figure Daphne from Ovid's '' Metamorphoses'' and includes elements taken from '' The Bacchae'' by Euripides. Performance history The first performance of the opera took place at the Semperoper in Dresden on 15 October 1938. It was originally intended as a double bill with Strauss' '' Friedenstag'', but as the scale of ''Daphne'' grew, that idea was abandoned. The conductor of the first performance was Karl Böhm, to whom the opera was dedicated. The United States premiere of the opera was performed on October 10, 1960 in a concert version at Town Hall in Manhattan with Gloria Davy in the title role, Florence Kopleff as Gaea, Robert Nagy as Leukippos, Jon Crain as Apollo, Lawrence Davidson as Peneios, and The Little Orchestra Society under conductor Thomas Scherman. Roles Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming Chancellor of Germany#Nazi Germany (1933–1945), the chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. His invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 marked the start of the Second World War. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of Holocaust victims, about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and moved to German Empire, Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his service in the German Army in the First World War, receiving the Iron Cross. In 1919 he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the Nazi Party, and in 1921 was app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
