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Gidon Saks
Gidon Saks (born 15 January 1960) is an Israeli-born South African bass-baritone. Education Saks grew up in South Africa. His father was a first generation South African of Lithuanian descent. His mother was Scottish of Ukrainian extraction. He had an aunt who was an accomplished opera singer in South Africa but he had no interest in singing at first. He had originally wished to become an actor, dropping out of school at the age of sixteen because "I hated it". He auditioned for drama school at the Little Theatre under the direction of Mavis Taylor but was told he had to be eighteen for admission and they suggested he study singing in the meantime. He began his musical studies under Angelo Gobatto, the director of the opera school at the South African College of Music which is a department of the University of Cape Town.Stimpson, Mansel (2008)"The Time is Ripe: Gidon Saks and ''The Tales of Hoffmann''" on www.classicalsource.com. In order to avoid the military conscription which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mikado
''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, where it ran at the Savoy Theatre for 672 performances, the second-longest run for any work of musical theatre and one of the longest runs of any theatre piece up to that time.The longest-running piece of musical theatre was the operetta '' Les Cloches de Corneville'', which held the title until '' Dorothy'' opened in 1886, which pushed ''The Mikado'' down to third place. By the end of 1885, it was estimated that, in Europe and America, at least 150 companies were producing the opera. Mencken, H. L.br>Article on ''The Mikado'', ''Baltimore Evening Sun'', 29 November 1910 ''The Mikado'' is the most internationally successful Savoy opera and has been especially popular with amateur and school productions. The work has been translated into numerous languages and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
César Franck
César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium. He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands). He gave his first concerts there in 1834 and studied privately in Paris from 1835, where his teachers included Anton Reicha. After a brief return to Belgium, and a disastrous reception of an early oratorio ''Ruth'', he moved to Paris, where he married and embarked on a career as teacher and organist. He gained a reputation as a formidable musical improviser, and travelled widely within France to demonstrate new instruments built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. In 1858, he became organist at the Basilica of St. Clotilde, Paris, a position he retained for the rest of his life. He became professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872; he took French nationality, a requirement of the appointment. Af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bielefeld Opera
The Bielefeld Opera is the venue of Städtische Bühnen Bielefeld (Municipal stages Bielefeld) in Bielefeld, Germany. It is a ''Dreisparten Haus'' (three-department house), offering plays, music (opera, musical theatre), and ballet. The main performance venue is the ''Stadttheater am Niederwall'' (Municipal Theatre at the Lower Wall), built in 1904 and extensively renovated from 2004 to 2006. It is the largest theater in East Westphalia, offering 500 performances annually. It is under the direction of Michael Heicks; its resident orchestra is the 72-member Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra that also performs symphonic concerts at the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle. History Plans to build an opera house in Bielefeld were laid in 1885 by a foundation set up the widow of the founder of the Crüwell Tobacco Company. Bernhard Sehring was chosen as architect and construction was started in 1901 on the Niederwall. The Art Nouveau building was inaugurated with a performance of Carl Maria von We ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musiktheater Im Revier
Musiktheater im Revier (MiR) (Music Theatre in the Ruhr) is the venue for performing opera, operetta, musical theatre and ballet in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. It opened on 15 December 1959; it is listed since 1997 as a protected cultural monument. The building offers two performance spaces: the Large House (''Großes Haus'') with 1,008 seats and about 200 performances per year, and the Small House (''Kleines Haus'') with 336 seats and about 120 annual performances. In contrast to the building's outside cubic appearance, the auditoria use a more curved design. Design The building was designed by the German architect . The cubic outer shell of the Large House is formed by a glass facade, which gives view into the interior and the cylindric casing of the auditorium and its stairways, and the two monumental sculptures by the French artist Yves Klein. They consist of one 7×20 m (×) monochrome sponge sculpture in a distinctive blue ("Gelsenkirchen Blue") because Klein's Internat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zürich Opera
Zürich Opera (Oper Zürich) is a Swiss opera company based in Zürich. The company gives performances in the Zürich Opera House. History The first performance at the current theatre occurred on 30 September 1891, with a production of Wagner's ''Lohengrin''. Wilhelm Furtwängler began his career there, and in 1913 Richard Wagner’s ''Parsifal'' was given its first performance outside Bayreuth. Ferruccio Busoni, Paul Hindemith, Richard Strauss, Othmar Schoeck, Arthur Honegger, Frank Martin and other famous composers all left their mark on the development of Zürich's musical theatre. Zürich Opera House has been the setting for numerous world premières, such as Alban Berg’s ''Lulu,'' Paul Hindemith’s ''Mathis der Maler'', Arnold Schönberg’s '' Moses und Aron'', and Rudolf Kelterborn's '' Der Kirschgarten''. Works by Heinrich Sutermeister and Giselher Klebe were also performed there for the first time. From 1975 to 1986, Claus Helmut Drese was artistic director of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Godunov (opera)
''Boris Godunov'' ( rus, Борис Годунов, links=no, Borís Godunóv ) is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar (1598 to 1605) during the Time of Troubles, and his nemesis, the False Dmitriy (reigned 1605 to 1606). The Russian-language libretto was written by the composer, and is based on the 1825 drama ''Boris Godunov'' by Aleksandr Pushkin, and, in the Revised Version of 1872, on Nikolay Karamzin's ''History of the Russian State''. Among major operas, ''Boris Godunov'' shares with Giuseppe Verdi's '' Don Carlos'' (1867) the distinction of having an extremely complex creative history, as well as a great wealth of alternative material. The composer created two versions—the Original Version of 1869, which was rejected for production by the Imper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bluebeard's Castle
''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' ( hu, A kékszakállú herceg vára, link=no, or ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act expressionist opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer, and is written in Hungarian, based on the French literary tale '' La Barbe bleue'' by Charles Perrault. The opera lasts only a little over an hour and there are just two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard (), and his new wife Judith (); the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time. ''Bluebeard's Castle'', Sz. 48, was composed in 1911 (with modifications made in 1912 and a new ending added in 1917) and first performed on 24 May 1918 at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest. Universal Edition published the vocal (1921) and full score (1925). The Boosey & Hawkes full score includes only the German and English singing translations while the Dover edition reproduces th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luisa Miller
''Luisa Miller'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play '' Kabale und Liebe'' (''Intrigue and Love'') by the German dramatist Friedrich von Schiller. Verdi's initial idea for a new opera – for which he had a contract going back over several years – was rejected by the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. He attempted to negotiate his way out of this obligation and, when that failed, Cammarano came up with the idea of adapting the Schiller play, with which Verdi was familiar. The process was set in motion, with Verdi still living and working on initial ideas from Paris, where he had been living for almost two years before moving back to his home town of Busseto in the summer of 1849. It was from there that he wrote the music and traveled to Naples for rehearsals. The first performance was given on 8 December 1849. This was Verdi's 15th opera and it is regarded as the beginning of the composer's "middle period". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
The ''Flying Dutchman'' ( nl, De Vliegende Hollander) is a legendary ghost ship, allegedly never able to make port, but doomed to sail the seven seas forever. The myth is likely to have originated from the 17th-century Golden Age of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and of Dutch maritime power. The oldest known extant version of the legend dates from the late 18th century. According to the legend, if hailed by another ship, the crew of the ''Flying Dutchman'' might try to send messages to land, or to people long dead. Reported sightings in the 19th and 20th centuries claimed that the ship glowed with a ghostly light. In ocean lore, the sight of this phantom ship functions as a portent of doom. It was commonly believed that the ''Flying Dutchman'' was a fluyt. Origins The first print reference to the ship appears in ''Travels in various part of Europe, Asia and Africa during a series of thirty years and upward'' (1790) by John MacDonald: The next literary reference ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s. She possessed a voice combining agility, accurate intonation, pinpoint staccatos,"Icons of Opera – Dame Joan Sutherland" ''Opera Britannia'' (6 July 2009). Retrieved 27 September 2010. a trill and a strong upper register, although music critics complained about her poor diction. Sutherland was the first Australian to win a , f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Bolena
''Anna Bolena'' is a tragic opera (''tragedia lirica'') in two acts composed by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's ''Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena'' and Alessandro Pepoli's ''Anna Bolena'', both recounting the life of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England's King Henry VIII. It is one of four operas by Donizetti dealing with the Tudor period in English history—in composition order, '' Il castello di Kenilworth'' (1829), ''Anna Bolena'' (1830), ''Maria Stuarda'' (named for Mary, Queen of Scots, it appeared in different forms in 1834 and 1835), and '' Roberto Devereux'' (1837, named for a putative lover of Queen Elizabeth I of England). The leading female characters of the latter three operas are often referred to as "the Three Donizetti Queens." ''Anna Bolena'' premiered on 26 December 1830 at the Teatro Carcano in Milan, to "overwhelming success." Weinstock notes that only after this success did Donizetti's teacher, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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