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Hans Clemens
Hans Clemens (27 July 1890 – 25 August 1958) was a German tenor who had an international career in opera and concert from the 1910s through the 1930s. He performed with several major opera houses, including the Städtische Oper in Berlin and the Metropolitan Opera. He is particularly remembered for his performances and recordings of Wagner's David in ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' and Mime in ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. After retiring from the stage, he worked as a voice teacher in Los Angeles. Life and career Born in Gelsenkirchen, Clemens made his professional opera debut at the Cologne Opera in 1911 where he remained as a principal artist for the next ten years. In 1914 he participated in the world premiere of Humperdinck's ''Die Marketenderin'' in Cologne. He was a member of the Städtische Oper (Municipal Opera) in Berlin in 1921 and 1922, and then turned to freelance work. He appeared at the Royal Opera House in London from 1925 to 1929 and in 1935 where he perfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies at the centre of the Ruhr, the largest urban area of Germany, of which it is the fifth largest city after Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg and Bochum. The Ruhr is located in the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, one of Europe's largest urban areas. Gelsenkirchen is the fifth largest city of Westphalia after Dortmund, Bochum, Bielefeld and Münster, and it is one of the southernmost cities in the Low German dialect area. The city is home to the football club Schalke 04, which is named after . The club's current stadium Veltins-Arena, however, is located in . Gelsenkirchen was first documented in 1150, but it remained a tiny village until the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution led to the growth of the entire area. In 1840, when ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Opera House (39th Street)
The Metropolitan Opera House was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1883 and demolished in 1967, it was the first home of the Metropolitan Opera Company. History The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1883. The Metropolitan Opera House (also known as "the old Met"), opened on October 22, 1883, with a performance of ''Faust''. It was located at 1411 Broadway, occupying the whole block between West 39th Street and West 40th Street on the west side of the street in the Garment District of Midtown Manhattan. Nicknamed "The Yellow Brick Brewery" for its industrial looking exterior, the original Metropolitan Opera House was designed by J. Cleaveland Cady. On August 27, 1892, the nine-year-old theater was gutted by fire. The 1892−93 season was canceled while the opera house was rebuilt along its original lines. During that season, the Vaudeville Club, which eventually became the Metropolitan Opera Club, was founded and hosted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when he first visited the city. In 1909, he returned as the conductor of the International Opera Company of Montreal, one of the many visiting troupes that frequented the bustling city. Continued visits for the next decade convinced him that a San Francisco company was viable. In 1921, Merola returned to live in the city under the patronage of Mrs. Oliver Stine. During this time, Merola conceived of branching away from the area's reliance on visiting troupes for entertainment that had been common place since the Gold Rush era. By the fall, he was planning his first season, and the very next year, Merola organized a trial season at Stanford University. The first performance occurred in the Stanford Cardinal's football stadium on June 3rd, 1922 w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian opera singer, who was the outstanding Wagnerian soprano of her era. Her triumphant debut in New York on 2 February 1935 is one of the legends of opera. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the longstanding General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera said, “I have given America two great gifts — Caruso and Flagstad.” Called "the voice of the century", she ranks among the greatest singers of the 20th century. Desmond Shawe-Taylor wrote of her in the '' New Grove Dictionary of Opera'': "No one within living memory surpassed her in sheer beauty and consistency of line and tone." Early life and career Flagstad was born in Hamar, Norway, in her grandparents' home, now the Kirsten Flagstad Museum. Though she never actually lived in Hamar, she always considered it her home town. She was raised in Oslo within a musical family; her father Michael Flagstad was a conductor and her mother Maja Flagstad a pianist. Their ot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior (20 March 1890 – 18 March 1973) was a Danish-American opera singer. He was the preeminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and has come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type. Late in his career, Melchior appeared in movie musicals and on radio and television. He also made numerous recordings. Biography Early years Born Lauritz Lebrecht Hommel Melchior in Copenhagen, Denmark, the young Melchior was a treble and amateur singer before starting his first operatic vocal studies under Paul Bang at the Royal Opera School in Copenhagen at the age of 18 in 1908. His sister, Agnes Melchior (1883–1945), was a blind Danish Esperantist. In 1913, Melchior made his debut in the baritone role of Silvio in Ruggero Leoncavallo's ''Pagliacci'' at the Royal Theatre (Det Kongelige Teater) in Copenhagen. He sang mostly secondary baritone and bass roles for the Royal Danish Opera and provincial Scandinavian opera companies for the next few years. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan Und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "" (literally ''a drama'', ''a plot'', or ''an action''). Wagner's composition of ''Tristan und Isolde'' was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly '' The World as Will and Representation''), as well as by Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire, ''Tristan'' was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and harmonic suspension. The opera was enormously influential among Western classical comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salome (opera)
''Salome'', Opus number, Op. 54, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The libretto is Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the 1891 French play ''Salome (play), Salomé'' by Oscar Wilde, edited by the composer. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Edgar Speyer, Sir Edgar Speyer. The opera is famous (at the time of its premiere, infamous) for its "Dance of the Seven Veils". The final scene is frequently heard as a concert-piece for dramatic sopranos. Composition history Oscar Wilde originally wrote his ''Salomé'' in French. Strauss saw the Lachmann version of the play in Max Reinhardt's production at the Kleines Theater in Berlin on 15 November 1902, and immediately set to work on an opera. The play's formal structure was well-suited to musical adaptation. Wilde himself described ''Salomé'' as containing "refrains whose recurring ''motifs'' make it so like a piece of music and bind it together as a ballad". Strauss pared down Lachmann's German text to what he saw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Rosenkavalier
(''The Knight of the Rose'' or ''The Rose-Bearer''), Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel ''Les amours du chevalier de Faublas'' by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière's comedy ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac''. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 26 January 1911 under the direction of Max Reinhardt, Ernst von Schuch conducting. Until the premiere, the working title was ''Ochs auf Lerchenau''. (The choice of the name Ochs is not accidental, for in German "Ochs" means "ox", which describes the character of the Baron throughout the opera.) The opera has four main characters: the aristocratic Marschallin; her very young lover, Count Octavian Rofrano; her brutish cousin Baron Ochs; and Ochs' prospective fiancée, Sophie von Faninal, the daughter of a rich bourgeois. At the Marschallin's suggestion, Octavian acts as Ochs' ''Rosenkavalier'' by prese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Juive
''La Juive'' () (''The Jewess'') is a grand opera in five acts by Fromental Halévy to an original French libretto by Eugène Scribe; it was first performed at the Opéra, Paris, on 23 February 1835. Composition history ''La Juive'' was one of the most popular and admired operas of the 19th century. Its libretto (text) was the work of Eugène Scribe, the prolific dramatic author. Scribe was writing to the tastes of the Opéra de Paris, where the work was first performed – a work in five acts presenting spectacular situations (here the Council of Constance of 1414), which would allow a flamboyant staging in a setting which brought out a dramatic situation which was also underlined by a powerful historical subject. In addition to this, there could be choral interludes, ballet and scenic effects which took advantage of the entire range of possibilities available at the Paris Opera. Because of the story of an impossible love between a Christian man and a Jewish woman, the wor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fidelio
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with the work premiering at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The following year, Stephan von Breuning helped shorten the work from three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, a final version was performed at the Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. By convention, both of the first two versions are referred to as ''Leonore''. The libretto, with some spoken dialogue, tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison. Bouilly's scenario fits Beethoven's aesthetic and political outlook: a story of personal sacrifice, heroism, and eventual triumph. With its underlying struggle for liberty and justice mirrori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boccaccio (operetta)
''Boccaccio, oder Der Prinz von Palermo'' (''Boccaccio, or the Prince of Palermo'') is an operetta in three acts by Franz von Suppé to a German libretto by Camillo Walzel and Richard Genée, based on the play by Jean-François Bayard, Adolphe de Leuven, Léon Lévy Brunswick and Arthur de Beauplan, based in turn on ''The Decameron'' by Giovanni Boccaccio. The opera was first performed at the Carltheater, Vienna, on 1 February 1879. An English translation was done by Oscar Weil and Gustav Hinrichs around 1883. via . R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Donna Juanita
''Donna Juanita'' is a German language operetta in 3 acts by composer Franz von Suppé and librettists Zell and R. Genée. The opera premiered at the Carltheater in Vienna on 21 February 1880. The work was staged by the Metropolitan Opera in 1932 with Maria Jeritza in the title role and Artur Bodanzky Artur Bodanzky (also written as Artur Bodzansky) (16 December 1877 – 23 November 1939) was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner. He conducted Enrico Caruso's last performance at the Metropolitan Opera ... leading the musical forces. References {{opera-stub 1880 operas Operas by Franz von Suppé German-language operettas Operas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
