Jennie Tourel
Jennie Tourel (November 23, 1973) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano, known for her work in both opera and recital performances. Early years Tourel was born in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now in Belarus), with the surname Davidovich. As a young girl she played the flute, then studied piano. After the Russian Revolution, her Jewish family left Russia and settled temporarily near Danzig. They later moved to Paris, where she continued to study piano and contemplated a concert career. She then began to take voice lessons with Reynaldo Hahn and :ru:Эль-Тур, Анна, Anna El-Tour, and decided to devote herself to professional singing. She was said to have changed her last name to Tourel by transposing the syllables of El-Tour's name, but she denied this. Singing career Jennie Tourel made her European operatic debut at the Opéra Russe in Paris in 1931, and subsequently sang at the Opéra-Comique in Paris as Carmen, (April 9, 1933) also singing Mignon, Jacqueline ( ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Opera
Opera is a form of History of theatre#European theatre, Western theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by Singing, singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libretto, librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, Theatrical scenery, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conducting, conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of Western culture#Music, Western classical music, and Italian tradition in particular. Originally understood as an sung-through, entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include :Opera genres, numerous ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chicago Civic Opera
The Civic Opera Company (1922–1931) was a Chicago company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in the Auditorium Theatre from 1922 to 1928, and three seasons at its own Civic Opera House from 1929 to 1931 before falling victim to financial difficulties brought on in part by the Great Depression. The company consisted largely of the remnants of the Chicago Opera Association, a company that produced seven seasons of grand opera in the Auditorium Theatre from 1915 until its bankruptcy in 1921. Chicago Opera Association The Chicago Opera Association produced seven seasons of grand opera in Chicago's Auditorium Theatre from 1915 to 1921. The founding artistic director and principal conductor was Cleofonte Campanini, while the general manager and chief underwriter was Harold F. McCormick. When Campanini died in December 1919 he was replaced by the composer Gino Marinuzzi, who staged his own ''Jacquerie'' as the opening production of the 1920–21 season. In January 1921, op ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thomas Pasatieri
Thomas Pasatieri (born October 20, 1945) is an American opera composer. Life and career Pasatieri was born in New York City, United States. He began composing at age 10 and, as a teenager, studied with Nadia Boulanger, although his main teachers were Vittorio Giannini and Vincent Persichetti. He entered the Juilliard School at age 16 and eventually became the school's first recipient of a doctoral degree. Pasatieri has taught composition at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. From 1980 through 1984, he held the post of artistic director at Atlanta Opera. He has composed 24 operas, the best known of which is ''The Seagull'', composed in 1972. Two of his operas were premiered in 2007: '' Frau Margot'' by the Fort Worth Opera and '' The Hotel Casablanca'' in San Francisco. Other popular operas include ''La Divina'' and '' Signor Deluso''. In 1984, Pasatieri moved to Los Angeles, California, where he formed his ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith ( ; ; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German and American composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Neue Sachlichkeit'' (New Objectivity) style of music in the 1920s, with compositions such as ''Kammermusik (Hindemith), Kammermusik'', including works with viola and viola d'amore as solo instruments in a neo-Bachian spirit. Other notable compositions include his song cycle ''Das Marienleben'' (1923), Das Unaufhörliche (1931), ''Der Schwanendreher'' for viola and orchestra (1935), the opera ''Mathis der Maler (opera), Mathis der Maler'' (1938), the ''Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber'' (1943), and the oratorio ''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (Hindemith), When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd'' (1946), a requiem based on When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, Walt Whitman's poem. Hindem ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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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]   |
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A Cycle Of Five Kid Songs For Soprano And Piano
''I Hate Music: A cycle of Five Kid Songs for Soprano and Piano'' is a song cycle by Leonard Bernstein. Composed in 1942, the work was premiered by vocalist Jennie Tourel with Bernstein as pianist in 1943. The song has remained a part of the song repertoire and has been recorded by numerous artists; including singers Blanche Thebom, Barbara Bonney, Harolyn Blackwell and Roberta Alexander among others. Composition and history Leonard Bernstein composed the song cycle ''I Hate Music'' in the autumn of 1942, just prior to his composition of the ballet '' Fancy Free'', the musical '' On the Town'', and the '' Jeremiah Symphony''. It is dedicated by Bernstein to his friend Edys Merril, who was his flatmate at the time of the composition. Merrill reputedly uttered the phrase "I hate music" due to her exasperation with Bernstein's constant piano playing and coaching of singers. ''I Hate Music'' consists of five songs sung from the perspective of a ten-year old girl named Barbara. Writte ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Song Cycles
A song cycle () is a group, or cycle, of individually complete songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of ''Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon'', but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galician jongleur Martin Codax. Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft's ''The Briefe Discourse'' (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th-century examples in England. A song cycle is similar to a song collection, and the two can be difficult to distinguish. Some typ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein ( ; born Louis Bernstein; August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, author, and humanitarian. Considered to be one of the most important conductors of his time, he was the first American-born conductor to receive international acclaim. Bernstein was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history" according to music critic Donal Henahan. List of awards and nominations received by Leonard Bernstein, Bernstein's honors and accolades include seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and 16 Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an Academy Award for Best Original Score, Academy Award nomination. He received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. As a composer, Bernstein wrote in many genres, including symphonic and orchestral music, ballet, film and theatre music, choral works, opera, chamber music, and pieces for the pian ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Rake's Progress
''The Rake's Progress'' is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings '' A Rake's Progress'' (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition. The story concerns the decline and fall of one Tom Rakewell, who deserts Anne Trulove for the delights of London in the company of Nick Shadow, who turns out to be the Devil. After several misadventures, all initiated by the devious Shadow, Tom ends up in Bedlam, a hospital for the insane at that time situated in the City of London. The moral of the tale is: "For idle hearts and hands and minds the Devil finds work to do." Performance history It was first performed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 11 September 1951, with Robert Rounseville as Tom Rakewell, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as Anne Trulove, and Otakar Kraus as Nick Shadow ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ( – 6 April 1971) was a Russian composer and conductor with French citizenship (from 1934) and American citizenship (from 1945). He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century classical music, composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernism (music), modernist music. Born to a musical family in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Stravinsky grew up taking piano and music theory lessons. While studying law at the Saint Petersburg State University, University of Saint Petersburg, he met Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and studied music under him until the latter's death in 1908. Stravinsky met the impresario Sergei Diaghilev soon after, who commissioned the composer to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes's Paris seasons: ''The Firebird'' (1910), ''Petrushka (ballet), Petrushka'' (1911), and ''The Rite of Spring'' (1913), the last of which caused a List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience respons ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norma (opera)
''Norma'' () is a ''tragedia lirica'' or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after the play ''Norma, ou L'infanticide'' (''Norma, or The Infanticide'') by Alexandre Soumet. It was first produced at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1831. The opera is regarded as a leading example of the bel canto genre, and the soprano prayer "Casta diva" in Act 1 is a famous piece. Among the well known singers of Norma of the first half of the 20th century was Rosa Ponselle who played the role in New York and London. Notable exponents of the title role in the post-war period have been Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, and Montserrat Caballé. Composition history Crivelli and Company were managing both La Scala and La Fenice in Venice, and as a result, in April–May 1830 Bellini was able to negotiate a contract with them for two operas, one at each theatre. The opera for December 1831 at La Scala became ''Norma'', while the one for the 1832 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Barber Of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy '' The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The premiere of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two centuries, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera '' The Marriage of Figaro,'' composed 30 years earlier in 178 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |