Le Dernier Sorcier
''Le dernier sorcier'' (''The Last Sorcerer'') is a chamber opera in two acts with music composed by Pauline Viardot to a French libretto by Ivan Turgenev. It was first performed privately on 20 September 1867 at the Villa Turgenev in Baden-Baden and received its first public performance at the Court Theatre in Weimar on 8 April 1869 (in German translation as '). The story revolves around Krakamiche, an old and once-powerful sorcerer whose presence in the woods has upset the elves living there, and a romance between the sorcerer's daughter Stella and Prince Lelio, whose marriage comes about through the intervention of a Queen of the Elves. Background and first performance By the mid-1860s, after her retirement from the stage and living at her villa (''Villa Viardot'') in Baden-Baden, Viardot's main activities centered around her teaching, including giving her students experience of performing in small-scale operas in a private setting. Although married, Viardot had long had an in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chamber Opera
Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's '' Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas such as Pergolesi's '' La serva padrona'' (1733) are sometimes known as chamber operas. Other 20th-century examples include Gustav Holst's ''Savitri'' (1916). Benjamin Britten wrote works in this category in the 1940s when the English Opera Group needed works that could easily be taken on tour and performed in a variety of small performance spaces. ''The Rape of Lucretia'' (1946) was his first example in the genre, and Britten followed it with '' Albert Herring'' (1947), ''The Turn of the Screw'' (1954) and '' Curlew River'' (1964). Other composers, including Hans Werner Henze, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Adès, George Benjamin, William Walton, and Philip Glass have written in this genre. Instrumentation for chamber operas vary: Britten scored ''The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frederick III, German Emperor
Frederick III (german: Friedrich Wilhelm Nikolaus Karl; 18 October 1831 – 15 June 1888), or Friedrich III, was German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days between March and June 1888, during the Year of the Three Emperors. Known informally as "Fritz",MacDonogh, p. 17. he was the only son of Emperor Wilhelm I and was raised in his family's tradition of military service. Although celebrated as a young man for his leadership and successes during the Second Schleswig, Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars,Kollander, p. 79.''The Illustrated London News'' he nevertheless professed a hatred of warfare and was praised by friends and enemies alike for his humane conduct. Following the unification of Germany in 1871 his father, then King of Prussia, became the German Emperor. Upon Wilhelm's death at the age of ninety on 9 March 1888, the thrones passed to Frederick, who had been German Crown Prince for seventeen years and Crown Prince of Prussia for twenty-seven years. Fre ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Voice Type
A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, though it, and the terms it utilizes, are used in other styles of music as well. A singer will choose a repertoire that suits their voice. Some singers such as Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, Ewa Podleś, and Plácido Domingo have voices that allow them to sing roles from a wide variety of types; some singers such as Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry change type and even voice part over their careers; and some singers such as Leonie Rysanek have voices that lower with age, causing them to cycle through types over their careers. Some roles are hard to classify, having very unusual vocal requirements; Mozart wrote many of his roles for specific singers who often had remarkable voices, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pourrières
Pourrières (; oc, Porrièras) is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France. Population Personalities It is the home town of the French poet Germain Nouveau. Jacqueline Eymar, classical pianist born in 1922, died in Pourrières in 2008. See also *Communes of the Var department The following is a list of the 153 communes of the Var department of France. The communes cooperate in the following intercommunalities (as of 2020):Communes of Var (department) {{Var-geo-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Minim (religious Order)
The Minims, officially known as the Order of Minims (; abbreviated OM), are a Roman Catholic religious order of friars founded by Saint Francis of Paola in fifteenth-century Italy. The order soon spread to France, Germany and Spain, and continues to exist today. Like the other mendicant orders, there are three separate components, or orders, of the movement: the friars, contemplative nuns and a Third Order of laypeople who live in the spirit of the order in their daily lives. At present there are only two fraternities of the Minim tertiaries; both are in Italy. History The founder of the Order, Saint Francis of Paola, was born in 1416 and named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. The boy became ill when he was only one month old, and his mother prayed to St. Francis and promised that her son would spend a year in a Franciscan friary if he were healed. Francis recovered, which she believed meant that God had granted her prayer. At 13 years of age Francis fulfilled that vo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly ranked universities in the world. The university is composed of ten academic faculties plus Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences offers study in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate academic disciplines, and other faculties offer only graduate degrees, including professional degrees. Harvard has three main campuses: the Cambridge campus centered on Harvard Yard; an adjoining campus immediately across Charles River in the Allston neighborhood of Boston; and the medical campus in Boston's Longwood Medical Area. Harvard's endowment is valued at $50.9 billion, making it the wealthiest academic institution in the world. Endo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being instituted into a separate, autonomous university in 1966. It is composed of 14 faculties and over 85 research institutes and centres. The main campus is located in the northwest quadrant of the city near the Bow River and a smaller south campus is located in the city centre. The main campus houses most of the research facilities and works with provincial and federal research and regulatory agencies, several of which are housed next to the campus such as the Geological Survey of Canada. The main campus covers approximately . A member of the U15, the University of Calgary is also one of Canada's top research universities (based on the number of Canada Research Chairs). The university has a sponsored research revenue of $380.4 million, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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String Quartet
The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist. The string quartet was developed into its present form by composers such as Franz Xaver Richter, and Joseph Haydn, whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since Haydn the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert each wrote a number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Ja ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the " Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow. Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, violin, voice, and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms has been considered both a traditionalist and an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the German States of Germany, state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the List of cities in Germany by population, 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. It is also a former capital of Baden, a historic region named after Hohenbaden Castle in the city of Baden-Baden. Located on the right bank of the Rhine near the French border, between the Mannheim/Ludwigshafen conurbation to the north and Strasbourg/Kehl to the south, Karlsruhe is Germany's legal center, being home to the Federal Constitutional Court (''Bundesverfassungsgericht''), the Federal Court of Justice (''Bundesgerichtshof'') and the Public Prosecutor General (Germany), Public Prosecutor General of the Federal Court of Justice (''Generalbundesanwalt beim Bundesgerichtshof''). Karlsruhe was the capit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eduard Lassen
Eduard Lassen (13 April 183015 January 1904) was a Belgian- Danish composer and conductor. Although of Danish birth, he spent most of his career working as the music director at the court in Weimar. A moderately prolific composer, Lassen produced music in a variety of genres including operas, symphonic works, piano works, lieder, and choral works among others. His most successful pieces were his fine vocal art songs for solo voice and piano which often used elements of German and Belgian folk music. Biography He was born in Copenhagen, but was taken as a child to Brussels to which his father was president of the ''Jewish Consistor of Belgium''. He was educated at the Brussels Conservatory where he earned prizes for piano (1844) and composition (1847). He won the Prix de Rome in 1851, which provided him with the opportunity to make a long tour in Germany and Italy. While touring he met Louis Spohr and Franz Liszt and composed much of his first opera ''Le roi Edgard''. After re ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |