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Michael Pollock (tenor)
Michael Pollock (October 20, 1921 – November 8, 2003) was an American operatic tenor, opera director, and voice teacher. He notably worked as both a performer and director at the New York City Opera during the 1940s and 1950s. Biography Born in New York City, Pollock began his career appearing in Off-Broadway productions in the mid-1940s. In 1947–1948 he was a member of the chorus in the Broadway revival of Marc Blitzstein's ''The Cradle Will Rock''. In 1949 he became a member of the New York City Opera (NYCO) at the invitation of Laszlo Halasz, making his debut with the company as the animal vendor in Richard Strauss's ''Der Rosenkavalier''. In 1953 he created the role of Kokhkaryov in the world premiere of Bohuslav Martinů's '' The Marriage'' with the NBC Opera Theater. Pollock appeared as a character tenor in numerous NYCO productions up through 1956, notably creating roles in the world premieres of David Tamkin's ''The Dybbuk'' (1951) and Aaron Copland’s '' The Tend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, 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 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 the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as ''Singspiel'' and ''Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olin Downes
Edwin Olin Downes, better known as Olin Downes (January 27, 1886 – August 22, 1955), was an American music critic, known as "Sibelius's Apostle" for his championship of the music of Jean Sibelius. As critic of ''The New York Times'', he exercised considerable influence on musical opinion, although many of his judgments have not stood the test of time. Life and works Downes was born in Evanston, Illinois, USA. In New York he studied piano at the National Conservatory of Music of America, and in Boston he studied the piano with Carl Baermann and a range of music subjects with Louis Kelterborn (history and analysis), Homer Norris and Clifford Heilman (music theory) and John P. Marshall (music criticism).Slonimsky, p. 928 It was in those two cities that he made his career as a music critic – first with ''The Boston Post'' (1906–1924) and then with ''The New York Times'' (1924–1955), where he succeeded Richard Aldrich. The most conspicuous of Downes's topic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regina (Blitzstein)
''Regina'' is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play '' The Little Foxes'' by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism. In three acts, the musical style has been described as new American verismo, abounding in the use of spirituals, Victorian parlour music, dance forms, ragtime, aria and large, symphonic score. Borrowing from both opera and Broadway styles, in a manner similar to Leonard Bernstein in '' Trouble in Tahiti'' and Virgil Thomson in '' Four Saints in Three Acts'', ''Regina'' has been said to straddle the line between entertainment and so-called serious music. Hellman gave Blitzstein considerable advice and strongly objected to any departures from the play's structure. Blitzstein planned an elaborate choral prologue, but Hellman convinced him to shorten and finally jettison it. Before the premiere, producer Cheryl Crawford insi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amahl And The Night Visitors
''Amahl and the Night Visitors'' is an opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti with an original English libretto by the composer.Menotti, Gian-Carlo: ''Amahl and the Night Visitors (piano-vocal score)'', G. Schirmer, Inc., 1997. It was commissioned by NBC and first performed by the NBC Opera Theatre on December 24, 1951, in New York City at NBC Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center, where it was broadcast live on television from that venue as the debut production of the ''Hallmark Hall of Fame''. It was the first opera specifically composed for television in the United States.Obituary: Gian Carlo Menotti '' |
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti (, ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian composer, librettist, director, and playwright who is primarily known for his output of 25 operas. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. One of the most frequently performed opera composers of the 20th century, his most successful works were written in the 1940s and 1950s. Highly influenced by Giacomo Puccini and Modest Mussorgsky, Menotti further developed the verismo tradition of opera in the post-World War II era. Rejecting atonality and the aesthetic of the Second Viennese School, Menotti's music is characterized by expressive lyricism which carefully sets language to natural rhythms in ways that highlight textual meaning and underscore dramatic intent. Like Wagner, Menotti wrote the libretti of all his operas. He wrote the classic Christmas opera '' Amahl and the Night Visitors'' (1951), along with over two dozen other operas intended to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Mond
' (''The Moon'') is an opera in one act by Carl Orff based on a Grimm's fairy tale with a libretto by the composer. It was first performed on 5 February 1939 by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich under the direction of Clemens Krauss. The composer describes it not as an opera but as ''Ein kleines Welttheater'' ("A little world theatre"); the performance lasts for about one hour and is often paired with Orff's '' Die Kluge''. Roles Synopsis The story involves characters who steal the moon for their country which does not have a moon. They take the moon to their graves upon their deathsThe '' interlude'' which marks the death of the four rascals is notated in the unusual key of C-flat major. and St. Peter goes to the underworld to retrieve it and hang it again in the sky. Two speaking roles include that of a child and a landlord. Singing roles include the four rascals who steal the moon, St. Peter, a farmer and the narrator. Instrumentation * Woodwind: 3 flutes (2 doubling p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Orff
Carl Orff (; 10 July 1895 – 29 March 1982) was a German composer and music educator, best known for his cantata '' Carmina Burana'' (1937). The concepts of his Schulwerk were influential for children's music education. Life Early life Carl Orff (full name Karl Heinrich Maria Orff) was born in Munich on 10 July 1895, the son of Paula Orff (née Köstler, 1872–1960) and Heinrich Orff (1869–1949). His family was Bavarian and was active in the Imperial German Army; his father was an army officer with strong musical interests, and his mother was a trained pianist. The composer's grandfathers, Carl von Orff (1828–1905) and Karl Köstler (1837–1924), were both major generals and also scholars. His paternal grandmother, Fanny Orff (née Kraft, 1833–1919), was Catholic of Jewish descent. His maternal grandmother was Maria Köstler (née Aschenbrenner, 1845–1906). Orff had one sibling, a younger sister named Maria ("Mia", 1898–1975), who married the architect Alwin S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Sturm (opera)
' (The tempest) is a German-language opera in three acts and an epilogue by the Swiss composer Frank Martin to a libretto based on the Schlegel/ Tieck German translation of Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Martin's only opera was premiered at the Vienna State Opera on 17 June 1956. The role of Prospero was originally conceived for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, but illness prevented him participating,Perroux, Alain (2011)"A new world of sound: Frank Martin's ''Der Sturm''" booklet notes tHyperion CDA67821/3 Hyperion Records. Accessed 4 June 2021. although Casaglia lists Fischer-Dieskau in the role of Sebastian, but a playbill for the premiere lists in that role. The word setting is through-composed ''parlando'', with few set pieces, most of which belong to Prospero. Roles Recordings * Extracts: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Prospero), Berlin Philharmonic conducted by the composer, Deutsche Grammophon 1964 * Live recording: Robert Holl as Prospero, Christine Buffle as Miranda, Sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Martin (composer)
Frank Martin (15 September 1890 – 21 November 1974) was a Swiss composer, who spent much of his life in the Netherlands. Childhood and youth Born into a Huguenot family in the Eaux-Vives quarter of Geneva, the youngest of the ten children of a Calvinist pastor named Charles Martin, Frank Martin started to improvise on the piano prior to his formal schooling. At the age of nine he had already written a few songs without external musical instruction. At 12, he attended a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's ''St. Matthew Passion'' and was deeply affected by it. Respecting his parents' wishes, he studied mathematics and physics for two years at Geneva University, but at the same time was also studying piano, composition and harmony with his first music teacher Joseph Lauber (1864–1953), a Geneva composer and by that time a leading figure of the city's musical scene. In the 1920s, Martin worked closely with Émile Jaques-Dalcroze from whom he learned much about rhythm an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Prozeß (opera)
' ('' en, The Trial'') is a German-language opera in two parts, divided into nine scenes, with music by Gottfried von Einem and a libretto by Boris Blacher and , based on the posthumously published 1925 novel by Franz Kafka. Composed over the period 1950 to 1952, this was von Einem's second opera. He dedicated it to the psychologist and theologian Oskar Pfister, who had been his therapist, and to his former teacher, Karl Christian Jensen. The opera premiered on 17 August 1953 at the Salzburg Festival, with stage direction by Oscar Fritz Schuh, scene design by Caspar Neher, and Karl Böhm as conductor. The US premiere of the opera was in October 1953 at the New York City Opera, directed by Otto Preminger. The British premiere, attended by the composer Gottfired Von Einem, took place in May 1973, at Bloomsbury Theatre London, in a production, conducted by Leon Lovett, directed by Fuad Kavur. Roles Synopsis Part 1 Scene 1, ''Die Verhaftung – zwei Zimmer'' (The Arrest – t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Von Einem
Gottfried von Einem (24 January 1918 – 12 July 1996) was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ. Biography Einem was born in the Swiss capital Bern into an Austrian diplomat family. According to Einem's publisher, his father was William von Einem, military attaché of the Austro-Hungarian embassy. According to another source, however, he was adopted by Einem, his natural father being the Hungarian aristocrat Count László von Hunyadi. His mother, Baroness Gerta Louise née Rieß von Scheurnschloss, an officer's daughter from Kassel, led a lavish lifestyle between Berlin and Paris. The family moved to Malente in the Prussian Schleswig-Holstein Province, when Gottfried was four years old. After his school days in Plön and Ratzeburg, Gottfried von Einem went to Berlin in 1937, to study at the State School of Music with Paul Hinde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tender Land
''The Tender Land'' is an opera with music by Aaron Copland and libretto by Horace Everett, a pseudonym for Erik Johns. History The opera tells of a farm family in the Midwest of the United States. Copland was inspired to write this opera after viewing the Depression-era photographs of Walker Evans and reading James Agee's ''Let Us Now Praise Famous Men''. He wrote the work between 1952 and 1954 for the NBC Television Opera Workshop, with the intention of its being presented on television. However, the television producers rejected the opera. Eventually, the work had its premiere on April 1, 1954 at the New York City Opera, with Thomas Schippers as the conductor, Jerome Robbins as the director, and a cast including the young Norman Treigle. It was poorly received, with criticism focused on the weaknesses of the opera's characters and the storyline. Later analysis by Christopher Patton stated that one underlying cause of the opera's failure at the premiere was the contrast b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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