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Spiros Argiris
Spiros Argiris ( gr, Σπύρος Αργύρης, 24 August 1948 – 19 May 1996) was an orchestral and operatic conductor. He served as the music director of the legendary Spoleto Festival both in Italy and the US from 1987 to 1992. He was appointed Artistic Director of the Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania from 1991 to 1994 for which he won the Premio Abbiati (Italian music critics award) for 1991/1992 for Best Organiser. He was awarded the same award as well in 1987/1988 for Best Show, '' Jenufa'' of Leoš Janáček, performed at the Spoleto Festival which he conducted and Günter Krämer directed. Memorable still remains his conducting of Richard Strauss ''Elektra'' with Krämer signing the production and Deborah Polaski in the title role as well as Mozart’s ''Nozze di Figaro'' directed by Gian Carlo Menotti and the part of the Countess sung by the very young Renee Fleming and Susanna sung by Youngok Shin. Early life and education Born in Athens to an artistic family, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List of urban areas in the European Union, largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates and is the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BC. Classical Athens was a powerful Greek city-state, city-state. It was a centre for the arts, learning and philosophy, and the home of Plato's Platonic Academy, Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum (classical), Lyceum. It is widely referred to as the cradle of civilization, cradle of Western culture, Western civilization and the democracy#History, birthplace of democracy, larg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Youngok Shin
Youngok Shin (also spelled Young-Ok Shin and Young Ok Shin: born July 3, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea) is a South Korean lyric coloratura soprano known for her interpretations of the bel canto repertoire. Early life and education Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea, the youngest of three daughters. She studied at the Juilliard School in New York where she received both her bachelor's and master's degrees in music. Career Shin made her opera debut as Susanna in '' Le nozze di Figaro'' in the 1989 Spoleto Festival USA. Shin has appeared regularly at the Metropolitan Opera since 1991 in a variety of roles including Gilda in ''Rigoletto'' (including two international radio broadcasts), title role in ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', Zerlina in ''Don Giovanni'', Elvira in ''I Puritani'', Oscar in ''Un Ballo in Maschera'' with and Adina in ''L’Elisir D’Amore'', the title role of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, the Nightingale in L’Enfant et les Sortileges among others. She has also s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Queen Of Spades (opera)
''The Queen of Spades'' or ''Pique Dame'', Op. 68 (russian: Пиковая дама, ''Pikovaya dama'' , french: La Dame de Pique) is an opera in three acts (seven scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on the 1834 novella of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but with a dramatically altered plot. The premiere took place in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Composition history The Imperial Theatre offered Tchaikovsky a commission to write an opera based on the plot sketch by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1887/88. After first turning it down, Tchaikovsky accepted it in 1889. Toward the end of that year, he met with the theatre's managers to discuss the material and sketch out some of the scenes. He completed the full score in Florence in only 44 days. Later, working with the tenor who was to perform the lead character, he created two versions of Herman's aria in the seventh scene, using d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets ''Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the '' 1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera '' Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Consul
''The Consul'' is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, his first full-length opera. Performance history Its first performance was on March 1, 1950 at the Schubert Theatre in Philadelphia with Patricia Neway as the lead heroine Magda Sorel, Gloria Lane as the secretary of the consulate, Marie Powers as the mother, and Andrew McKinley as the magician Nika Magadoff. The opera opened two weeks later at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City where it enjoyed a run of nearly eight months. Neway (alternating with Yul Brynner's sister, Vera Brynner) also led the Broadway cast, this time with Rosemary Kuhlmann as the secretary of the consulate. Neway, Kuhlmann, and Powers also performed these roles in the UK at the Cambridge Theatre in February 1951, with Norman Kelley playing the role of the magician Nika. For the opera's La Scala debut in January 1951, Powers and McKinley reprised their roles, and Clara Petrella portrayed Magda. Zechari ... [...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] |
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th-largest city of Germany. It is the westernmost city in Germany, and borders Belgium and the Netherlands to the west, the triborder area. It is located between Maastricht (NL) and Liège (BE) in the west, and Bonn and Cologne in the east. The Wurm River flows through the city, and together with Mönchengladbach, Aachen is the only larger German city in the drainage basin of the Meuse. Aachen is the seat of the City Region Aachen (german: link=yes, Städteregion Aachen). Aachen developed from a Roman settlement and (bath complex), subsequently becoming the preferred medieval Imperial residence of Emperor Charlemagne of the Frankish Empire, and, from 936 to 1531, the place where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its 16 constituent states have a total population of over 84 million in an area of . It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and Czechia to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, and France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and most populous city is Berlin and its main financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr. Settlement in what is now Germany began in the Lower Paleolithic, with various tribes inhabiting it from the Neolithic onward, chiefly the Celts. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. In 962, the Kingdom of Germany formed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfons Kontarsky
Aloys (14 May 1931 – 22 August 2017) and Alfons (9 October 1932 – 5 May 2010) Kontarsky were German duo- pianist brothers who were associated with a number of important world premieres of contemporary works. They had an international reputation for performing modern music for two pianists, although they also performed the standard repertoire and they sometimes played separately. They were occasionally joined by their younger brother Bernhard in performances of pieces for three pianos. After suffering a stroke in 1983, Aloys retired from performing. Biography The Kontarsky brothers were both born in Iserlohn. Aloys received early tuition from Franz Hanemann. He later studied at Cologne and Hamburg with Else Schmitz-Gohr, and with Eduard Erdmann in Hamburg. Their first public concert was in 1949, in which they played Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos. In 1955 they formed their piano duo "Klavierduo Kontarsky" and performed regularly from 1959 until Aloys became paralyze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she gave up writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Burt Bacharach, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, Virgil Thomson, and George Walker. Boulanger taught in the U.S. and England, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of the world's major centres of finance, diplomacy, commerce, fashion, gastronomy, and science. For its leading role in the arts and sciences, as well as its very early system of street lighting, in the 19th century it became known as "the City of Light". Like London, prior to the Second World War, it was also sometimes called the capital of the world. The City of Paris is the centre of the Île-de-France region, or Paris Region, with an estimated population of 12,262,544 in 2019, or about 19% of the population of France, making the region France's primate city. The Paris Region had a GDP of €739 billion ($743 billion) in 2019, which is the highest in Europe. According to the Economis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Swarowsky
Hans Swarowsky (September 16, 1899September 10, 1975,) was an Austrian conductor of Hungarian birth. Swarowsky was born in Budapest, Hungary. He studied the art of conducting under Felix Weingartner and Richard Strauss. Jiří Vysloužil, Liner notes, ''Mahler Symphony No 4'' Released by Supraphon, 1988 His teachers in musical theory included Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. Herbert von Karajan invited him to take on the permanent position as conductor of the Vienna State Opera. He became a professor of conducting at the Vienna Music Academy. His many conducting students included Claudio Abbado, Mariss Jansons, Alexis Hauser, Alexander Alexeev, Zubin Mehta, Leonid Nikolaev, Paul Angerer, Ádám and Iván Fischer, Avi Ostrowsky Jesús López-Cobos, Gustav Meier, Miltiades Caridis, Aleksandr Alekseyev, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Brian Jackson, Alfred Prinz, Bryan Fairfax, James Allen Gähres, Albert Rosen and Bruno Weil. Otmar Suitner was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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