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Monodrama
A monodrama is a theatrical or operatic piece played by a single actor or singer, usually portraying one character. In opera In opera, a monodrama was originally a melodrama with one role such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's '' Pygmalion'', which was written in 1762 and first staged in Lyon in 1770, and Georg Benda's work of the same name (1779). The term monodrama (sometimes mono-opera) is also applied to modern works with a single soloist, such as Arnold Schoenberg's '' Die glückliche Hand'' (1924), which besides the protagonist has two additional silent roles as well as a choral prologue and epilogue. '' Erwartung'' (1909) and '' La voix humaine'' (1959) closely follow the traditional definition, while in '' Eight Songs for a Mad King'' (1969) by Peter Maxwell Davies, the instrumentalists are brought to the stage to participate in the action. Twenty-first century examples can be found in ''Émilie'' (2008) by Kaija Saariaho and ''Four Sad Seasons Over Madrid'' (2008) or ''G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erwartung
' (''Expectation''), Op. 17, is a one-act monodrama in four scenes by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by . Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until 6 June 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the soprano. The opera takes the unusual form of a monologue for solo soprano accompanied by a large orchestra. In performance, it lasts for about half an hour. It is sometimes paired with Béla Bartók's opera '' Bluebeard's Castle'' (1911), as the two works were roughly contemporary and share similar psychological themes. Schoenberg described ''Erwartung'', saying "the aim is to represent in slow motion everything that occurs during a single second of maximum spiritual excitement, stretching it out to half an hour." Philip Friedheim has described ' as Schoenberg's "only lengthy work in an athematic style", where no musical material returns once stated over the course of 426 measures. In his analysis of the structure, one indication of the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émilie (opera)
''Émilie'' is an opera – specifically a 9-scene, 75-minute monodrama for soprano – by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho to a libretto by Amin Maalouf. It was written in 2008. Based on the life and writings of Marquise Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), the work premiered at the Opéra de Lyon, France, on 1 March 2010, with Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, its dedicatee, in the title role. It recounts the achievements of this mathematician, physicist, and mistress of Voltaire: the first woman to establish an international scientific reputation, with pioneering work in the study of fire. Billed as the third opera by Saariaho, ''Émilie'' is more accurately a sister-piece to the oratorio '' La Passion de Simone'' (2006). In 2020, the opera was performed at the Peabody Conservatory with Australian conductor Leonard Weiss, led by soprano Elizabeth Futral, who premiered the role at Spoleto in 2011. Subject The opera ''Émilíe'' is based on the actual biography of Émilie du Châ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eight Songs For A Mad King
''Eight Songs for a Mad King'' is a monodrama by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies with a libretto by Randolph Stow, based on words of George III of the United Kingdom, George III. The work was written for the South-African actor Roy Hart and the composer's ensemble, the Fires of London, Pierrot Players. It was premiered on 22 April 1969. Lasting half an hour, it is scored for a baritone with an extraordinary command of Extended vocal technique, extended vocal techniques covering more than five octaves, and six players (Pierrot ensemble + percussion): *flute (doubling piccolo) *clarinet *Percussion instrument, percussion (1 player): railway whistle, snare drum, 2 suspended cymbals, foot cymbal, 2 Woodblock (instrument), wood blocks, 2 bass drums, chains, Ratchet (instrument), ratchet, Tom-tom drum, tom-toms, tamtam, tambourine, rototoms, toy bird-calls, 2 Wooden fish, temple blocks, wind chimes, crotales, sleigh bells, hammered dulcimer, dulcimer, glockenspiel, steel bars, crow, didgerid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygmalion (opera)
Pygmalion is a monodrama in one act by composer Georg Benda with a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. The opera's first performance was at the , the court theatre in Gotha, on 20 September 1779. ''Pygmalion'' was the fourth of the five theatrical collaborations of Benda and Gotter. Gotter based his text on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 play '' Pygmalion''. Benda's melodrama is unusual as it has no singing roles. Two of the three characters, Pygmalion and Galatea, are spoken roles; the other, Venus, is silently acted on stage. __NOTOC__ Synopsis Pygmalion, having renounced women, is in love with the statue he has made, his Galatea. Venus allows her to come to life, giving him final happiness. Discography * ''Benda Melodramas: Ariadne auf Naxos/Pygmalion'' with conductor Christian Benda and the . Cast: Brigitte Quadlbauer (Ariadne) and Peter Uray (Pygmalion). Released in 1996 on the Naxos Naxos (; , ) is a Greek island belonging to the Cyclades island group. It ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Kontrabaß
''Der Kontrabaß'' (''The Double Bass'') is a play by Patrick Süskind. The monologue in one act premiered in 1981. History The manuscript of the play by Patrick Süskind dates back to 1980. The monologue in one act, the author's first work for the stage, premiered at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich on 22 September 1981 and was performed by Nikolaus Paryla, who also directed. Thanks to its minimal staging requirements, the play was successfully reproduced at most German-language theatres. In the 1984–85 season, it was the play with the most performances on German language stages, playing more than 500 times. Printed in 1984 by the Diogenes Verlag, the play was translated into English by Michael Hofmann and published in 1987 by Hamish Hamilton. This translation was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize in 1988. The play also appeared in the Bloomsbury Classics series. It has been translated into 28 languages, including Arabic, French, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Turkish, and Pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Warren, 3rd Baron De Tabley
John Byrne Leicester Warren, 3rd Baron de Tabley (26 April 1835 – 22 November 1895) was an English poet, numismatist, botanist and an authority on bookplates. Life He was eldest son of George Fleming Leicester (afterwards Warren), Lord de Tabley (1811–1887), by his wife (married: 1832) Catherina Barbara (1814–1869), second daughter of Jerome, Count de Salis-Soglio. The young Warren, as he then was, was educated at Eton from 1847 to 1851, in the Rev. Edward Coleridge's house, and then at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1856 with second class honours in classics, law, and modern history. In the autumn of 1858 he went to Turkey as unpaid attaché to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. In 1860 he was called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn. He was commissioned as a part-time Lieutenant into the Cheshire Yeomanry and unsuccessfully contested Mid-Cheshire in 1868 as a Liberal. After his mother died and his father's re-marriage in 1871 Warren removed to London, where ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nemesis (Momen Play)
''Nemesis'' () is a play written by Natyaguru Nurul Momen, considered one of the most successful experimental plays in Bengali theatre. It is a play with only one character, written in 1944 and published in the acclaimed literary journal "Shonibarer Chithi" in 1945 & as a book in 1948. ''Nemesis'', a tragedy, set a milestone in the history of Bengali literature because of its unique feature and modern plot. National professor of Bangladesh Kabir Chowdhury explains, “Nemesis is his (Nurul Momen's) most famous work. It is an experimental drama where through dialogues the main and only character remembers his past. It shows how a promising personality falls prey to greed and loses his morality. Though it is a play based on one actor, the scope of the plot is wide and a number of other characters come in through the main character's reminiscences.” It was also the first experimental Bengali play, as ''Nemesis'' contains only one character. This experiment was done earlier than Nur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krapp's Last Tape
''Krapp's Last Tape'' is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee (actor), Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's experience of listening to Magee reading extracts from ''Molloy (novel), Molloy'' and ''From an Abandoned Work'' on the BBC Third Programme in December 1957. It is considered to be among Beckett’s major dramas. History First publication In a letter to a London bookseller Jake Schwartz on 15 March 1958, Beckett wrote that he had "'four states, in typescript, with copious notes and dirty corrections, of a short stage monologue I have just written (in English) for Pat Magee. This was composed on the machine from a tangle of old notes, so I have not the Manuscript, MS to offer you." According to Ackerley and S. E. Gontarski, Gontarski, "It was first published in ''Evergreen Review'' 2.5 (summer 1958), then in ''Krapp's Last Tape and Embers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Glückliche Hand
' (''The Hand of Fate''), Op. 18, is a ''Drama mit Musik'' ("drama with music") by Arnold Schoenberg in four scenes. It was composed between 1910 and 1913. Like ''Erwartung'', composed a year earlier, it was heavily influenced by Otto Weininger's book '' Sex and Character''.Schiff, David (8 August 1999)"Schoenberg's Cool Eye For the Erotic" ''The New York Times'' Unlike ''Erwartung'', Schoenberg wrote the libretto for ''Die glückliche Hand'' himself. The first performance took place at the Vienna Volksoper on 24 October 1924. The underlying message of the piece is the idea that man continues to repeatedly make the same mistakes, and the plot is developed from events in Schoenberg's personal life. Composition history The subject of the drama was influenced by personal circumstances in Schoenberg's life. Schoenberg's music was not as well received as it had been in previous years. Also, two years before the composition of the piece, Mathilde, Schoenberg's wife, had an affair with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On The Harmful Effects Of Tobacco
''On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco'' () is a one-act play by Anton Chekhov. It has one character, Ivan Ivanovich Nyukhin. First published in 1886, the play was revised by Chekhov and is best known from his 1902 version. This was first published in English in ''The Unknown Chekhov'' (1954), a collection of writings. Plot The action takes place in a town hall. Nyukhin has been told by his wife to give a lecture about "the harmful effects of tobacco", although he is a smoker. He emphasizes that this will be a dry and boring lecture, but always postpones the actual subject by talking about his problems with his domineering wife. "I must tell you, by the way, that my wife runs a boarding school. Well, not exactly a boarding school, but something in the nature of one. Just between us, my wife likes to complain about hard times, but she has put away a little nest egg... some forty or fifty thousand rubles. As for me, I haven't a kopek to my name, not a penny... " He wants to stand u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pygmalion (Rousseau)
''Pygmalion'' is the most influential dramatic work by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, other than his opera '' Le devin du village''. Though now rarely performed, it was one of the first ever melodramas (that is, a play consisting of pantomime gestures and the spoken word, both with a musical accompaniment). It is formed of spoken monodrama with instrumental musical interludes and thus can be credited with spreading a new theatrical genre, especially in German-speaking areas of Europe. He wrote it in 1762, with music by Horace Coignet. It was first performed at the Hôtel de Ville, Lyon, in 1770. The work is considered a turning point for its author, who also wrote ''The Social Contract'' that same year. History Rousseau probably wrote his text in 1762, but hesitated to put on a production of it, complaining of his lack of skill (in Pygmalion's case in life-giving, in Rousseau's in music-writing). The merchant and amateur composer Horace Coignet allowed him to realise it by writing a sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melodrama
A melodrama is a Drama, dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodrama is "an exaggerated version of drama". Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or extremely sentimentality, sentimental, rather than on action. Characters are often Character (arts)#Round vs. flat, flat and written to fulfill established character archetypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality, family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, film, or television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers further cues to the audience of the dramatic beats being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, melodramas are Victorian era, Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
