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Štefan Babjak
Štefan Babjak (7 October 1931 in Humenné – 27 April 2008) was a Slovak classical baritone who had a lengthy career performing in operas, operettas, and musicals in his home country. Three of his five children, Martin Babjak, Ján Babjak and Terézia Kružliaková, are professional opera singers. Babjak was a member of the State Opera in Banská Bystrica from 1959 up until his death almost five decades later. He particularly excelled in portraying roles in operas by Giuseppe Verdi, including the Count di Luna in '' Il trovatore'', Germont in ''La Traviata'', Iago in ''Otello'', Renato in ''Un ballo in maschera'', Rodrigue in ''Don Carlos'', and the title roles in '' Rigoletto'' and ''Simon Boccanegra''. Other important roles for him included Caniche in Gejza Dusík's '' Modrá ruža'', Escamillo in Georges Bizet's ''Carmen'', Miško in Emmerich Kálmán's '' Čardášová princezna'', Stárek in Leoš Janáček's '' Jenůfa'', Štelina in Eugen Suchoň's ''Krútňava'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humenné
Humenné (; hu, Homonna; ukr, Гуменне) is a town in the Prešov Region ("kraj") in eastern Slovakia and the second largest town of the historic Zemplín region. It lies at the volcanic Vihorlat mountains and at the confluence of the Laborec and Cirocha Rivers. Names and etymology The name comes from a common Slavic word "humno" (gumьno). In Slovak "backyard", the exact meaning may differ in dialects. Initially, a female adjective (1322 ''Homonna'', 1332 ''Humenna'', 1381 ''Humenna'', 1391 ''Humonna'') then neutrum ''Humenné''. Landmarks Humenné is a center of one of the easternmost districts ("okres") in Slovakia. The most attractive places are the Vihorlat Mountains boasting of their Morské oko lake, and the Bukovské vrchy (section of the Bieszczady Mountains) at the border of Slovakia, Poland, and Ukraine, which are part of the Poloniny National Park. Humenné is surrounded by ruins of medieval castles and an open-air museum of architecture situated in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Boccanegra
''Simon Boccanegra'' () is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play ''Simón Bocanegra'' (1843) by Antonio García Gutiérrez, whose play ''El trovador'' had been the basis for Verdi's 1853 opera, ''Il trovatore''. ''Simon Boccanegra'' was first performed at Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 12 March 1857. Given the complications of the original plot and the generally poor popular response – although the critical one was more encouraging – the opera dropped out of favour after 1866. Finally, 23 years later, Verdi's publisher persuaded the composer to revise the opera, with text changes to be prepared by Arrigo Boito, the librettist who aspired to work with the aging composer on a project which eventually became a new opera, ''Otello'', but to which Verdi had not totally committed at that time. The revised version of ''Simon Boccanegra'', with the now-famous Council Chamber scene, was first perfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era Czech nationalism, nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák), First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Faust (opera)
''Faust'' is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play ''Faust et Marguerite'', in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Faust, Part One''. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859, with influential sets designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry, Jean Émile Daran, Édouard Desplechin, and Philippe Chaperon. Performance history The original version of Faust employed spoken dialogue, and it was in this form that the work was first performed. The manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, Léon Carvalho cast his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite and there were various changes during production, including the removal and contraction of several numbers. The tenor Hector Gruyer was originally cast as Faust but was found to be inadequate during rehearsals, being eventually replaced by a principal of the Opéra-Comique, Joseph-Théodore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (; ; 17 June 181818 October 1893), usually known as Charles Gounod, was a French composer. He wrote twelve operas, of which the most popular has always been ''Faust (opera), Faust'' (1859); his ''Roméo et Juliette'' (1867) also remains in the international repertory. He composed a large amount of church music, many songs, and popular short pieces including his Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Ave Maria (an elaboration of a Johann Sebastian Bach, Bach piece), and ''Funeral March of a Marionette''. Born in Paris into an artistic and musical family Gounod was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France's most prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. His studies took him to Italy, Austria and then Prussia, where he met Felix Mendelssohn, whose advocacy of the music of Bach was an early influence on him. He was deeply religious, and after his return to Paris, he briefly considered becoming a priest. He composed prolifically, writing church music, songs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krútňava
'' Krútňava'' (abroad staged as The Whirlpool or Katrena after the main female role) is an opera in six scenes by Eugen Suchoň written in the 1940s to a libretto by the composer and Štefan Hoza, based on a novella, '' Za vyšným mlynom (Beyond the Upper Mill)'' by Milo Urban. The opera was premiered at the Slovak National Theatre, Bratislava, on 10 December 1949. Background Suchoň was invited in 1940 to write an opera for the Slovak National Theatre. In 1941 he read Urban's novella ''Beyond the Upper Mill'', a story of love and murder set in the Slovak countryside in the years after World War I, which immediately inspired him. Urban himself however refused to collaborate on the libretto, writing in 1958 that the dramatization risked losing some of the ambiguities he had deliberately created in the book (e.g. the paternity of the heroine's baby). Suchoň's original conception was to write the opera using two different styles - a quasi-impressionist style to accompany the thou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugen Suchoň
Eugen Suchoň (September 25, 1908 – August 5, 1993) was one of the most important Slovak composers of the 20th century. Early life Eugen Suchoň was born on September 25, 1908 in Pezinok, (Slovakia). His father, Ladislav Suchoň, was an organist and teacher. His mother, Serafína Suchoňová, was a piano teacher, and it was from her that he received his first piano tuition. The house was always filled with music and, as a small child, he would listen from under the piano when his father rehearsed at home with other musicians. In 1920, at the age of twelve, he started taking piano lessons at the Bratislava School of Music with the distinguished musician Frico Kafenda. Later, from 1927 to 1931, he continued his studies with the same teacher at the newly established Academy of Music in Bratislava. His early works include several piano compositions and a choral work ''Veľky Pôst (The Great Fast)''. He graduated from his composition classes with the ''Sonata in A-flat for Vi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jenůfa
''Její pastorkyňa'' (''Her Stepdaughter''; commonly known as ''Jenůfa'' ) is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play ''Její pastorkyňa'' by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the National Theatre, Brno on 21 January 1904. Composed between 1896 and 1902, it is among the first operas written in prose. The first of Janáček's operas in which his distinctive voice can clearly be heard, it is a grim story of infanticide and redemption. Like the playwright's original work, it is known for its unsentimental realism. While today it is heard in the composer's original version, ''Jenůfas early popularity was due to a revised version by Karel Kovařovic, altering what was considered its eccentric style and orchestration. Thus altered, it was well-received, first in Prague, and particularly after its Vienna première also worldwide. More than 70 years passed before audiences again heard it in Janáček's original ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style.Sehnal and Vysloužil (2001), p. 175 Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research. While his early musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák, his later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera ''Jenůfa'', which was premiered in 1904 in Brno. The success of ''Jenůfa'' (often called the "Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as ''Káťa Kabanová'' and ''The Cunning Little Vixen'', the Sinfonietta, the ''Glag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emmerich Kálmán
Emmerich Kálmán ( hu, Kálmán Imre; 24 October 1882 – 30 October 1953) was a Hungarian composer of operettas and a prominent figure in the development of Viennese operetta in the 20th century. Among his most popular works are '' Die Csárdásfürstin'' (1915) and ''Gräfin Mariza'' (1924). Influences on his compositional style include Hungarian folk music (such as the csárdás), the Viennese style of precursors such as Johann Strauss II and Franz Lehár, and, in his later works, American jazz. As a result of the ''Anschluss,'' Kálmán and his family fled to Paris and then to the United States. He eventually returned to Europe in 1949 and died in Paris in 1953. Biography Kálmán was born Imre Koppstein in Siófok, then in Austria-Hungary, on the southern shore of Lake Balaton, to a Jewish family. Kálmán initially intended to become a concert pianist, but because of early-onset arthritis, he focused on composition instead. He studied music theory and composition at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the Carmen (novella), novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical Western canon, canon; the "Habanera (aria), Habanera" from act 1 and the "Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of ''opéra comique'' with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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