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At The Boar's Head
''At the Boar's Head'' is an opera in one act by the English composer Gustav Holst, his op. 42. Holst himself described the work as "A Musical Interlude in One Act". The libretto, by the composer himself, is based on Shakespeare's '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Henry IV, Part 2''. Development Holst devised the idea for this opera in 1924, whilst convalescing from an illness. During this period, he alternated between reading ''Henry IV, Part I'' and an edition of John Playford's ''The English Dancing Master'', as well as folk melodies collected by Cecil Sharp and others. Holst noticed that the rhythm and metre of Shakespeare's lines matched the tunes in the Playford, as well as the tunes that Sharp and others had collected. He then decided to set a number of those melodies to a story assembled from episodes set at the Boar's Head Inn from the two parts of ''Henry IV''. Three of the melodic passages are original, including a recitative for Prince Hal and a setting for the sonnets. J ... [...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 of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare and is eulogised in a fourth. His significance as a fully developed character is primarily formed in the plays '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', where he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. Falstaff is also featured as the buffoonish suitor of two married women in '' The Merry Wives of Windsor''. Though primarily a comic figure, Falstaff embodies a depth common to Shakespeare's major characters. A fat, vain, and boastful knight, he spends most of his time drinking at the Boar's Head Inn with petty criminals, living on stolen or borrowed money. Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is ultimately repudiated after Hal becomes king. Falstaff has since appeared in other media, including operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Otto Nicolai, and in Orson Welles' 1966 film ''Chimes at Midnight''. The operas focus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tudor Davies
Tudor Davies (12 November 18922 April 1958) was a Welsh tenor. Biography Tudor Davies was born in Cymmer, near Porth, South Wales, on 12 November 1892. He studied in Cardiff and at the Royal College of Music in London. He served as an engineer in the Royal Navy during World War I. He toured the United States, Canada and Australia (where he shared the stage with Maggie Teyte) and then returned to Britain, where he sang with the British National Opera Company, Sadler's Wells Opera and the Carl Rosa Opera Company. He sang Rodolfo to Dame Nellie Melba's Mimi in ''La bohème'' in 1922 at Covent Garden. He sang a number of leading tenor parts from the Italian, French and German repertoire, such as Lohengrin, Tamino, Florestan, Faust, Don José and the Duke of Mantua. He also appeared in English operas such as Dame Ethel Smyth's ''Fête Galante'', and Arthur Benjamin's ''The Devil Take Her''. He created the title role in Ralph Vaughan Williams' opera ''Hugh the Drover'' in 1924, e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry V Of England
Henry V (16 September 1386 – 31 August 1422), also called Henry of Monmouth, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1413 until his death in 1422. Despite his relatively short reign, Henry's outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France made England one of the strongest military powers in Europe. Immortalised in Shakespeare's "Henriad" plays, Henry is known and celebrated as one of the greatest warrior-kings of medieval England. During the reign of his father Henry IV, Henry gained military experience fighting the Welsh during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr and against the powerful aristocratic Percy family of Northumberland at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Henry acquired an increased role in England's government due to the king's declining health, but disagreements between father and son led to political conflict between the two. After his father's death in 1413, Henry assumed control of the country and asserted the pending English claim t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Allin
Norman Allin (19 November 1884 – 27 October 1973) was a British bass singer of the early and mid twentieth century, and later a teacher of voice. Early studies Allin was born in Ashton-under-Lyne in 1884. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under John Acton (singing) and Walter Carroll (theory). He married the teacher Edith Clegg in 1912 and went to London, where the conductor Sir Henry Wood heard him and planned to involve him in the 1914 Norwich Festival. The festival was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. However, Allin did sing the Handel aria "O ruddier than the cherry", from '' Acis and Galatea'', at a Promenade Concert for Wood during the war.Wood 1946, 292. Operatic career Sir Thomas Beecham auditioned him and at once offered him the title role in Mussorgsky's ''Boris Godunov'', but Allin felt a less challenging debut was needed. So, his first appearance for Beecham was as the Old Hebrew in ''Samson et Dalila'' on 15 October 1916. With th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass (voice Type)
A bass is a type of classical male singing voice and has the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', a bass is typically classified as having a vocal range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C (i.e., E2–E4).; ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'' gives E2–E4/F4 Its tessitura, or comfortable range, is normally defined by the outermost lines of the bass clef. Categories of bass voices vary according to national style and classification system. Italians favour subdividing basses into the ''basso cantante'' (singing bass), ''basso buffo'' ("funny" bass), or the dramatic ''basso profondo'' (low bass). The American system identifies the bass-baritone, comic bass, lyric bass, and dramatic bass. The German ''Fach'' system offers further distinctions: Spielbass (Bassbuffo), Schwerer Spielbass (Schwerer Bassbuffo), Charakterbass (Bassbariton), and Seriöser Bass. These classification systems can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 some of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Ottaway
Hugh Ottaway (27 July 1925 – 6 November 1979) was a prominent British writer and lecturer on classical music. Ottaway studied history at Exeter University (then the University of the South-West) from 1944. His career began as a teacher, freelance writer and from the 1950s as a presenter of musical talks on BBC Radio. His most significant contributions to music criticism were as a commentator on that portion of twentieth-century music which retained an allegiance to tonality; thus Nielsen, Shostakovich, Sibelius and William Walton featured largely in his output. Ottaway was especially associated with British composers such as Edmund Rubbra and Robert Simpson, and a staunch supporter of the politically active Alan Bush Alan Dudley Bush (22 December 1900 – 31 October 1995) was a British composer, pianist, conductor, teacher and political activist. A committed communist, his uncompromising political beliefs were often reflected in his music. He composed pro .... But Da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandor Harmati
Sandor Harmati (9 July 18924 April 1936) was a Hungarian-American violinist, conductor and composer, best known for his song "Bluebird of Happiness" written in 1934 for Jan Peerce. Biography Sandor Harmati (''Harmati Sándor'' in Hungarian orthography) was born into a Jewish family in Budapest on 9 July 1892. He studied at the Budapest Music Academy in 1909, becoming a professor at age 17. From 1910 to 1912 he was Concertmaster of the Hungarian State Orchestra. He emigrated to the United States in 1914. From 1917 to 1921 he played with the Letz String Quartet, becoming leader in 1922; and the Elki Piano Trio (Ernö Rapée, piano; Paul Gruppe, cello; Sandor Harmati, violin). From 1922 to 1925 he played first violin with the Lenox String Quartet, which he co-founded. In 1921 Sandor Harmati was a founding member of the American Music Guild, created by a group of young American composers "to learn each other's music and to present worthy works by other American composers to the Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacDowell Club
The MacDowell Clubs in the United States were established at the turn of the twentieth century to honor internationally recognized American composer Edward MacDowell. They became part of a broader social movement to promote music and other art forms in America. History The first MacDowell music club was established in 1896 in Boston by Edward MacDowell's students — ''The MacDowell Club of Boston'' ( Edith Noyes Greene was one of the founders).Bomberger, E. Douglas''MacDowell'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2013, p. 287. Club in Providence, Rhode Island was founded in 1901,Yackley, Elizabeth AMarian MacDowell and the Macdowell Clubs M.A. thesis. University of Maryland, College Park, 2008. and another one, in Baker City, Oregon, in 1903, another club formed in Conneaut, Ohio in 1903. The ''MacDowell Club of Canton'' was founded in 1908; its members donated funds for construction of the Gail Watson Cable Recital Hall. The ''MacDowell Club of Allied Arts of Los Angeles'' was e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gianni Schicchi
() is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's (The Triptych)three one-act operas with contrasting themes, originally written to be presented together. Although it continues to be performed with one or both of the other operas, is now more frequently staged either alone or with short operas by other composers. The aria is one of Puccini's best known, and one of the most popular arias in opera. Puccini had long considered writing a set of one-act operas which would be performed together in a single evening, but faced with a lack of suitable subjects and opposition from his publisher, he repeatedly put the project aside. However, by 1916 Puccini had completed the one-act tragedy and, after considering various ideas, he began work the following year on the solemn, religious, all- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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