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Ain Anger
Ain Anger (born 17 June 1971) is an Estonian opera bass. Life and career Born in Kihelkonna, Anger grew up on the Estonian island Saaremaa. He commenced his vocal training at Tallinn's Academy of Music in 1996. After initial professional experience in Estonia, he broadened his repertoire with Leipzig Opera before joining the Ensemble of the Vienna State Opera in the 2004/2005 season. Since his house debut as Monterone (''Rigoletto'') he has sung over 40 roles on Vienna's main stage including Sarastro (''Die Zauberflöte''), Philippe II (''Don Carlos''), Sparafucile (''Rigoletto''), Titurel (''Parsifal''), Daland (''Der fliegende Holländer''), Pogner ('' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''), Varlaam ('' Boris Godunov''), Padre Guardiano ('' La forza del destino''), Heinrich (''Lohengrin''), Zaccaria (''Nabucco''), Fiesco (''Simone Boccanegra''), Hermann (''Tannhäuser'') and Hunding (''Die Walküre''). Guest engagements have taken Anger to Berlin, Munich, Paris and Tokyo (on tour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia. The territory of Estonia consists of the mainland, the larger islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa, and over 2,200 other islands and islets on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, covering a total area of . The capital city Tallinn and Tartu are the two largest urban areas of the country. The Estonian language is the autochthonous and the official language of Estonia; it is the first language of the majority of its population, as well as the world's second most spoken Finnic language. The land of what is now modern Estonia has been inhabited by '' Homo sapiens'' since at least 9,000 BC. The medieval indigenous population of Estonia was one of the last " pagan" civilisations in Europe to adopt Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simone Boccanegra
Simone Boccanegra (; lij, Scimon Boccaneigra ; died 1363) was the first Doge of Genoa. He became doge in 1339, but was ousted from power six years later. He regained the position in 1356, retaining it until his death in 1363. His story was popularized by Antonio García Gutiérrez's 1843 play ''Simón Bocanegra'' and Giuseppe Verdi's 1857 opera ''Simon Boccanegra''. Family background Simone Boccanegra belonged to the wealthy Genoese Boccanegra family of merchants, a family that had among its members Guglielmo Boccanegra, who in 1257 became a virtual dictator of the Republic of Genoa when an insurrection against the government of the old aristocracy made him gain the control of the republic. Guglielmo Boccanegra was also the commissioner, in 1260, of the building of Palazzo San Giorgio, the future seat of republican power in the republic. Life as doge Boccanegra was elected doge for life on 23 December 1339. Boccanegra was opposed by the aristocratic faction, representing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony (SFS), founded in 1911, is an American orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980 the orchestra has been resident at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the city's Hayes Valley neighborhood. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (founded in 1981) and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus (1972) are part of the organization. Michael Tilson Thomas became the orchestra's music director in 1995, and concluded his tenure in 2020 when Esa-Pekka Salonen took over the position. Among the orchestra's awards and honors are an Emmy Award and 15 Grammy Awards in the past 26 years. History The early years The orchestra's first concerts were led by conductor-composer Henry Hadley. There were sixty musicians in the Orchestra at the beginning of their first season. The first concert included music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, and Liszt. There were thirteen concerts in the 1911–1912 season, five of which were popular music. In 1915, Alfred He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, located in New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Founded in 1842, the orchestra is one of the oldest musical institutions in the United States and the oldest of the "Big Five" orchestras. Its record-setting 14,000th concert was given in December 2004. History Founding and first concert, 1842 The New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 by the American conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, with the aid of the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace. The orchestra was then called the Philharmonic Society of New York. It was the third Philharmonic on American soil since 1799, and had as it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodion Shchedrin
Rodion Konstantinovich Shchedrin ( rus, Родион Константинович Щедрин, , rədʲɪˈon kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ɕːɪˈdrʲin; born 16 December 1932) is a Soviet and Russian composer and pianist, winner of USSR State Prize (1972), the Lenin Prize (1984), and the State Prize of the Russian Federation (1992), and is a former member of the Inter-regional Deputies Group (1989–1991). He is also a citizen of Lithuania and Spain. Biography Shchedrin was born in Moscow into a musical family—his father was a composer and teacher of music theory. He studied at the Moscow Choral School and Moscow Conservatory (graduating in 1955) under Yuri Shaporin (composition) and Yakov Flier (piano). He was married to ballerina Maya Plisetskaya from 1958 until her death in 2015. Shchedrin's early music is tonal and colourfully orchestrated and often includes snatches of folk music, while some later pieces use aleatoric and serial techniques. In the West the music o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel (, March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in the concert halls of Europe by 1960 but, by comparison, his career in the U.S. progressed far more slowly. He served as music director of The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic, among other posts. Maazel was well-regarded in baton technique and possessed a photographic memory for scores. Described as mercurial and forbidding in rehearsal, he mellowed in old age. Early life Maazel was born to American parents of Ukrainian Jewish origin in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. His grandfather Isaac Maazel (1873-1925), born in Poltava, Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, was a violinist in the Metropolitan Opera orchestra. He and his wife Est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Thielemann
Christian Thielemann (born 1 April 1959) is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. He was artistic director of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2013 to 2022, and a regular conductor at the Bayreuth Festival. He also makes regular guest appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2020, Thielemann was appointed honorary professor at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden. Biography and career Born in West Berlin, Thielemann studied viola and piano there and took private lessons in composition and conducting before becoming ''répétiteur'' aged 19 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Heinrich Hollreiser and working as Herbert von Karajan's assistant. He worked at a number of smaller German theatres including the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, in Karlsruhe, Hanover, at Düsseldorf's Deutsche Oper am Rhein as First ''Kapellmeister'' and in Nürnberg as ''Generalmusikdir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siegfried (opera)
''Siegfried'' (), WWV 86C, is the third of the four music dramas that constitute ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), by Richard Wagner. It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of ''The Ring'' cycle. Background and context The libretto of ''Siegfried'' was drafted by Wagner in November–December 1852, based on an earlier version he had prepared in May–June 1851 and originally entitled ''Jung-Siegfried'' (''Young Siegfried''), later changed to ''Der junge Siegfried''. The musical composition was commenced in 1856, but not finally completed until 1871.Millington, (n.d.) The libretto arose from Wagner's gradual reconception of the project he had initiated with his libretto ''Siegfrieds Tod'' (''Siegfried's Death'') which was eventually to be incarnated as ''Götterdämmerung'', the final section of the Ring cycle. Having grappled with his text for ''Siegfrieds Tod'', and indeed having under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Rheingold
''Das Rheingold'' (; ''The Rhinegold''), WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, and received its first performance as part of the ''Ring'' cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on 13 August 1876. Wagner wrote the ''Ring'' librettos in reverse order, so that ''Das Rheingold'' was the last of the texts to be written; it was, however, the first to be set to music. The score was completed in 1854, but Wagner was unwilling to sanction its performance until the whole cycle was complete; he worked intermittently on this music until 1874. The 1869 Munich premiere of ''Das Rheingold'' was staged, much against Wagner's wishes, on the orders of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Following its 1876 Bayreuth premiere, the ''Ring'' cycle was introduced into the worldwide repertory, with perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle and ''Parsifal''. Performances take place in a specially designed theatre, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Wagner personally supervised the design and construction of the theatre, which contained many architectural innovations to accommodate the huge orchestras for which Wagner wrote as well as the composer's particular vision about the staging of his works. The Festival has become a pilgrimage destination for Wagnerians and classical-music enthusiasts. Origins The origins of the Festival itself lie rooted in Richard Wagner's interest in establishing his financial independence. A souring of the relationship with his patron, Ludwig II o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operabase
Operabase is an online database of opera performances, opera houses and companies, and performers themselves as well as their agents. Found at operabase.com, it was created in 1996 by English software engineer and opera lover Mike Gibb.Edward Schneider (29 July 2001),"Singing and Their Suppers" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved 13 May 2011. Initially a hobby site, it became his full-time occupation after three years. ''Opera'' magazine describes the Operabase website as "the most comprehensive source of data on operatic activity". Public website By its tenth anniversary, in 2006, the site received "about 10,000 visitors a day to the public site, who look at over four million pages a month between them. Of these, fewer than half use English, 17% use German, 12% Italian, 10% French, 9% Spanish." In autumn of that year the British magazine ''Opera Now'' reported that "Operabase has taken on the Herculean task of making he siteavailable to every European Union citizen in their own la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it currently produces three festivals per year. Since 1999, Michael Haefliger has been its Executive and Artistic Director. Each festival features resident orchestras and soloists alongside guest performances from international ensembles and artists. The central festival takes place in summer from mid-August to mid-September and offers a widely varied range of approximately 100 concerts and related events primarily at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre (KKL) designed by Jean Nouvel. History The festival started with the so-called "Concert de Gala" in the gardens of Richard Wagner's villa at Tribschen in 1938 conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists from around Europe. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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