American Opera Company
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American Opera Company
The American Opera Company was the name of four different opera companies active in the United States. The first company was a short-lived opera company founded in New York City in February, 1886 that lasted only one season. The second company grew out of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and was active from the mid-1920s up until 1930 when it went bankrupt not too long after the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The third opera company was a short lived company located in Trenton, New Jersey that was active in 1937. The fourth and last opera company was actively performing in Philadelphia from 1946 through 1950. Jeannette Thurber's American Opera Company The first American Opera Company was founded in 1886 by well known arts patron Jeannette Meyers Thurber who had just founded the National Conservatory of Music of America a few months earlier. Based in New York City, the American Opera Company was under the musical direction of Theodore Thomas, with Gustav Hinrichs and ...
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Eastman School Of Music
The Eastman School of Music is the music school of the University of Rochester, a private research university in Rochester, New York. It was established in 1921 by industrialist and philanthropist George Eastman. It offers Bachelor of Music (B.M.) degrees, Master of Arts (M.A.) degrees, Master of Music (M.M.) degrees, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees, and Doctor of Musical Arts (D.M.A.) degrees in many musical fields. The school also awards a "Performer's Certificate" or "Artist's Diploma". In 2015, there were more than 900 students enrolled in the collegiate division of the Eastman School (approximately 500 undergraduate and 400 graduate students). Students came from almost every state of the United States, with approximately 25% foreign students. Each year approximately 2000 students apply (1000 undergraduates and 1000 graduates). The acceptance rate was 13% in 2011 and about 1,000 students (ranging in age from 16 years to over 80 years of age) are enrolled in the Eastman ...
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Mary Garden
A Mary garden is a small sacred garden enclosing a statue or shrine of the Virgin Mary, who is known to many Christians as the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady, or the Mother of God. In the New Testament, Mary is the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Mary gardens are most common to those Christian denominations which hold the Virgin Mary in special esteem, particularly Roman Catholics and Anglicans. History The practice originated among monasteries and convents in medieval Europe. During the Middle Ages, people saw reminders of Mary in the flowers and herbs growing around them. Modern revival The first such garden open to the public in the United States was founded in 1932 at St. Joseph's Church, Woods Hole, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This garden was founded by Frances Crane Lillie, a summer resident of Woods Hole. Inspired by the St. Joseph's Mary Garden in Woods Hole, Edward A. G. McTague and John S. Stokes, Jr. founded "Mary's Gardens" of Philadelphia in 1951 as a project to research f ...
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Charles Wakefield Cadman
Charles Wakefield Cadman (December 24, 1881 – December 30, 1946) was an American composer. For 40 years he worked closely with Nelle Richmond Eberhart, who wrote most of the texts to his songs, including ''Four American Indian Songs''. She also wrote the librettos for his five operas, two of which were based on Indian themes. He composed in a wide variety of genres. Life and career Cadman's musical education, unlike that of most of his American contemporaries, was completely American. Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, he began piano lessons at 13. Eventually, he went to nearby Pittsburgh where he studied harmony, theory, and orchestration with Luigi von Kunits and Emil Paur, then concertmaster and conductor, respectively, of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. This was the sum of his formal training, although he has been said to have been a pupil of Anna Priscilla Risher as well. By the age of eighteen, he was working as a clerk in a railroad office in Homestead, also in steel co ...
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Robert Edmond Jones
Robert Edmond Jones (December 12, 1887 – November 26, 1954) was an American scenic, lighting, and costume designer. He is credited with incorporating the new stagecraft into the American drama. His designs sought to integrate scenic elements into the storytelling instead of having them stand separate and indifferent from the play's action. His visual style, often referred to as simplified realism, combined bold vivid use of color and simple, yet dramatic, lighting. Life Born in Milton, New Hampshire, Jones attended Harvard University and graduated in 1910. Jones eventually moved to New York (1912), where, with friends made at Harvard, he began to do small design jobs. In 1913 Jones and several friends sailed to Europe to study the new stagecraft with Edward Gordon Craig in Florence. The school in Florence would not accept Jones, so he went to Berlin instead, spending a year in informal study with Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater. For a 1915 production of ''The Man Wh ...
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Robert A
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Danish, and Icelandic. It can be use ...
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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 ...
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Gallo Opera House
Studio 54 is a Broadway theater and a former disco nightclub at 254 West 54th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Operated by the Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54 has 1,006 seats on two levels. The theater was designed by Eugene De Rosa for producer Fortune Gallo and opened in 1927 as the Gallo Opera House. The current Broadway theater is named after a nightclub on the same site, founded by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, which operated within the theater's space in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Plans for the Gallo Opera House announced in 1926, and it opened on November 8, 1927, as a legitimate theater and opera house for the San Carlo Grand Opera Company. The theater went bankrupt within two years and was renamed the New Yorker Theatre in 1930. The Casino de Paree nightclub operated at the theater from December 1933 to April 1935, and the theater briefly hosted the Palladium Music Hall in early 1936. The Federal Music Project took over th ...
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George Houston (actor)
George Fleming Houston (January 11, 1896 – November 12, 1944) was an American B-western film actor and accomplished singer in the early half of the 20th century. Early life, World War I service Born and raised in Hampton, New Jersey, his parents were Reverend Thomas Houston, a blind evangelist, and Mrs. Charles Houston. He attended Blair Academy, in New Jersey, where he ran track, then later he attended the Institute of Musical Arts, the original name for what would eventually become Juilliard School. Houston received two degrees, one in voice, and one for teaching music. Houston joined the U.S. Army, serving in France during World War I, attached to the 17th French Division, in the Ambulance Service. His military service ran from June 5, 1917, to April 12, 1919. In 1923 he began studying at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Houston garnered leading bass roles in such operas as ''Boris Godunov'' and ''Faust'' under the direction of Vladimir Rosing. Members of Ro ...
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Gladys Swarthout
Gladys Swarthout (December 25, 1900 in Deepwater, Missouri – July 7, 1969 in Florence, Italy) was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer and actress. Career While studying at the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, a group of friends arranged an audition for her with the Chicago Civic Opera Company. Much to her surprise, she ended up with a contract, though at the time she didn't know a single operatic role. When she debuted a few months later, she had memorized 23 parts and participated in over half of the season's operas. She sang for the Ravinia Opera Company of Chicago for three seasons. She sang Carmen in April 1928 in Chicago with the American Opera Company, of which her future husband, Frank M. Chapman Jr., later became a member. In 1929, she made her debut with the New York Metropolitan Opera Company, where she sang in over 270 performances until her Gala Farewell on April 16, 1966. Swarthout's role as Carmen was well respected. She regularly worked eight hours a ...
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Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman (January 13, 1903February 8, 1983), originally Charles Kullmann, was an American tenor who enjoyed a wide-ranging career, both in Europe and America. Life and career Charles Kullman was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and began performing in church choir at age eight. He attended Yale University, studying medicine. However, after graduating in 1924, he returned to his first interest, music, believing he could succeed in making a career as a singer. He was accepted at the Juilliard School on a scholarship where he studied with Anna E. Schoen-René.Juilliard Archives After completing three years of study there, he won another scholarship, this one affording him the opportunity to study at the American University in Fontainebleau, France, with Thomas Salignac. Upon returning to America, he taught voice for a while at Smith College, then joined Vladimir Rosing's touring American Opera Company and began singing leading roles. Two years later, Kullman returned to Eu ...
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Thelma Votipka
Thelma Votipka (December 20, 1906 – October 24, 1972) was an American soprano who sang 1,422 performances with the Metropolitan Opera, more than any other woman in the company's history (her nearest rival, Mathilde Bauermeister, sang 1,062). Votipka was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and educated at Oberlin College. She specialized in comprimario roles. She also studied in New York City with Anna E. Schoen-Rene, a student of Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Manuel Garcia. She was a member of Vladimir Rosing's American Opera Company in the late 1920s and made her debut as the Countess in ''The Marriage of Figaro'' on December 14, 1927, in Washington D.C. She made her Metropolitan debut on December 16, 1935, as Flora in Verdi's ''La traviata'', a role she sang 101 times with the company. Other frequent roles with the Met included Giovanna in Verdi's ''Rigoletto'' (139 performances), Marthe in Gounod's ''Faust'' (128), Alisa in Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' (116), Frasquita in ...
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John Gurney (bass-baritone)
John R. Gurney (June 13, 1902 — August 6, 1997) was an American bass-baritone who had an active career as an opera, concert, vaudeville, and musical theatre performer from the 1920s through the 1940s. He was a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera from 1936 through 1945 where he performed a total of 331 times. On the international stage he performed in operas at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and the Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro. He is best remembered for creating roles in the world premieres of Walter Damrosch's ''The Man Without a Country'' (1937, Colonel Morgan) and Douglas Moore's ''The Devil and Daniel Webster'' (1939, Jabez Stone). He recorded the role of Don Basilio in Rossini's ''The Barber of Seville'' which was release by RCA Camden in 1957. Gurney's son is racecar driver Dan Gurney. Education and performance career Born in Jamestown, New York, Gurney was the son of F. W. Gurney; the founder and industrialist of the Gurney Elevator Company. He graduated ...
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