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Christian Curnyn
Christian Curnyn is a British conductor, harpsichordist and baroque music specialist. Early life Curnyn was born in Glasgow in April 1971. After reading Music at the University of York, he took postgraduate studies on the harpsichord at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In 1994, after graduating from the university, he founded the award-winning Early Opera Company. Career Much in demand on the operatic scene, in the UK Curnyn has conducted for Bampton Classical Opera (Gluck's '' Le Cinesi''), Scottish Opera ( Handel's ''Semele''), Opera North (Handel's ''Saul''), Grange Park Opera (''Semele,'' Mozart's '' The Marriage of Figaro'', and Cavalli's '' Eliogabalo'') and Garsington Opera ( ''Die Zauberflöte''). He is a regular at English National Opera where successes have included Olivier Award-winning productions of Handel's ''Partenope,'' and Rameau’s ''Castor et Pollux'' (dir. Barrie Kosky), ''After Dido'' (Katie Mitchell’s realisation of Purcell’s ''Dido and Ae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harpsichordist
A harpsichordist is a person who plays the harpsichord. Harpsichordists may play as soloists, as accompanists, as chamber musicians, or as members of an orchestra, or some combination of these roles. Solo harpsichordists may play unaccompanied sonatas for harpsichord or concertos accompanied by orchestra. Accompanist harpsichordists might accompany singers or instrumentalists (e.g., a violinist or Baroque flute player), either playing works written for a voice (or an instrument) and harpsichord or an orchestral reduction of the orchestra parts. Chamber musician harpsichordists could play in small groups of instrumentalists, such as a quartet or quintet. Baroque-style orchestras and opera pit orchestras typically have a harpsichordist to play the chords in the basso continuo part. History Many baroque composers played the harpsichord, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau. At this time, it was com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eliogabalo
''Eliogabalo'' (''Heliogabalus'') is an opera by the Italian composer Francesco Cavalli based on the life of the Roman emperor Heliogabalus. The author of the original libretto is unknown but it was probably reworked by Aurelio Aureli. The opera was composed in 1667 and was intended to be premiered during the Venetian Carnival season of 1668. In fact, it was never staged and was replaced by another opera of the same name by Giovanni Antonio Boretti, perhaps because Cavalli's style was considered too old-fashioned. ''Eliogabalo'' was first performed in 1999, in Crema, Italy. ''Eliogabalo'' was revived at La Monnaie in 2004 by René Jacobs. Its North American premiere took place in 2007 at the Aspen Music Festival, conducted by Jane Glover. Gotham Chamber Opera in performed it in 2013 in a Manhattan nightclub in Chrystie Street, Richard Kimmel's The Box, directed by James Marvel. In a co-production with the Dutch National Opera, the Paris Opera The Paris Opera (, ) is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Médée (Charpentier)
''Médée'' is a '' tragédie mise en musique'' in five acts and a prologue by Marc-Antoine Charpentier to a French libretto by Thomas Corneille. It was premiered at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on December 4, 1693. ''Médée'' is the only opera Charpentier wrote for the Académie Royale de Musique. The opera was well reviewed by contemporary critics and commentators, including Sébastien de Brossard and Évrard Titon du Tillet, as well as Louis XIV whose brother attended several performances, as did his son; however, the opera only ran until March 15, 1694, although it was later revived at Lille.Powell Roles Synopsis Prologue A celebration of the glory of King Louis XIV. Act 1 Jason and Médée (Medea), pursued by the people of Thessaly because of Médée's crimes, have sought refuge in Corinth. Médée is worried that Jason is growing distant from her. Jason claims he needs to win the good graces of the princess Créuse so her doting father, King Créon, will pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giulio Cesare
''Giulio Cesare in Egitto'' (; , HWV 17), commonly known as ''Giulio Cesare'', is a dramma per musica ('' opera seria'') in three acts composed by George Frideric Handel for the Royal Academy of Music in 1724. The libretto was written by Nicola Francesco Haym who used an earlier libretto by Giacomo Francesco Bussani, which had been set to music by Antonio Sartorio (1676). The opera was a success at its first performances, was frequently revived by Handel in his subsequent opera seasons and is now one of the most often performed Baroque operas. The opera's plot is loosely based on historic events during the Roman Civil War of 49–45 BC. Composition history ''Giulio Cesare in Egitto'' was first performed at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, London on 20 February 1724. The opera was an immediate success. A contemporary wrote in a letter on 10 March 1724: ...the opera is in full swing also, since Hendell's new one, called Jules César – in which Cenesino and Cozzun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dido And Aeneas
''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689.White, Bryan, 'Letter from Aleppo: dating the Chelsea School performance of Dido and Aeneas', 417 Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683.Pinnock, Andrew, 'Which Genial Day? More on the court origin of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with a shortlist of dates for its possible performance before King Charles II’, Early Music 43 (2015), 199–212Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, Unscared by turning times'? The dating of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas," The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century. Life and work Early life Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil's Acre, a notorious slum – in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katie Mitchell
Katrina Jane Mitchell (born 23 September 1964) is an English theatre director. Life and career Mitchell was born in Reading, Berkshire, raised in Hermitage, Berkshire, and educated at Oakham School. Upon leaving Oakham, she went up to Magdalen College, Oxford, to read English. She began her career behind the scenes at the King's Head Theatre in London before taking on work as an assistant director at theatre companies including Paines Plough (1987) and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) (1988 - 1989). Early in her career in the 1990s, she directed five early productions under the umbrella of her company Classics On A Shoestringincluding Women of Troy for which she won a Time Out Award. In 1989, she was awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowshito study director’s training in Russian, Georgia, Lithuania and Poland and the work she saw there, including productions by Lev Dodin, Eiumentas Nekrosius and Anatoly Vasiliev, influenced her own practice for the next twenty yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barrie Kosky
Barrie KoskyBarrie Kosky's name is sometimes misspelled as Barry Kosky, Barrie Koski, Barrie Koskie. (born 18 February 1967) is an Australian theatre and opera director.Kosky also plays the piano, as he did in his production of Monteverdi's ''Poppea'' Based at the Komische Oper Berlin, he has worked internationally. Biography Kosky was born in Melbourne, the grandson of Jewish emigrants from Europe. He attended Melbourne Grammar School where he performed in Brecht's ''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'' in 1981, Shakespeare's ''Othello'' in 1982, and later directed his first play. Among many other later famous Australian artists, he also worked at the St Martins Youth Arts Centre. In 1985, he then began studies in piano and music history at the University of Melbourne. Career In 1989, Kosky directed the Australian premiere of Michael Tippett's ''The Knot Garden'' (reduced version) at the Melbourne Spoleto Festival. In 1990, he formed the Gilgul TheatreAt the Gilgul, Kosky worked ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castor Et Pollux
''Castor et Pollux'' (''Castor and Pollux'') is an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 24 October 1737 by the Académie royale de musique at its theatre in the Palais-Royal in Paris. The librettist was Pierre-Joseph-Justin Bernard, whose reputation as a salon poet it made. This was the third opera by Rameau and his second in the form of the ''tragédie en musique'' (if the lost ''Samson'' is discounted). Rameau made substantial cuts, alterations and added new material to the opera for its revival in 1754. Experts still dispute which of the two versions is superior. Whatever the case, ''Castor et Pollux'' has always been regarded as one of Rameau's finest works. Composition history Charles Dill proposes that Rameau had composed the 1737 opera just after working with Voltaire on the opera "Samson" that was never completed, after which he composed "Castor et Pollux" implementing Voltaire's aesthetics. For example, Voltaire sought the presentation of static tableaus that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer of his time for the harpsichord, alongside François Couperin. Little is known about Rameau's early years. It was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his ''Treatise on Harmony'' (1722) and also in the following years as a composer of masterpieces for the harpsichord, which circulated throughout Europe. He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests today. His debut, ''Hippolyte et Aricie'' (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked by the supporters of Lully's style of music for its revolutionary use of harmony. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Partenope
''Partenope'' ("Parthenope", HWV 27) is an opera by George Frideric Handel, first performed at the King's Theatre in London on 24 February 1730. Although following the structure and forms of opera seria, the work is humorous in character and light-textured in music, with a plot involving romantic complications and gender confusion. A success with audiences at the time of its original production and then unperformed for many years, ''Partenope'' is now often seen on the world's opera stages. Background The opera, which is in three acts, is composed to an Italian libretto adapted by an unknown hand from a libretto originally written in 1699 by Silvio Stampiglia. Stampiglia's libretto had received many previous settings, including one by Caldara which Handel may have seen in Venice around 1710. It was Handel's first comic (or, rather, unserious) opera since the much earlier '' Agrippina'', breaking away from the more traditional opera seria works for which the composer was known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Olivier Award
The Laurence Olivier Awards, or simply the Olivier Awards, are presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre in London at an annual ceremony in the capital. The awards were originally known as the Society of West End Theatre Awards, but they were renamed in honour of the British actor of the same name in 1984. The awards are given to individuals involved in West End productions and other leading non-commercial theatres based in London across a range of categories covering plays, musicals, dance, opera and affiliate theatre. A discretionary non-competitive Special Olivier Award is also given each year. The Olivier Awards are recognised internationally as the highest honour in British theatre, equivalent to the BAFTA Awards for film and television, and the BRIT Awards for music. The Olivier Awards are considered equivalent to Broadway's Tony Awards and France's Molière Award. Since inception, the awards have been held at va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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