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Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States (after the New York Metropolitan Opera). Beginning with its first season in 1920, Cincinnati Opera has produced operas in the summer months of June and July with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra providing orchestral accompaniment. History The company, originally named Cincinnati Opera Association, gave its first performance, Flotow's ''Martha'', on Sunday, June 27, 1920. During its early years, the company was under the direction of Ralph Lyford, an American composer and conductor whose single opera ''Castle Agrazant would receive its world premiere at Cincinnati Music Hall on April 29, 1926, following Lyford's departure from Cincinnati Opera in 1925. From 1956-1990 the company ran a singing competition known as the American Opera Auditions. For most of its first fifty years, Cincinnati Opera's performances were held at the Cincinnati Zoo Pavilion. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cincinnati Music Hall
Music Hall, commonly known as Cincinnati Music Hall, is a classical music performance hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, completed in 1878. It serves as the home for the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Opera, May Festival Chorus, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. In January 1975, it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior for its distinctive Venetian Gothic architecture. The building was designed with a dual purpose – to house musical activities in its central auditorium and industrial exhibitions in its side wings. It is located at 1241 Elm Street, across from the historic Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine, minutes from the center of the downtown area. Music Hall was built over a pauper's cemetery, which has helped fuel its reputation as one of the most haunted places in America. In June 2014, Music Hall was included on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's annual list of America's 11 most endang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plácido Domingo
José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Russian in the most prestigious opera houses in the world. Although primarily a ''lirico-spinto'' tenor for most of his career, especially popular for his Cavaradossi, Hoffmann, Don José and Canio, he quickly moved into more dramatic roles, becoming the most acclaimed Otello of his generation. In the early 2010s, he transitioned from the tenor repertory into exclusively baritone parts, most notably Simon Boccanegra. As of 2020, he has performed 151 different roles. Domingo has also achieved significant success as a crossover artist, especially in the genres of Latin and popular music. In addition to winning fourteen Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards, several of his records have gone silver, gold, platinum an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elinor Ross
Elinor Ross (August 1, 1926 – March 6, 2020) was an American opera singer, a dramatic soprano particularly associated with the Italian repertory. She made an international career, appearing regularly at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and at major opera houses in Europe and the Americas, in roles such as Puccini's Tosca and Turandot. “Miss Ross has the dramatic metal of a Rosa Raisa, Raisa, Rosa Ponselle, Ponselle, Helen Traubel, Traubel, Kirsten Flagstad, Flagstad, or Birgit Nilsson, Nilsson!” [John Rosenfield, Dallas Morning News] Career Born Elinor Marilyn Rosenthal in Tampa, Florida, Ross studied at Syracuse University, and later came to New York to study with William Herman, Stanley Sontag and Leo Resnick. She made her debut with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1958, as Leonora in ''Il trovatore'', alongside Jussi Björling, Giulietta Simionato and Ettore Bastianini. In the summer of 1959, Ross sang the American premiere of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ “Songs o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Morris (bass-baritone)
James Peppler Morris (born 10 January 1947) Goodwin, Noël (1992). "Morris, James" in Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1992). ''The new Grove dictionary of opera'', 3: 472. London: Macmillan. . is a leading American bass-baritone opera singer. He is known for his interpretation of the role of Wotan in Richard Wagner's operatic cycle, ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. The Metropolitan Opera video recording of the complete cycle with Morris as Wotan has been described as an "exceptional issue on every count." It was broadcast on PBS in 1990, to the largest viewing audience of the ''Ring Cycle'' in human history. James Morris was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where he studied voice with Rosa Ponselle and at the Peabody Conservatory. He attended the University of Maryland and also studied at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He made his debut with the Baltimore Opera in 1967, as "Crespel" in Jacques Offenbach's ''The Tales of Hoffmann'', which starred Beverly Sills and Norma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martina Arroyo
Martina Arroyo (born February 2, 1937) is an American operatic soprano who had a major international opera career from the 1960s through the 1980s. She was part of the first generation of black opera singers to achieve wide success. Arroyo first rose to prominence at the Zurich Opera between 1963 and 1965, and then was one of the Metropolitan Opera's leading sopranos between 1965 and 1978. During those years at the Metropolitan Opera, she was also a regular presence at the world's opera houses, performing on the stages of La Scala, Covent Garden, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the San Francisco Opera. She is best known for her performances of the Italian spinto repertoire, and in particular, her portrayals of Verdi and Puccini heroines. Her last opera performance was in 1991, after which she has devoted her time to teaching singing on the faculties of various universities in the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Tucker (tenor)
Richard Tucker (August 28, 1913January 8, 1975) was an American operatic tenor and cantor. Long associated with the Metropolitan Opera, Tucker's career was primarily centered in the United States. Early life Tucker was born Rivn (Rubin) Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Bessarabian Jewish parents who immigrated to the US in 1911. His father, Sruel (Sam) Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa (Fanny) Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first grade. His musical aptitude was discovered early, and was nurtured under the tutelage of Samuel Weisser at the Tifereth Israel synagogue in Lower Manhattan. As a teenager, Tucker's interests alternated between athletics, at which he excelled during his high-school years, and singing for weddings and bar mitzvahs as a hazzan, cantorial student. Eventually, he progressed from a part-time cantor at Temple Emanuel in Passaic, New Jersey, to full-time cantorships at Temple Adath Israel in the Bronx and, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 – July 15, 1960) was an American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950. He performed diverse musical theatre roles, including Captain Hook in ''Peter Pan'' in a touring show. Biography Lawrence Tibbett was born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet (with a single final "t") on November 16, 1896, in Bakersfield, California. His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with outlaw Jim McKinney in 1903. Tibbett grew up in Los Angeles, earning money by singing in church choirs and at funerals. He graduated from Manual Arts High School in 1915. A year later, he met his future wife, Grace Mackay Smith, who rented a room in his mother's house.Mobile ''Times Register''. During World War I, he served in the Merchant Marine, after which he found employment singing as prol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shirley Verrett
Shirley Verrett (May 31, 1931 – November 5, 2010) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who successfully transitioned into soprano roles, i.e. soprano sfogato. Verrett enjoyed great fame from the late 1960s through the 1990s, particularly well known for singing the works of Verdi and Donizetti. Early life and education Born into an African-American family of devout Seventh-day Adventists in New Orleans, Louisiana, Verrett was raised in Los Angeles, California. She sang in church and showed early musical abilities, but initially a singing career was frowned upon by her family. Later Verrett went on to study with Anna Fitziu and with Marion Szekely Freschl at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1961 she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. International career In 1957, Verrett made her operatic debut in Britten's ''The Rape of Lucretia'' under her then-married name of Shirley Carter. She later used the name Shirley Verrett-Carter, and ultimately just Shirle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roberta Peters
Roberta Peters (May 4, 1930 – January 18, 2017) was an American coloratura soprano. One of the most prominent American singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera, Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, among the longest such associations between a singer and a company in opera. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998. Early life and career Peters was born Roberta Peterman in The Bronx, New York City, the only child of Ruth (née Hersch), a milliner, and Solomon Peterman, a shoe salesman. Her family was Jewish. Encouraged by tenor Jan Peerce, she started her music studies at age 13 with William Herman, a voice teacher known for his exacting and thorough teaching method. Under Herman's training, Peters studied the French, German and Italian languages and practiced singing scales from a clarinet method. After six years of training, Herman introduced her to impresario Sol Hurok, who arranged for an audition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Merrill
Robert Merrill (June 4, 1917 – October 23, 2004) was an American operatic baritone and actor, who was also active in the musical theatre Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ... circuit. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1993. Early life Merrill was born Moishe Miller, later known as Morris Miller, in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of tailor Abraham Miller, originally Milstein, and his wife, Lillian (née Balaban), Jewish immigrants from Pultusk, Poland, near Warsaw. His paternal grandparents were Berl Milstein and Chana (née Mlawski), both from Pultusk, Poland. His mother claimed to have had an operatic and concert career in Poland (a fact denied by her son in his biographies) and encouraged her son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Peerce
Jan Peerce (born Yehoshua Pinkhes Perelmuth; June 3, 1904 December 15, 1984) was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway theatre, Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce. Family life Jan Peerce was born Jacob Pincus Perelmuth (though his Hebrew gravestone gives his first name as יהושע, or Joshua, not Jacob), to a American Jews, Jewish family. His parents, Louis and Henya Perelmuth, came from the village of :be:Вёска Гарадзец, Кобрынскі раён, Horodetz, formerly in Poland, now Belarus.Biographical sketcnarrated by Jan's friend Isaac Stern/ref> Their first child, a daughter, died in an epidemic. In 1903 they emigrated to America along with their second child, a boy named Mottel. A year later, on June 3, 1904, their third child, Jacob Pincus, was born in a cold water flat in the Lower East Side, Manhattan, New York (state ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé i Folch or Folc (full name: María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch (, , ; (12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018), known simply as Montserrat Caballé, was a Catalan Spanish operatic soprano. She sang a wide variety of roles, but is best known as an exponent of the works of Verdi and of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. She was noticed internationally when she stepped in for a performance of Donizetti's ''Lucrezia Borgia'' at Carnegie Hall in 1965, and then appeared at leading opera houses. Her voice was described as pure but powerful, with superb control of vocal shadings and exquisite pianissimo. Caballé became popular to non-classical music audiences in 1987, when she recorded, at the request of the International Olympic Committee, "Barcelona", a duet with Freddie Mercury, which became an official theme song for the 1992 Olympic Games. She received several international awards and also Grammy A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
