Cape Town Opera
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Cape Town Opera
Cape Town Opera (CTO) is a professional opera company in Cape Town, South Africa. CTO was founded in 1999 by the management and staff of the former South Africa Arts Council Opera and the Cape Performing Arts Board (CAPAB), itself a successor to the Cape Province Performing Arts Council and the previous Opera School at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, which had been founded in the early 1920s under the Italian tenor Giuseppe Paganelli. Mission The company produces many fully staged opera productions during an annual season at the Opera House of the Artscape Theatre Centre, the Joseph Stone Auditorium and approximately 15 other venues throughout South Africa. The company has established itself as South Africa's largest performing arts organisation and the only opera house in Africa with a year-round programme;
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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 st ...
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Show Boat
''Show Boat'' is a musical with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It is based on Edna Ferber's best-selling 1926 novel of the same name. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the ''Cotton Blossom'', a Mississippi River show boat, over 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical contributed such classic songs as "Ol' Man River", " Make Believe", and " Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man". The musical was first produced in 1927 by Florenz Ziegfeld. The premiere of ''Show Boat'' on Broadway was an important event in the history of American musical theatre. It "was a radical departure in musical storytelling, marrying spectacle with seriousness", compared with the trivial and unrealistic operettas, light musical comedies and "Follies"-type musical revues that defined Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century. According to ''The Complete Book of Light Opera ...
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Arts Centre Melbourne
Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central Melbourne suburb of Southbank in Victoria, Australia. It was designed by architect Sir Roy Grounds, the masterplan for the complex (along with the National Gallery of Victoria) was approved in 1960 and construction began in 1973 following some delays. The complex opened in stages, with Hamer Hall opening in 1982 and the Theatres Building opening in 1984. Arts Centre Melbourne is located by the Yarra River and along St Kilda Road, one of the city's main thoroughfares, and extends into the Melbourne Arts Precinct. Major companies regularly performing include Opera Australia, The Australian Ballet, the Melbourne Theatre Company, The Production Company, Victorian Opera, Bell Shakespeare, Bangarra Dance Theatre and the Melbourne Symph ...
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The Monthly
''The Monthly'' is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz. Contributors Contributors have included Mark Aarons, Waleed Aly, John Birmingham, Peter Conrad, Annabel Crabb, Richard Flanagan, Robert Forster, Anna Funder, Helen Garner, Anna Goldsworthy, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Ramachandra Guha, Gideon Haigh, M. J. Hyland, Linda Jaivin, Clive James, Kate Jennings, Paul Kelly, Benjamin Law, Amanda Lohrey, Mungo MacCallum, Shane Maloney, Robert Manne, David Marr, Maxine McKew, Drusilla Modjeska, Peter Robb, Kevin Rudd, Margaret Simons, Tim Soutphommasane, Lindsay Tanner, Malcolm Turnbull and Don Watson. Features Essays The magazine generally publishes essays 3,000 to 6,000 words long. The cover stories "Being There", Mark McKenna's investigation of key Australian historian Manning ...
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Peter Conrad (academic)
Peter Conrad (born 1948) is an Australian-born academic specialising in English literature, who taught at Christ Church at the University of Oxford. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Conrad was born in Hobart, Tasmania, and attended Hobart High School. After graduating from the University of Tasmania in 1968, Conrad went to Oxford University, UK, on a Rhodes Scholarship, studying at New College. He became a fellow of All Souls College from 1970 to 1973 before taking up his current post at Christ Church. There he taught English from 1973, and has been a visiting professor at Princeton University and at Williams College, and a guest lecturer throughout the United States. By 2018 he had retired. His criticism includes a major history of English literature, ''The Everyman History of English Literature'', a cultural history of the twentieth century, two autobiographical works and a novel. He has written books of criticism on Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcoc ...
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African Sanctus
''African Sanctus'' is a 1972 choral Mass and is the best-known work of British composer and collector of world musics David Fanshawe. In ''African Sanctus'' the Latin Mass is juxtaposed with live recordings of traditional African music, which the composer had recorded himself between 1969 and 1973 during a journey up the Nile, from the Mediterranean Sea to Lake Victoria. The work consists of 13 movements and follows the journey of the composer through Africa. The recordings are from Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda and Kenya. A key moment in the conception of ''African Sanctus'' came at the beginning of Fanshawe's 1969 journey, in Egypt. Sitting in a Christian church he heard the muezzin of a nearby mosque calling the faithful to prayer, and imagined this beautiful sound in counterpoint with Western choral harmony.''The Times'' obituary July 9, 2010 Originally entitled ''African Revelations'', ''African Sanctus'' was first performed in London by the Saltarello Choir in July 1972, a ...
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David Fanshawe
David Arthur Fanshawe (19 April 1942 – 5 July 2010) was an English composer and self-styled explorer with a fervent interest in world music.''The Times'' obituary 9 July 2010. His best-known composition is the 1972 choral work '' African Sanctus''. Life Fanshawe was born in Paignton in Devon in 1942. His father was an officer in the Royal Artillery who played a central role in the planning of D-Day. His father's stories of military service in India fired Fanshawe's enthusiasm for travel and adventure. His first ambition was to be an explorer, but when he attended St George's School, Windsor Castle and Stowe School he discovered a love of music. His severe dyslexia, however, prevented him from reading a musical score and becoming a chorister. At Stowe School he spent much of his spare time learning to play the piano, and when he was 17 he was discovered by the mother of a school friend, a French baroness who tutored him in the piano even after he left the school in 1959. H ...
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George Gershwin
George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ''Rhapsody in Blue'' (1924) and ''An American in Paris'' (1928), the songs " Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards " Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera '' Porgy and Bess'' (1935), which included the hit " Summertime". Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris, intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style; Maurice Ravel voiced similar objections when Gershw ...
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Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able to ...
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Hamer Hall, Melbourne
Hamer Hall (formerly the Melbourne Concert Hall) is a 2,466 seat concert hall, the largest indoor venue at Arts Centre Melbourne, used for orchestra and contemporary music performances. It was designed by Sir Roy Grounds as part of the Cultural Centre that comprised the National Gallery of Victoria and the Victorian Arts Centre. It was opened as the 'Melbourne Concert Hall' in 1982 (the Theatres Building opened in 1984) and was renamed Hamer Hall in honour of Sir Rupert Hamer (the 39th Premier of Victoria) shortly after his death in 2004. 2010 redevelopment Construction on the A$136-million inside-out redevelopment of Hamer Hall was due to begin in 2010. The venue's redevelopment is the first stage of the Southbank Cultural Precinct Redevelopment and was delivered through an alliance between Arts Victoria, Major Projects Victoria, the Arts Centre, Ashton Raggatt McDougall and Baulderstone. The redevelopment included a new outlook to the city and new connections to central Melbou ...
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Berliner Festspiele
The Berliner Festspiele (German for Berlin Festivals) are a series of festivals, art exhibitions, and other cultural events organized all year long by a common organization in Berlin. Events are held at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, a pre-existing theatre devolved to that purpose in 2001, as well as at the Martin-Gropius-Bau and other venues. The first of these events were the Berliner Festwochen (classical music) and the Berlin International Film Festival, in 1951. They contributed to the cultural life of West Berlin in divided Germany, before being expanded into the Eastern part of the city following Reunification. Festivals of the Berliner Festspiele include: * MaerzMusik – Festival of Contemporary Issues, in March. *Berliner Theatertreffen, in May. * Musikfest Berlin, in September. *JazzFest Berlin JazzFest Berlin (also known as the Berlin Jazz Festival) is a jazz festival in Berlin, Germany. Originally called the "Berliner Jazztage" (''Berlin Jazz Days''), it w ...
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Simon Rattle
Sir Simon Denis Rattle (born 19 January 1955) is a British-German conductor. He rose to international prominence during the 1980s and 1990s, while music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1980–1998). Rattle was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2002 to 2018. He has been the music director of the London Symphony Orchestra since September 2017. Among the world's leading conductors, in a 2015 ''Bachtrack'' poll, he was ranked by music critics as one of the world's best living conductors. Rattle is also the patron of Birmingham Schools' Symphony Orchestra, arranged during his tenure with CBSO in mid 1990s. The Youth Orchestra is now under the auspices of charitable business Services for Education. He received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 2001 at the Classic Brit Awards. Biography Early life Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool, the son of Pauline Lila Violet (Greening) and Denis Guttridge Rattle, a lieutenant in ...
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