|
David Hillman (tenor)
David Hillman (21 November 1934 – 8 August 2009) was an English operatic tenor who sang with all the leading opera companies in the United Kingdom. Early career David Hillman was born in London, England. From 1957 to 1962, he worked as a quantity surveyor. From 1960 to 1963, he studied at the National Opera School with Joan Cross, and he also studied privately with Antony Benskin and Otakar Kraus. His professional opera debut was as Arvino in ''I Lombardi'' with Welsh National Opera in 1962, and early engagements with that company and with Sadler's Wells Opera included the principal tenor roles in '' The Queen of Spades'', ''La traviata'', ''The Magic Flute'', ''Die Entführung aus dem Serail'', ''La bohème'' and ''Gloriana'', as well as those in ''The Mikado'', ''Ruddigore'', and ''La belle Hélène''. Major debuts and premières Hillman debuted at the Netherlands Opera in 1972 as Tom Rakewell in ''The Rake's Progress'', at Santa Fe Opera in 1974 as Fritz in ''La G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 styles of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Belle Hélène
''La belle Hélène'' (, ''The Beautiful Helen'') is an opéra bouffe in three acts, with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The piece parodies the story of Helen of Troy, Helen's elopement with Paris (mythology), Paris, which set off the Trojan War. The premiere was at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, on 17 December 1864. The work ran well, and productions followed in three continents. ''La belle Hélene'' continued to be revived throughout the 20th century and has remained a repertoire piece in the 21st. Background and first performance By 1864 Offenbach was well established as the leading French composer of operetta. After successes with his early works – short pieces for modest forces – he was granted a licence in 1858 to stage full-length operas with larger casts and chorus. The first of these to be produced, ''Orpheus in the Underworld, Orphée aux enfers'', achieved notoriety and box-office success for its risqué satire o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iain Hamilton (composer)
Iain Ellis Hamilton (6 June 1922 – 21 July 2000) was a Scottish composer. Hamilton was born in Glasgow, but was educated in London, where he became an apprentice engineer. He remained in that profession for the next seven years. He undertook the study of music in his spare time. After winning a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music, which he entered in 1947,. Houghton Mifflin Company Reference Books, page 674; . (One or the other source had Royal Academy of Music or Royal College of Music wrong?) he decided to devote himself to a musical career. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree from the University of London and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music from the University of Glasgow. Hamilton moved to the United States in 1962, but died in London, aged 78. Works Chamber and solo instrument *Antigone for Wind Octet (1991) *Aria for Horn and Piano *Brass Quintet (by 1991) *Capriccio for Trumpet and Piano *Five Scenes for Trumpet and Piano (1966) *Hyperio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thea Musgrave
Thea Musgrave CBE (born 27 May 1928) is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music. She has lived in the United States since 1972. Biography Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Musgrave was educated at Moreton Hall School, a boarding independent school for girls near the market town of Oswestry in Shropshire, followed by the University of Edinburgh, and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger from 1950 to 1954. In 1958 she attended the Tanglewood Festival and studied with Aaron Copland. In 1970 she became Guest Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a position which confirmed her increasing involvement with the musical life of the United States. She married American violist and opera conductor Peter Mark in 1971. From 1987 to 2002 she was Distinguished Professor at Queens College, City University of New York. Among Musgrave's earlier orchestral works, the Concerto for Orchestra of 1967 and the Concerto for Horn of 1971 display the composer's ongoing fascinat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabella
''Arabella'', Op. 79, is a lyric comedy, or opera, in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. Performance history It was first performed on 1 July 1933 at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater. The opera received its premiere in the UK on 17 May 1934 at London's Royal Opera House. Two decades later, on 10 February 1955, it was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Eleanor Steber in the title role. The Met has given numerous performances of the work since that date. At the 2008 Helpmann Awards, the production by Opera Australia won the Award for Best Opera. < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England. History Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000. Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued. Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. While Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariadne Auf Naxos
(''Ariadne on Naxos''), Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work's principal themes: the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. First version (1912) The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.'' Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. It was first performed at the Hoftheater Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Theatre Of Saint Louis
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (OTSL) is an American summer opera festival held in St. Louis, Missouri. Typically four operas, all sung in English, are presented each season, which runs from late May to late June. Performances are accompanied by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, which is divided into two ensembles, each covering two of the operas, for the season. The company's performances are presented in the Loretto-Hilton Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Webster University. First seasons and achievements In 1976, Leigh Gerdine, Laurance L. Browning, Jr. and James Van Sant co-founded OTSL. They hired Richard Gaddes, who at the time was working at The Santa Fe Opera, as the company's first Artistic Director. They signed him as full-time General Director in 1978 at the suggestion of Ed Korn, who was brought in as a consultant from the Metropolitan Opera. Gaddes acknowledged that the model for OTSL was The Santa Fe Opera: : That was not a coincidence. I always sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macbeth (opera)
''Macbeth'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Written for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, it was Verdi's tenth opera and premiered on 14 March 1847. ''Macbeth'' was the first Shakespeare play that Verdi adapted for the operatic stage. Almost twenty years later, ''Macbeth'' was revised and expanded in a French version and given in Paris on 19 April 1865. After the success of ''Attila'' in 1846, by which time the composer had become well established, ''Macbeth'' came before the great successes of 1851 to 1853 (''Rigoletto'', ''Il trovatore'' and '' La traviata'') which propelled him into universal fame. As sources, Shakespeare's plays provided Verdi with lifelong inspiration: some, such as an adaption of ''King Lear'' (as ''Re Lear'') were never realized, but he wrote his two final operas using ''Othello'' as the basis for ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, mak ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Grande-Duchesse De Gérolstein
''La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein'' (''The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein'') is an opéra bouffe (a form of operetta), in three acts and four tableaux by Jacques Offenbach to an original French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy. The story is a satirical critique of unthinking militarism and concerns a spoiled and tyrannical young Grand Duchess who learns that she cannot always get her way. The opera premiered in Paris in 1867 and starred Hortense Schneider in the title role. Thereafter, it was heard in New York, London and elsewhere, and it is still performed and recorded. Background Offenbach's career was at its height in the 1860s with the premieres of some of his most popular and enduring works, such as ''La Belle Hélène'' (1864) and '' La Vie parisienne'' (1866). With the original production of the latter still running, Offenbach and his librettists hurried to prepare a new opera, ''La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein'', to play during the Paris Exposition ('' Expo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
