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Die Walküre
(; ''The Valkyrie''), WWV 86B, is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's '' Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the ''Ring'' cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876. As the ''Ring'' cycle was conceived by Wagner in reverse order of performance, ''Die Walküre'' was the third of the four texts to be written, although Wagner composed the music in performance sequence. The text was completed by July 1852, and the music by March 1856. Wagner largely followed the principles related to the form of musical drama, which he had set out in his 1851 essay '' Opera and Drama'' under which the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas, and situations rather than the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Drama
is a German word that means a unity of prose and music. Initially coined by Theodor Mundt in 1833, it was most notably used by Richard Wagner, along with Gesamtkunstwerk, to define his operas. Usage Mundt formulated his definition explicitly in contrast to intermezzo, or a piece that sits in between dramatic entities. To this day, is associated with the works of Richard Wagner where poetry, music and stage performances were not arbitrarily combined. Wagner himself composed the music and libretto and was a consultant on the stage design and choreography. This all-encompassing art, or , called on the diegesis of in order to further the immersive feel. Wagner himself resisted calling his works , which would imply a drama "meant for music," like a libretto. Instead he wanted to put music at the service of the drama, which indeed in its original ancient Greek form was inseparable from music. Nevertheless, the term music drama has become accepted. A major characteristic of M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brunhild
Brunhild, also known as Brunhilda or Brynhild ( non, Brynhildr , gmh, Brünhilt, german: Brünhild , label= Modern German or ), is a female character from Germanic heroic legend. She may have her origins in the Visigothic princess Brunhilda of Austrasia. In the Norse tradition, Brunhild is a shieldmaiden or valkyrie, who appears as a main character in the and some Eddic poems treating the same events. In the continental Germanic tradition, where she is a central character in the , she is a powerful Amazon-like queen. In both traditions, she is instrumental in bringing about the death of the hero Sigurd or Siegfried after he deceives her into marrying the Burgundian king Gunther or Gunnar. In both traditions, the immediate cause for her desire to have Sigfried murdered is a quarrel with the hero's wife, Gudrun or Kriemhild. In the Scandinavian tradition, but not in the continental tradition, Brunhild kills herself after Sigurd's death. Richard Wagner made Brunhild (as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) = 1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word '' sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" '' |
Albert Niemann (tenor)
Albert Wilhelm Karl Niemann (15 January 1831 – 13 January 1917) was a leading German tenor opera singer especially associated with the operas of Richard Wagner. He gave important premieres in France, Germany, England and the United States, and played Siegmund in the first complete production of ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (Bayreuth Festspielhaus 1876). Early career Born in Erxleben, in the Prussian Province of Saxony (now Saxony-Anhalt), Niemann lost his father (an innkeeper) at an early age and was brought up by his mother, a woman 'of almost unwomanly hardness' who lived to be ninety. He was apprenticed to an engine-maker, but ran away to Dresden to make his own life. He grew up with a Germanic dedication to hunting but also student-like, reading extensively in science, history and philosophy. He was not particularly sociable or tactful, was blunt in speech and often boorish in behaviour. Niemann made a debut in Dessau in 1849, singing in minor roles and in chorus. He re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Vogl
Heinrich Vogl (15 January 1845 – 21 April 1900) was a German operatic heldentenor. He played the role of Loge in Richard Wagner's ''Das Rheingold'' at Munich Court Opera on 22 September 1869, with his wife, Therese Vogl, playing the role of Wellgunde. He also played the role of Siegmund in Wagner's ''Die Walküre'', also at Munich, on 26 June 1870. Therese Vogl played the role of Siegmund's sister and lover Sieglinde in the same performance. His Munich debut was as Max in Weber's ''Der Freischütz''. He sang at Bayreuth, Berlin, London and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. At Bayreuth, he played the role of Loge in the first complete Ring cycle on 13 August 1876. His performance in the role caused fellow singer Lilli Lehmann to comment that he was born for the part and that his Loge had never been equalled. His debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in the title role of ''Lohengrin'' on 1 January 1890; he also sang Loge, Siegmund, the title role of ''Tannhäuser'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word '' tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the enor was thestructurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that sang such parts. All other voices were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Völsung
In Norse mythology, Völsung ( non, Vǫlsungr ) was the son of Rerir and the eponymous ancestor of the ill-fated Völsung clan (), which includes the well known Norse hero Sigurð. He was murdered by the Geatish king Siggeir and later avenged by one of his sons, Sigmund, and his daughter Signy, who was married to Siggeir. Völsung's story is recorded in the Völsung Cycle, a series of legends about the clan. The earliest extant versions of the cycle were recorded in medieval Iceland; the tales of the cycle were expanded with local Scandinavian folklore, including that of Helgi Hundingsbane (which appears to originally have been part of the separate tradition of the Ylfings), and form the material of the epic poems in the Elder Edda and of , which preserves material from lost poems. Völsung is also the subject matter of the Middle High German epic poem and is mentioned as in the Old English epic ''Beowulf''. Synopsis Völsung was the great-grandson of Odin and it was Odi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Richter (conductor)
Johann Baptist Isidor Richter, or János Richter (4 April 1843 – 5 December 1916) was an Austrian– Hungarian orchestral and operatic conductor. Biography Richter was born in Raab ( Hungarian: Győr), Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire. His father was a local composer, conductor and ''regens chori'' Anton Richter. His mother was opera-singer Jozefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory. He had a particular interest in the horn, and developed his conducting career at several different opera houses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He became associated with Richard Wagner in the 1860s, and played the solo trumpet part in the 1870 private premiere of the ''Siegfried Idyll''. In 1876, he was chosen to conduct the first complete performance of Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. In 1877, he assisted the ailing composer as conductor of a major series of Wagner concerts in London, and from then onwards he became a familiar feature of Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Wüllner
Franz Wüllner (28 January 1832 – 7 September 1902) was a German composer and conductor. He led the premieres of Wagner's ''Das Rheingold'' and ''Die Walküre'', but was much criticized by Wagner himself, who greatly preferred the more celebrated conductors Hans von Bülow and Hermann Levi. Biography Wüllner was born in Münster and studied in his native place, and at Frankfurt, Berlin, Brussels, and Munich. Among his teachers was Anton Schindler, who styled himself Beethoven's amanuensis carrying on the true traditions of the master's style, a claim disputed by Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny. In 1856 Wüllner became instructor in piano at the Munich Conservatory. He held the position of town musical director at Aix-la-Chapelle from 1858 to 1864. In 1867 he became director of the choral classes in the reorganized School of Music at Munich and wrote for them ''Chorübungen der Münchener Musikschule'', text of score reading and singing ('' Solfege'').New International Encyclope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice Type
A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, though it, and the terms it utilizes, are used in other styles of music as well. A singer will choose a repertoire that suits their voice. Some singers such as Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, Ewa Podleś, and Plácido Domingo have voices that allow them to sing roles from a wide variety of types; some singers such as Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry change type and even voice part over their careers; and some singers such as Leonie Rysanek have voices that lower with age, causing them to cycle through types over their careers. Some roles are hard to classify, having very unusual vocal requirements; Mozart wrote many of his roles for specific singers who often had remarkable voices, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetralogy
A tetralogy (from Greek τετρα- ''tetra-'', "four" and -λογία ''-logia'', "discourse") is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works. The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies followed by a satyr play, all by one author, to be played in one sitting at the Dionysia as part of a competition. Examples Literature * Tetrateuch is a sometime name for the first four books of the Bible. The Tetrateuch plus Deuteronomy are collectively referred to as the Pentateuch. * ''Tintitives'' by Antiphon of Rhamnus; the author was an orator, and ''Tintitives'' is a kind of textbook for students. Each book consists of four speeches: the prosecutor's opening speech, the first speech for the defense, the prosecutor's reply, and the defendant's conclusion. Three of his tetralogies are known to have survived. * The traditional arrangement of the works of Plato into nine tetralogies, including some doubtful works, and the letters as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germanic Mythology
Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology. It was a key element of Germanic paganism. Origins As the Germanic languages developed from Proto-Indo-European language, Germanic mythology is ultimately a development of Proto-Indo-European mythology. Archaeological remains, such as petroglyphs in Scandinavia, suggest continuity in Germanic mythology since at least the Nordic Bronze Age. Sources The earliest written sources on Germanic mythology include literature by Roman writers. This includes '' Commentaries on the Gallic War'' by Julius Caesar, '' Geographica'' by Strabo, and ''Germania'' by Tacitus. Later Latin-language sources on Germanic mythology include ''Getica'' by Jordanes, '' History of the Lombards'' by Paul the Deacon, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' by Bede, '' Vita Ansgari'' by Rimbert, '' Gesta Hammaburgensis eccle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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