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Donald Gramm
Donald John Gramm (February 26, 1927 – June 2, 1983) was an American bass-baritone whose career was divided between opera and concert performances. His appearances were primarily limited to the United States, which at the time was unusual for an American singer. John Rockwell of ''The New York Times'' described Gramm as follows: "He had an unusually rich, noble tone, and although its volume may not have been large, it penetrated even the biggest theaters easily. Technically, he could handle bel-canto ornamentation fluently. But his real strengths lay in his aristocratic musicianship (impeccable phrasing that he polished by accompanying himself at the piano, and an easy command of five languages) and his instinctive acting."Rockwell, John (3 June 1983)."Donald Gramm is dead at 56; bass-baritone at Met Opera ''The New York Times''. Retrieved 2 January 2010. Among the most notable of his many operatic roles were the title role in Verdi's ''Falstaff'', Leporello in Mozart's ''Don Gi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Opera
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by '' Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outside organizations relevant to the field at issue. For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Orchestra Society
:''Not to be confused by The Little Orchestra of London'' The Little Orchestra Society is an American orchestra based at 630 9th Avenue, Suite 807 in New York City. It was founded in 1947 by Thomas Scherman, who served as its conductor until his death in 1979. From 1979 to 2011 the Orchestra was led by Dino Anagnost. Its membership has ranged between 45 and 60 musicians. The orchestra's name is borrowed from The Little Orchestra of London, which was formed by Felix Mendelssohn during the Bach Revival. In 2019, the Orchestra named David Alan Miller its new Artistic Advisor. Its first concert took place at Town Hall in Manhattan on October 27, 1947. In 1959 the orchestra toured to eight Asian countries including Vietnam, Hong Kong, India, and Japan, performing the music of Henry Cowell. Pierre Monteux guest conducted the orchestra on April 2, 1957, in a concert that included Johannes Brahms' '' Serenade No. 2 in A Major''. Monteux had recorded the serenade in the preceding year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby (conductor), John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of . The company has presented operas each summer festival season since July 1957, and is internationally known for introducing new operas as well as for its productions of the List of important operas, standard operatic repertoire. Since its inception, Santa Fe Opera has staged 43 American premieres and 15 world premieres, as of 2017. General history John Crosby, who was a New York-based conductor, founded the company in 1956, initially with the financial support of his parents, who helped in the acquisition of the land and the building of the first opera house. One goal was to give American singers the opportunity to learn and perform new roles while having ample time for rehearsa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Crosby (conductor)
John O’Hea Crosby (12 July 1926, in Bronxville, New York – 15 December 2002, in Rancho Mirage, California) was an American musician, conductor and arts administrator. He was the founding general director of The Santa Fe Opera, a company he oversaw for 43 years. Early life A bout of asthma interrupted Crosby’s early studies in Connecticut; this caused him to attend the Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico for a year. It was Crosby’s first introduction to the West and, specifically, to the Santa Fe area. After graduating from The Hotchkiss School, Crosby served in the US Army for two years between 1944 and 1946, with time spent in Europe and some with the 18th Regimental Band handling piano, violin, trombone and double bass. Attending Yale as an undergraduate soon followed; with it came consideration of several future professions, including law and becoming an airline pilot. But at Yale he studied composition with Paul Hindemith and created musical arrangements for music ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera Company Of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was active from the late 1950s through the 1980s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group. At one time, the touring arm of the company was called Opera New England. Caldwell served as both director and conductor for most of the company's productions throughout its more than three decade-long history. Under her leadership, the company presented a repertoire of more than 75 operas that came from a wide array of musical periods and styles, including many works previously unheard in the United States, and a significant number of contemporary operas. This focus on distinctive repertoire, along with Caldwell's innovative stage direction, garnered the group wide acclaim and earned it a place among the leading opera companies in the U.S. In 1990, after 32 seasons, the company was forced to close due to financial difficulties. His ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Caldwell
Sarah Caldwell (March 6, 1924March 23, 2006) was an American opera conducting, conductor, impresario, and stage director. Early life Caldwell was born in Maryville, Missouri, and grew up in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was a child prodigy and gave public performances on the violin by the time she was ten years old. She graduated from Fayetteville High School (Arkansas), Fayetteville High School at the age of 14. Caldwell graduated from Hendrix College in 1944 and attended the University of Arkansas as well as the New England Conservatory of Music. She won a scholarship as a viola player at the Berkshire Music Center in 1946. In 1947, she staged Ralph Vaughan Williams, Vaughan Williams's ''Riders to the Sea''. For 11 years she served as the chief assistant to Boris Goldovsky. Career Caldwell moved to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1952 and became head of the Boston University opera workshop. In 1957 she started the Boston Opera Group with $5,000. This became the Opera Company of B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NBC Opera Theatre
The NBC Opera Theatre (sometimes mistakenly spelled NBC Opera Theater and sometimes referred to as the NBC Opera Company) was an American opera company operated by the National Broadcasting Company from 1949 to 1964. The company was established specifically for the purpose of televising both established and new operas for television in English. Additionally, the company also gave live theatrical presentations of operas, sponsoring several touring productions in the United States and mounting works on Broadway."Less Tuneful Season in the Offing for TV" by Larry Wolters, ''The Chicago Tribune'', October 18, 1964 Conductor Peter Herman Adler served as the NBCOT's music and artistic director, and Samuel Chotzinoff as the company's producer. Conductor Herbert Grossman was an associate conductor with the company when it was founded, but was later promoted to conductor in 1956. From that point on Adler and Grossman shared the conducting load while Adler remained Music Director. NBC disban ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Marriage (opera)
''The Marriage'' is a comic opera in 2 acts by Bohuslav Martinů, to the composer's own libretto, after the play of the same name by Nikolai Gogol. The opera was commissioned for television by the NBC, and the NBC Opera Theatre performed the work's world premiere on their television program ''NBC TV Opera Theatre'' for a national broadcast in the United States on 2 July 1953. The opera has subsequently been adapted for the stage and recorded on CD. Television premiere Martinů was first approached to compose an opera for the NBC Opera Theatre by the company's Artistic Director, the conductor Peter Herman Adler, and their executive producer, Samuel Chotzinoff. Martinů had already been contemplating setting Gogol's play to music, and his suggestion to Adler and Chotzinoff was readily accepted. Martinů commenced on writing both the music and the libretto. Although the NBC announced that they were mounting a new opera with music by Martinů, they refused to disclose to the press w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bohuslav Martinů
Bohuslav Jan Martinů (; December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. He wrote 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and briefly studied under Czech composer and violinist Josef Suk. After leaving Czechoslovakia in 1923 for Paris, Martinů deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. During the 1920s he experimented with modern French stylistic developments, exemplified by his orchestral works ''Half-time'' and ''La Bagarre''. He also adopted jazz idioms, for instance in his '' Kitchen Revue'' (''Kuchyňská revue''). In the early 1930s he found his main fount for compositional style: neoclassicism, creating textures far denser than those found in composers treating Stravinsky as a model. He was prolific, quickly composing chamber, orchestral, choral and instrumental w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Barber Of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ''The Barber of Seville'' (1775). The première of Rossini's opera (under the title ''Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione'') took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's ''Barber of Seville'' has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two hundred years, it remains a popular work. Composition history Rossini's opera recounts the events of the first of the three plays by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais that revolve around the clever and enterprising character named Figaro, the barber of the title. Mozart's opera ''The Marriage of Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Cenerentola
' (''Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant'') is an operatic ''dramma giocoso'' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the libretti written by Charles-Guillaume Étienne for the opera '' Cendrillon'' with music by Nicolas Isouard (first performed Paris, 1810) and by Francesco Fiorini for ' with music by Stefano Pavesi (first performed Milan, 1814). All these operas are versions of the fairy tale '' Cendrillon'' by Charles Perrault. Rossini's opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817. Rossini composed ''La Cenerentola'' when he was 25 years old, following the success of ''The Barber of Seville'' the year before. ''La Cenerentola'', which he completed in a period of three weeks, is considered to have some of his finest writing for solo voice and ensembles. Rossini saved some time by reusing an overture from '' La gazzetta'' and part of an aria from ''The Barber of Seville'' and by enlisting a collaborator, Luca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Fledermaus
' (, ''The Flittermouse'' or ''The Bat'', sometimes called ''The Revenge of the Bat'') is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée, which premiered in 1874. Background The original literary source for ' was ' (''The Prison''), a farce by German playwright Julius Roderich Benedix that premiered in Berlin in 1851. On 10 September 1872, a three-act French vaudeville play by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, ', loosely based on the Benedix farce, opened at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. Meilhac and Halévy had provided several successful libretti for Offenbach and ''Le Réveillon'' later formed the basis for the 1926 silent film '' So This Is Paris'', directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Meilhac and Halévy's play was soon translated into German by Karl Haffner (1804–1876), at the instigation of Max Steiner, as a non-musical play for production in Vienna. The French custom of a New Year's Eve ''réveillon'', or supper party ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
