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Ester (Stradella)
''Ester, liberatrice del popolo ebreo'' ('' Esther, Liberator of the Jewish People'') is a 1673 Italian-language oratorio by Alessandro Stradella. The only surviving manuscript lacks the original ritornellos and some closed numbers. It was performed in Corpus Christi Catholic Church, New York City, in 1985, and recorded by Italian early music group Il Concento, under Luca Franco Ferrari in 2001, later released on Brilliant Classics in 2012. The work was not performed again in New York City until 2019 and 2020, when it was produced and presented by Salon/Sanctuary Concerts at Brotherhood Synagogue, garnering both scholarly and critical praise and for both outings. Navona Records released a complete CD of the oratorio in July 2024. The cast includes Jessica Gould, Sonia Tedla, José Lemos José Lemos (born 22 November 1974) is a Brazilian countertenor. Life and career José Lemos was born in Bagé, Brazil. He received his B.A. in music from the College of Charleston, completed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esther
Esther is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. In the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus seeks a new wife after his queen, Vashti, is deposed for disobeying him. Hadassah, a Jewess who goes by the name of Esther, is chosen to fulfill this role due to her beauty. Ahasuerus' grand vizier, Haman, is offended by Esther's cousin and guardian, Mordecai, due to his refusal to prostrate himself before Haman. Consequently, Haman plots to have all the Jewish subjects of Persia killed, and convinces Ahasuerus to permit him to do so. However, Esther foils the plan by revealing Haman's eradication plans to Ahasuerus, who then has Haman executed and grants permission to the Jews to kill their enemies instead, as royal edicts (including the order for eradication issued by Haman) cannot be revoked under Persian law. Her story provides the traditional explanation for the Jewish holiday of Purim, celebrated on the date given in the story for when Haman's order was to go into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form. In an oratorio, the choir often plays a central role, and there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text. Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints, as w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alessandro Stradella
Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella (Bologna, 3 July 1643 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres. Life Not much is known about his early life, but he was from a Tuscan aristocratic family, his father was Cavaliere Marc’ antonio Stradella of Piacenza. Stradella was educated at Rome, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 24. In 1667 he composed a Latin oratorio (lost) for the Confraternity of Crocifisso di San Marcello and in the following year the serenata ''La Circe'' for the Princess of Rossano Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj. In 1671–72 he collaborated in staging some operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti, at the Tordinona Theater, composing prologues, intermedios and new arias. In the early 1670s he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ritornello
A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century madrigal, which were usually in a rhyme scheme and meter that contrasted with the rest of the song. Scholars suggest that the word "ritornello" comes either from the Italian word ''ritorno'' (meaning return), or from ''tornando'' (meaning turnaround or flourish). Literally, in Italian it means "little return". Baroque music The ritornello as a recurring tutti passage can be traced back to the music of sixteenth-century Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli. According to Richard Taruskin, these repeating passages are "endemic to the ''concertato'' style" which Gabrieli is credited with developing. The idea of an orchestral ritornello played an important role in the structure of opera in the eighteenth century. The most common form for an aria during the Baroque per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corpus Christi Church (New York City)
The Church of Corpus Christi is a Roman Catholic parish church in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, located on West 121st Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, New York City. The parish was established in 1906.Remigius Lafort, S.T.D., Censor, The Catholic Church in the United States of America: Undertaken to Celebrate the Golden Jubilee of His Holiness, Pope Pius X. Volume 3: The Province of Baltimore and the Province of New York, Section 1: Comprising the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn, Buffalo and Ogdensburg Together with some Supplementary Articles on Religious Communities of Women.'. (New York City: The Catholic Editing Company, 1914), p.323. The parish priest is concurrently the Catholic chaplain at the nearby Columbia University. Buildings The church, founded by Rev. John H. Dooley, was built in 1906–1907 as a brick and stone chapel and three-storey parish house, all over basement, to des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brilliant Classics
Brilliant Classics is a classical music label based in the Dutch town of Leeuwarden. It is renowned for releasing super-budget-priced editions on CD of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers. The label also specialises in new recordings of early music, chamber, organ and piano music. Mission Since its inception, Brilliant Classics has sought to bring art music to the widest possible public by releasing all its recordings at budget and super-budget price. The distribution strategy of selling through supermarkets and drugstores (see History below) introduced classical music to a mass market when most other labels were selling to a specialised audience. One of its best-known sets is the complete works of J.S. Bach on 155CDs: this has sold more than 500,000 units. Though CD is still the primary medium for Brilliant Classics, all its new releases are available as downloads, and many are available on streaming services. History The label was f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BroadwayWorld
BroadwayWorld is a theatre news website based in New York City covering Broadway, Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ..., regional, and international theatre productions. The website publishes theatre news, interviews, reviews, and other coverage related to theater. It also includes an online message board for theater fans. History The site was founded in 2003 to cover theater news. As of September 2018, the website had a readership of 5.5 million monthly online visitors and an Alexa PageRank of 16,156 worldwide. The site also produces annual fan-voted awards and competitions related to various types of production. BroadwayWorld added a pay transparency rule to their job site in March 2021 due to the advocacy of On Our Team and Costume Professionals for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
José Lemos
José Lemos (born 22 November 1974) is a Brazilian countertenor. Life and career José Lemos was born in Bagé, Brazil. He received his B.A. in music from the College of Charleston, completed his master's degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and has appeared in opera roles and in concert with companies such as Boston Baroque, Boston Cecilia, Harvard Early Music Society, Les Parlement de Musique, Piccolo Spoleto Festival Early Music Series, and the Aldeburgh Snape Proms in England. In the summer of 2003, he made his USA opera debut at The Tanglewood Music Festival in Robert Zuidam's ''Rage D'Amours'', and returned for their 2004 production of Britten's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera), A Midsummer Night's Dream'' as Oberon. He has also joined the Tanglewood Music Center in the Los Angeles premiere of the opera Ainadamar by composer Osvaldo Golijov at the new Disney Center with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In April 2005 he made his European opera debut in a product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jory Vinikour
Jory Vinikour (born May 12, 1963 in Chicago) is an American born harpsichordist. He has been living in Paris since 1990, where he studied on a scholarship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert. Vinikour has appeared as soloist throughout Europe and the United States, as well as in Asia and South America. Important solo appearances include Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall, Music Before 1800 (New York), Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival, and many others. His concerto repertoire ranges from Bach to Nyman, and he regularly performs modern harpsichord concertos, such as the Petite Symphonie Concertante by Frank Martin, and the Harpsichord Concerto by the same composer. He has accompanied Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter in recitals and, with lutenist Jakob Lindberg, they have recorded a programme of English and Italian music of the 17th century entitled "Music for a While". In recent seasons, Vinikour has appeared as conductor with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oratorios
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form. In an oratorio, the choir often plays a central role, and there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text. Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints, as we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
