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Elektra (opera)
''Elektra'', Op. 58, is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama ''Elektra''. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 25 January 1909. It was dedicated to his friends Natalie and Willy Levin. History While based on ancient Greek mythology and Sophocles' tragedy ''Electra'', the opera is highly modernist and expressionist in style. Hofmannsthal's and Strauss's adaptation of the story focuses tightly on Elektra, thoroughly developing her character by single-mindedly expressing her emotions and psychology as she meets with other characters, mostly one at a time. (The order of these conversations closely follows Sophocles' play.) The other characters are Klytaemnestra, her mother and one of the murderers of her father Agamemnon; her sister, Chrysothemis; her brother, Orestes; and Klyta ... [...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 st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrysothemis
In Greek mythology, Chrysothemis or Khrysothemis (; grc, Χρυσόθεμις, "golden law") is a name ascribed to several characters. ''Female:'' * Chrysothemis, may refer to known as the attributes of the golden harvest as an agricultural demi-goddess. She is also the daughter of the goddess Demeter ("earth mother") and Karmanor ("he who crops").Pausanias10.7.2/ref> *Chrysothemis, a Hesperide pictured and named on an ancient vase together with Asterope, Hygieia and Lipara. * Chrysothemis, daughter of Danaus. She married (and killed) Asterides, son of Aegyptus. * Chrysothemis, wife of Staphylus, mother of Molpadia, Rhoeo and Parthenos. She was also said to have mothered Parthenos by the god Apollo. * Chrysothemis, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. Unlike her sister, Electra, Chrysothemis did not protest or enact vengeance against their mother for having an affair with Aegisthus and then killing their father. She appears in Sophocles's '' Electra''. ''Male:'' *Chrys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margarete Matzenauer
Margaret Matzenauer (sometimes spelled Margarete Matzenauer or Margarethe Matzenaur) (1 June 1881 – 19 May 1963) was an Austria-Hungary-born, later resident in the United States, mezzo-soprano. She had an opulent timbre and wide range. She performed key works from both the Italian and German operatic repertoires in Europe and the United States. Biography Matzenauer was born in Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania). Her father Ludwig was a conductor, her mother an opera singer. She reportedly considered herself Hungarian although she was born in what is now western Romania, of German Jewish descent. Matzenauer studied opera in Graz and Berlin, making her operatic debut in 1901 as Puck in Weber's ''Oberon''. She began singing major roles such as Azucena in ''Il trovatore'', Carmen, Mignon, Waltraute and Erda in the ''Ring'' operas and Ortrud in ''Lohengrin''. She first achieved fame in Europe as a contralto and mezzo-soprano, and she was engaged to appear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Academy Of Music (Philadelphia)
The Academy of Music, also known as American Academy of Music, is a concert hall and opera house located at 240 S. Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its location is between Locust and Manning Streets in the Avenue of the Arts area of Center City. The hall was built in 1855–57 and is the oldest opera house in the United States that is still used for its original purpose. Known as the "Grand Old Lady of Locust Street," the venue is the home of the Philadelphia Ballet and Opera Philadelphia. It was also home to the Philadelphia Orchestra from its inception in 1900 until 2001, when the orchestra moved to the new Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. The Philadelphia Orchestra still retains ownership of the Academy. The hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.Charles E. Shedd Jr., et al. (December 1979) , National Park Service and History The Academy of Music held an inaugural ball on January 26, 1857. At the time ''The New York Times'' described ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philadelphia Grand Opera Company
The Philadelphia Grand Opera Company was the name of four different American opera companies active at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the twentieth century. The last and best known of the four was founded in November 1954 with the merger of the Philadelphia Civic Grand Opera Company and the Philadelphia La Scala Opera Company. That company in turn merged with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company in 1975 to form the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Of the three earlier companies, only one lasted beyond one season; a company founded in 1926 which later became associated with the Curtis Institute of Music in 1929. That company closed its doors in 1932 due to financial reasons during the Great Depression. The first Philadelphia Grand Opera Companies:1916 The first company to be known as the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company (PGOC) was founded in 1916. Its first production, Gaetano Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', opened on December 18 of that year at the Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Liverpool Philharmonic and The Hallé, Hallé orchestras. From the early 20th century until his death, Beecham was a major influence on the musical life of United Kingdom, Britain and, according to the BBC, was Britain's first international conductor. Born to a rich industrial family, Beecham began his career as a conductor in 1899. He used his access to the family fortune to finance opera from the 1910s until the start of the Second World War, staging seasons at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane and Her Majesty's Theatre, His Majesty's Theatre with international stars, his own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edyth Walker
Edyth Walker (March 27, 1867 – February 19, 1950) was an American opera singer who had an active international career from the 1890s through the 1910s. She began her career performing roles from the mezzo-soprano repertory, but later successfully added several soprano parts to her repertoire as well. While she did perform in Italian and French language operas, she had a clear affinity for works in the German language. She particularly excelled in the operas of Richard Wagner. After retiring from the stage, she was active as a voice teacher in both France and the United States. Her voice is preserved on several gramophone recordings, made mainly for His Master's Voice, between 1902-08. Early life and career Born in Hopewell, New York, Walker had her initial musical training at her church in her native town where she sang in the choir and began performing solos at the age of 14. Her family moved to Rome, New York, where she graduated from Rome Free Academy in 1884 and contin ... [...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 peopl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salome (opera)
''Salome'', Op. 54, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The libretto is Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the 1891 French play '' Salomé'' by Oscar Wilde, edited by the composer. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer. The opera is famous (at the time of its premiere, infamous) for its " Dance of the Seven Veils". The final scene is frequently heard as a concert-piece for dramatic sopranos. Composition history Oscar Wilde originally wrote his ''Salomé'' in French. Strauss saw the Lachmann version of the play in Max Reinhardt's production at the Kleines Theater in Berlin on 15 November 1902, and immediately set to work on an opera. The play's formal structure was well-suited to musical adaptation. Wilde himself described ''Salomé'' as containing "refrains whose recurring ''motifs'' make it so like a piece of music and bind it together as a ballad". Strauss pared down Lachmann's German text to what he saw as its essentials, and in the process r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19th-Century Music
''19th-Century Music'' is a triennial academic journal that "covers all aspects of Western art music composed in, leading to, or pointing beyond the "long century" extending roughly from the 1780s to the 1930s." The Journal is "interested equally in the music that belongs to the era and in the impact of the era's music on later times, media, and technologies." It is published by University of California Press and was established in 1977. The editor-in-chief is Lawrence Kramer. Abstracting and indexing The journal is indexed in: *Scopus *Arts and Humanities Citation Index *Current Contents/Arts & Humanities *EBSCO databases EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of very many types around the ... * ProQuest databases References External links * Publications established in 1977 Triannual journals ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy is the study of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. The term first appears in the eponymous work ''Hamburg Dramaturgy'' (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Lessing composed this collection of essays on the principles of drama while working as the world's first dramaturge at the Hamburg National Theatre. Dramaturgy is distinct from play writing and directing, although the three may be practiced by one individual. Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating a drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturge, to adapt a work for the stage. Dramaturgy may also be broadly defined as "adapting a story to actable form." Dramaturgy gives a performance work foundation and structure. Often the dramaturge's strategy is to manipulate a narrative to reflect the current Zeitgeist through cross-cultural signs, theater- and film-historical references to genre, ideology, questions of gender and racial ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ståle Wikshåland
Ståle Wikshåland (30 June 1953 – 18 January 2017) was a Norwegian musicologist. He was born in Stavanger. Wikshåland was a co-editor for the music magazine ''Ballade'', and worked for Henie Onstad Kunstsenter from 1981 to 1984. From 1988 to 2017 he was appointed professor in musicology at the University of Oslo. He was also a music critic for ''Dagbladet'' for thirty years, and contributed to the contemporary debate on music and art in society. Wikshåland died in 2017 of thrombosis, aged 63. Publications * 2007:Elektra's Oceanic Time: Voice and Identity in Richard Strauss. ''19th-Century Music ''19th-Century Music'' is a triennial academic journal that "covers all aspects of Western art music composed in, leading to, or pointing beyond the "long century" extending roughly from the 1780s to the 1930s." The Journal is "interested equally ...''. 31 (2): 164–174. doi:10.1525/ncm.2007.31.2.164. Retrieved 7 May 2016 * 2009: ''Century of interpretation'' . ''Essays o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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