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Enoch Arden (Strauss)
''Enoch Arden'', Op. 38, TrV. 181, is a melodrama for narrator and piano, written in 1897 by Richard Strauss setting a German translation of the 1864 poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. History Richard Strauss wrote ''Enoch Arden'' for the actor Ernst von Possart, who in 1896 had assisted him in obtaining the post of Chief Conductor at the Bavarian State Opera. He wrote it while engaged in composing ''Don Quixote'' and finished it in February 1897. Strauss and Possart toured together widely with the melodrama, in a German translation by Adolf Strodtmann. It was well received by audiences and Strauss's reputation was enhanced more by it than by his symphonic poems. The following year Strauss capitalised on its success by writing ''Das Schloss am Meere'' (''The Castle by the Sea'') to words by Ludwig Uhland. The work has been described as falling within the genre of incidental music. It consists mainly of brief interludes indicative of changes of time and setting, as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melodrama
A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, focusing on morality and family issues, love, and marriage, often with challenges from an outside source, such as a "temptress", a scoundrel, or an aristocratic villain. A melodrama on stage, filmed, or on television is usually accompanied by dramatic and suggestive music that offers cues to the audience of the drama being presented. In scholarly and historical musical contexts, ''melodramas'' are Victorian dramas in which orchestral music or song was used to accompany the action. The term is now also applied to stage performances without incidental music, novels, films, tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benjamin Luxon
Benjamin Matthew Luxon (born 24 March 1937, Redruth, Cornwall) is a retired British baritone. Biography He studied with Walther Gruner at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (while working part-time as a PE teacher in the East End) and established an international reputation as a singer at the age of 21 when he won the third prize at the 1961 ARD International Music Competition in Munich. Soon afterward he joined composer Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group. On their tour of the Soviet Union in 1963, he sang the roles of Sid and Tarquinius in Britten's operas ''Albert Herring'' and ''The Rape of Lucretia'', respectively. In 1971, Britten composed the title role of his television opera ''Owen Wingrave'' specifically for Luxon's voice; Luxon created the role later that year with the English Opera Group. The following year, 1972, Luxon made his début at both the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – creating the role of the Jester in Peter Maxwell Davies' opera '' Tav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victor Sangiorgio
Victor Sangiorgio is an Australian classical pianist. He was born in Italy, grew up and trained in Australia, resides in London and performs internationally. Biography Victor Sangiorgio was born in Italy but his family moved to Australia when he was four, and settled in Perth, Western Australia. He completed his initial training at Perth Modern School, as a member of the school's music scholarship programme. Further studies were with Stephen Dornan, Roy Shepherd, Guido Agosti and Noretta Conci. By the age of nineteen he had been a soloist with all the major Australian orchestras and had recorded and broadcast extensively on radio and television. He was a finalist in the 1978 ABC Instrumental and Vocal competition. He was a finalist in the 1988 Sydney International Piano Competition and won a special prize for the best performance of an Australian composition. He was the featured soloist on the Australian Youth Orchestra's and West Australian Symphony Orchestra's tours of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fawlty Towers
''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000 and, in 2019, it was named the greatest ever British TV sitcom by a panel of comedy experts compiled by the ''Radio Times''.Mattha Busby, 9 April 2019"Fawlty Towers named greatest ever British TV sitcom" ''The Guardian'', Retrieved 24 May 2019 The series is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay on the English Riviera. The plots centre on the tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty (Cleese), his bossy wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), the sensible chambermaid Polly (Booth) who often is the peacemaker and voice of reason, and the hapless and English-challenged Spanish waiter Manuel (Andrew Sachs). They show their attempts to run the hotel amidst far ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Sachs
Andreas Siegfried Sachs (7 April 1930 – 23 November 2016), known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor and writer. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Spanish waiter Manuel in ''Fawlty Towers''. Sachs had a long career in acting and voice-over work for television, film and radio. He was successful well into his eighties, with roles in numerous films such as '' Quartet'', and as Ramsay Clegg in '' Coronation Street''. Early life Sachs was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Katharina (née Schrott-Fiecht), a librarian, and Hans Emil Sachs, an insurance broker. His father was Jewish and his mother was Lutheran, with Austrian ancestry. The family moved to Britain in 1938 to escape the Nazis. They settled in north London, and he lived in Kilburn for the rest of his life. In 1960, Sachs married the actress, writer, and fashion designer Melody Lang, who took his surname. He adopted her two s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emil De Cou
Emil de Cou is an American conductor who became associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) in September 2003. He has led the orchestra on residency tours in five states, in subscription concerts at the Kennedy Center and on the West Lawn of the United States Capitol Building. In 2005 de Cou was named NSO at Wolf Trap Festival Conductor and will start his 15th season with that organization in the summer of 2019. He was appointed the music director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet starting with the 2011-2012 season. In 2013, he was described by ''New York Times'' critic Alastair Macaulay to be "probably...America’s finest ballet conductor." Emil de Cou also acts as musical advisor to NASA. In June, 2018 de Cou led performances at the Kennedy Center to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the space agency called "Space, the Next Frontier." This was the 12th collaboration between the National Symphony Orches ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steinway Hall
Steinway Hall (German: ) is the name of buildings housing concert halls, showrooms and sales departments for Steinway & Sons pianos. The first Steinway Hall was opened in 1866 in New York City. Today, Steinway Halls and are located in cities such as New York City, London, Berlin, and Vienna. A related concept by Steinway is "Steinway Piano Galleries". The Steinway Piano Galleries have all the same features as Steinway Halls, but are smaller. New York City 14th Street (1864–1925) In 1864, William Steinway built elegant showrooms housing over 100 Steinway & Sons pianos at 109 East 14th Street, at the corner of Fourth Ave. (now Park Ave South) in Manhattan. During the next two years, demand for Steinway pianos had increased dramatically. Construction of the first Steinway Hall was pushed by the need for expansion, increased promotion, and better presentation of pianos and music culture through regular live performances. William Steinway carried planning and construction of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Temple (bass-baritone)
Richard Barker Cobb Temple (2 March 1846 – 19 October 1912) was an English opera singer, actor and stage director, best known for his performances in the bass-baritone roles in the famous series of Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. After an opera career in London and throughout Britain beginning in 1869, Temple joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1877. There, he created most of the bass-baritone roles in the Savoy Operas, as follows: Sir Marmaduke in ''The Sorcerer'' (1877), Dick Deadeye in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' (1878), the Pirate King in the London production of ''The Pirates of Penzance'' (1880), Colonel Calverley in ''Patience'' (1881), Arac in ''Princess Ida'' (1884), the title character in ''The Mikado'', Sir Roderic in ''Ruddigore'' and Sergeant Meryll in ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' (1888). He also played the baritone roles of Strephon in the original production of ''Iolanthe'' (1882), and Giuseppe in the New York production of ''The Gondoliers'' (1890). During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc-André Hamelin
Marc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ (born September 5, 1961), is a Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer. Hamelin is recognized worldwide for the originality and technical proficiency of his performances of the classic repertoire. He has received 11 Grammy Award nominations. Biography Born in Montreal, Quebec, Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also an amateur pianist, introduced him to the works of Charles-Valentin Alkan, Leopold Godowsky, and Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji when he was still young. He studied at the École de musique Vincent-d'Indy in Montreal with Yvonne Hubert and then at Temple University in Philadelphia. In 1989, he was awarded the Virginia Parker Prize. Hamelin has given recitals in many cities. Festival appearances have included Bad Kissingen, Belfast, Cervantino, La Grange de Meslay, Husum Piano Rarities, Lanaudière, Ravinia, La Roque d’Anthéron, Ruhr Piano, Halifax (Nova Scotia), Singapore Piano, S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emanuel Ax
Emanuel "Manny" Ax (born 8 June 1949) is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is a teacher in the Juilliard School. Early life Ax was born to a Polish-Jewish family in Lviv, Ukraine, (in what was then the Soviet Union) to Joachim and Hellen Ax. Both parents were Nazi concentration camp survivors. Ax began to study piano at the age of six; his father was his first piano teacher. When he was seven the family moved to Warsaw, Poland (where he studied piano playing at Miodowa school) and then two years later to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he continued to study music, including as a member of The Junior Musical Club of Winnipeg. In 1961 the family moved to New York City and Ax continued his studies at the Juilliard School under Mieczysław Munz. In 1970 he received his B.A. in French at Columbia University and became an American citizen. The same year, he received an honorable mention at the VIII International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. In 1973 he won the Yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Hough
Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality (his father was born in Australia in 1926). Biography Hough was born in Heswall (then in Cheshire) on the Wirral Peninsula, and grew up in Thelwall, where he began piano lessons at the age of five. His father, who was born in Australia, worked as a technical representative for British Steel before his death at the age of 54. At an early age, Hough was able to memorise about 100 nursery rhymes and, after much pleading, his parents agreed to buy a second-hand piano, for £5 from a local antique shop, for the home. At the age of 12 he suffered what he has described as a "mini-nervous breakdown", triggered by a mugging incident, which resulted in him taking almost a year off school. He studied at Chetham's School of Music, which he later described as "not a wonderful place while I was there", and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jörg Demus
Jörg Wolfgang Demus (2 December 1928 – 16 April 2019) was an Austrian classical pianist who appeared internationally and made many recordings. He was also a composer and a lecturer at music academies. In composition and playing, he focused on chamber music and ''lieder''. He played with singers such as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, as a piano duo with Paul Badura-Skoda, and with string players such as Josef Suk and Antonio Janigro. Demus was instrumental in bringing the historic fortepiano to concert podiums. He was a member of the Legion of Honour, among many awards. He is regarded as one of the leading Austrian pianists of the immediate post-World War II era. Early life and education Demus was born in St. Pölten; his father was the art historian Otto Demus, and his mother was a concert violinist. At the age of six, Demus received his first piano lessons. Five years later, at the age of 11, he entered the Vienna Academy of Music, studying piano, compo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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