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Fidelio Despradel
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with the work premiering at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The following year, Stephan von Breuning helped shorten the work from three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, a final version was performed at the Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. By convention, both of the first two versions are referred to as ''Leonore''. The libretto, with some spoken dialogue, tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison. Bouilly's scenario fits Beethoven's aesthetic and political outlook: a story of personal sacrifice, heroism, and eventual triumph. With its underlying struggle for liberty and justice mirror ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively tau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonora (opera)
''Leonora, ossia L’amore coniugale'' (''Leonora or Conjugal Love'') is an opera (specifically a ''dramma semiserio'') in two acts by the Italian composer Ferdinando Paer. The libretto, by Giovanni Schmidt, is based on '' Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal'' (1794) by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, which was also the source of Beethoven's ''Fidelio''. Beethoven himself owned a score of Paer's opera and it is believed to have had some influence on his work. ''Leonora'' was first performed at the Kleines Kurfürstliches Theater, Dresden, on 3 October 1804 with the composer's wife singing the title role. Roles Synopsis Leonora disguises herself as a man in order to infiltrate the prison where her husband, Florestano, is being held by his enemy, Don Pizarro. She fools the jailer Rocco into giving her a job. When Don Pizarro hears of the imminent arrival of the governor, Don Fernando, he orders Rocco to execute Florestano. Leonora accompanies Rocco to the underground cell where Florestano is bein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rose Bampton
Rose Bampton (November 28, 1907 in Lakewood, Ohio – August 21, 2007 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American opera singer who had an active international career during the 1930s and 1940s. She began her professional career performing mostly minor roles from the mezzo-soprano repertoire in 1929 but later switched to singing primarily leading soprano roles in 1937 until her retirement from the opera stage in 1963. She notably had a lengthy and fruitful partnership with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, singing there for eighteen consecutive seasons between 1932 and 1950. Her greatest successes were from the dramatic soprano repertoire, particularly in operas by Richard Wagner. Not a stranger to the concert repertoire, Bampton was particularly known for her performances of works by Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, and her friend Samuel Barber, notably having performed Barber's compositions with the composer accompanying her in concert. Early life and career: 1907–1932 Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NBC Symphony Orchestra
The NBC Symphony Orchestra was a radio orchestra conceived by David Sarnoff, the president of the Radio Corporation of America, especially for the conductor Arturo Toscanini. The NBC Symphony performed weekly radio concert broadcasts with Toscanini and other conductors and served as house orchestra for the NBC network. The orchestra's first broadcast was on November 13, 1937, and it continued until disbanded in 1954. A new ensemble, independent of the network, called the Symphony of the Air, followed. It was made up of former members of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and performed from 1954 to 1963, particularly under Leopold Stokowski. History Tom Lewis, in the ''Organization of American Historians Magazine of History'', described NBC's plan for cultural programming and the origin of the NBC Symphony: :David Sarnoff, who had first proposed the "radio music box" in 1916 so that listeners might enjoy "concerts, lectures, music, recitals," felt that the medium was failing to do this. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his eidetic memory. He was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan and the New York Philharmonic. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), and this led to his becoming a household name (especially in the United States) through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire. Biography Early years Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he studied the cello. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh and strict. For example, the menu at the conservatory consisted almost entirely of fish; in his later years, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Park Theatre (Manhattan)
The Park Theatre, originally known as the New Theatre, was a playhouse in New York City, located at 21–25 Park Row in the present Civic Center neighborhood of Manhattan, about east of Ann Street and backing Theatre Alley. The location, at the north end of the city, overlooked the park that would soon house City Hall. French architect Marc Isambard Brunel collaborated with fellow émigré Joseph-François Mangin and his brother Charles on the design of the building in the 1790s. Construction costs mounted to precipitous levels, and changes were made in the design; the resulting theatre had a rather plain exterior. The doors opened in January 1798. In its early years, the Park enjoyed little to no competition in New York City. Nevertheless, it rarely made a profit for its owners or managers, prompting them to sell it in 1805. Under the management of Stephen Price and Edmund Simpson in the 1810s and 1820s, the Park enjoyed its most successful period. Price and Simpson initi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket, London, Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre. In the early decades of the 20th century, Tree produced spectacular productions of William Shakespeare, Shakespeare and other classical works, and the theatre hosted premieres by major playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Noël Coward and J. B. Priestley. Since the First World War, the wide stage has made the theatre suitable for large-scale musical productions, and the theatre has accordingly specialised in hosting musical theatre, musicals. The theatre has been home to record-setting musical theatre runs, notably the First World War sensation ''Chu Chin Chow''Larkin, Colin (ed). ''Guinness Who's Who of Stage Musicals'' (Guinness Publishing, 1994) and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orfeo Ed Euridice
' (; French: '; English: ''Orpheus and Eurydice'') is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on Orpheus, the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the ''azione teatrale'', meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. ''Orfeo ed Euridice'' is the first of Gluck's "reform" operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of ''opera seria'' with a "noble simplicity" in both the music and the drama. The opera is the most popular of Gluck's works, and was one of the most influential on subsequent Opera in German, German operas. Variations on its plot—the underground rescue mission in which the hero must control, or conceal, his emotions—can be found in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart's ''The Magic Flute'', Ludwig van Beethoven, Beetho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them '' Orfeo ed Euridice'' and '' Alceste'', he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian '' opera seria'' had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral recitative and cutting the usually long da capo aria. His later operas have half the length of a typical baroque opera. Future composers like Mozart, Schubert, Berlioz and Wagner revered Gluck very highly. The strong influence of French opera encouraged Gluck to move to Paris in November 1773. Fusing the traditions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Michael Vogl
Johann Michael Vogl (August 10, 1768 – November 19, Michael Lorenz: ''Studien zum Schubertkreis'', Phil. Diss. Vienna, 2001 1840), was an Austrian baritone singer and composer. Though famous in his day, he is remembered mainly for his close professional relationship and friendship with composer Franz Schubert. Vogl was born in Steyr. As a young man he enrolled at the ''Gymnasium'' at Kremsmünster, where he studied languages, philosophy, and sang in several musical productions by his friend Franz Süßmayr (the same man who completed Mozart's ''Requiem''). In 1786 Vogl went to Vienna to study, and later to practice law. In 1795 he debuted at the Vienna Hofoper, and quickly attracted a following for both his acting capability and the beauty of his voice. In 1813, Franz Schubert attended a performance of Gluck's '' Iphigénie en Tauride'' in which Vogl sang the role of Orestes; Schubert never forgot the experience and determined to write for Vogl. The following year, whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symphony No
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning common today: a work usually consisting of multiple distinct sections or movements, often four, with the first movement in sonata form. Symphonies are almost always scored for an orchestra consisting of a string section (violin, viola, cello, and double bass), brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments which altogether number about 30 to 100 musicians. Symphonies are notated in a musical score, which contains all the instrument parts. Orchestral musicians play from parts which contain just the notated music for their own instrument. Some symphonies also contain vocal parts (e.g., Beethoven's Ninth Symphony). Etymology and origins The word ''symphony'' is derived from the Greek word (), meaning "agreement or concord of sound", "concert of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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