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George Cehanovsky
George Cehanovsky (14 April 1892 - 25 March 1986) was an American baritone and language coach of Russian birth who had a close association with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City for six decades. At the time of his death in 1986, he held the record for the most performances given by any artist at the Met with 2,394 performances, a number which has since been surpassed by only tenor Charles Anthony and conductor James Levine. Life and career Born in St. Petersburg, Cehanovsky was the son of Russian gentry. He studied at the Russian Naval Academy before serving as an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. With the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917 he resigned his naval commission and began studying singing seriously with his mother, Vera Cehanovska, a violinist, pianist and voice teacher. He made his professional debut as a concert singer in Saint Petersburg in 1920, and spent the next couple years performing with a small opera company in that city. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg
(; "The Master-Singers of Nuremberg"), WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theatre Munich, National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera. The story is set in Nuremberg in the mid-16th century. At the time, Nuremberg was a free imperial city and one of the centers of the Renaissance in Northern Europe. The story revolves around the city's guild of ''Meistersinger'' (Master Singers), an association of amateur poets and musicians who were primarily Master craftsman, master craftsmen of various trades. The master singers had developed a craftsmanlike approach to music-making, with an intricate system of rules for composing and performing songs. The work draws much of its atmosphere from its depictio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonny Spielt Auf
''Jonny spielt auf'' (''Jonny Strikes Up''), Op. 45, is a German-language with words and music by Austrian composer Ernst Krenek about a jazz violinist. He dedicated the opera to his second wife, Berta Herrmann.Work details A performance lasts about 2 hours. The work typified the cultural freedom of the 'golden era' of the . Performance history directed the premiere at the , the predecessor to the |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic ''Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vanessa (opera)
''Vanessa'' is an American opera in three (originally four) acts by Samuel Barber, opus 32, with an original English libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti. It was composed in 1956–1957 and was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on January 15, 1958 under the baton of Dimitri Mitropoulos in a production designed by Cecil Beaton and directed by Menotti. Barber revised the opera in 1964, reducing the four acts to the three-act version most commonly performed today. Performance history For the Met premiere, Sena Jurinac was contracted to sing the title role. However, she cancelled six weeks before the opening night and Eleanor Steber replaced her, making the role her own for a long time. In the role of Erika, Vanessa's niece, was Rosalind Elias, then a young mezzo-soprano. Nicolai Gedda sang the lover Anatol, mezzo Regina Resnik sang the Baroness, Vanessa's mother, while bass Giorgio Tozzi sang the old doctor. It was the first American opera in 11 years to be seen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the '' Cello Concerto'' (1945) and '' Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Man Without A Country (opera)
''The Man Without a Country'' is an opera in 2 acts by composer Walter Damrosch. Arthur Guiterman wrote the English language libretto which was based on Edward Everett Hale's 1863 short story of the same name. The work premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on May 12, 1937. '' Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ... '', May 24, 1937
Roles ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Damrosch
Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862December 22, 1950) was a German-born American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, ''An American in Paris'', and Jean Sibelius' ''Tapiola''. Damrosch was also instrumental in the founding of Carnegie Hall. He also conducted the first performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the composer himself as soloist. Life and career Damrosch was born in Breslau, Silesia, a son of Helene von Heimburg, a former opera singer, and the conductor Leopold Damrosch, and brother of conductor Frank Damrosch and music teacher Clara Mannes. His parents were Lutheran (his paternal grandfather was Jewish). He exhibited an interest in music at an early age and was instructed by his father in harmony and also studied under Wilhelm Albert Rischbieter and Felix Draeseke at the Dresden Conserva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Morton (colonist)
Thomas Morton (c. 1579–1647) was an early colonist in North America from Devon, England. He was a lawyer, writer, and social reformer known for studying American Indian culture, and he founded the colony of Merrymount, located in Quincy, Massachusetts. Biography Early years Thomas Morton was born in Devon in 1579, into a conservative Anglican family belonging to the landed gentry. Devon at that time was seen as the "dark corner of the land" by Protestant reformers, for its traditionalist intransigence, which included not only a High Church Anglicanism that shared many traits with Catholicism, but a paternalistic populism combined with rural folk tradition that to the Puritans seemed close to paganism. To locals, however, it was merely "Old England"a culture firmly ingrained in them. In the late 1590s Morton studied law at London's Clifford's Inn, where he made influential contacts and lasting friendships. He was also exposed to a popular Renaissance Classicism and to the " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merry Mount (opera)
''Merry Mount'' is an opera in three acts by American composer Howard Hanson; its libretto, by Richard Stokes, is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The May-Pole of Merry Mount", taken from his '' Twice Told Tales''. Hanson's only opera, it was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The opera received its world premiere in concert at the fortieth annual May Festival of the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Michigan (at Hill Auditorium), on May 20, 1933, with the composer conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The cast included Leonora Corona, Rose Bampton, Frederick Jagel, Chase Baromeo, John Charles Thomas, and George Galvani. Its world stage premiere by the Metropolitan Opera was given on February 10, 1934. As that performance took place at a Saturday matinée, it was broadcast nationally as part of the company's weekly radio series, with Milton Cross serving as announcer. The premiere featured Lawrence Tibbett in the centra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981)''The New York Times'' – Obituaries. Harold C. Schonberg. February 28, 1981 p. 1011/ref> was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music. In 1944, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his Symphony No. 4, and received numerous other awards including the George Foster Peabody Award for Outstanding Entertainment in Music in 1946.''Howard Hanson in Theory and Practice'' Allen Laurence Cohen, Praeger Publishers, CT., 2004 p.17Howard Hanson, Peabody Award, "Milestones in American Music", "Milestones in the History of Music" on books.google.com/ref> Early life and education Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrant parents, Hans and Hilma (née Eckstrom) Hanson. In his youth he studied music with his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Ibbetson (opera)
'' ''Peter Ibbetson'' is an opera in three acts by American composer Deems Taylor from a libretto by the composer and Constance Collier, based on the 1891 novel by George du Maurier. ''Peter Ibbetson'' was first performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on 7 February 1931 and it appeared in four seasons for a total of 22 performances (in the house and on tour) until 1935 and the retirement of the two singers who created the starring roles, Lucrezia Bori and Edward Johnson. Performance history The opera opened the 1933-34 Met season and was broadcast twice, in 1932 (when the operas were still being broadcast only in part) and again in 1934. On 29 June 1960 the Empire State Music Festival presented a performance of ''Peter Ibbetson'' which was broadcast. Licia Albanese was coached in the part of Mary by its creator, Lucrezia Bori. In 1999 the opera was revived in concert form by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Lauren Flanigan as Mary. Roles Synopsis :Time: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
