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Hanno Müller-Brachmann
Hanno Müller-Brachmann (born 1970) is a German bass-baritone who made an international career in both opera and concert. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1998 to 2011, he first sang Mozart roles such as The Magic Flute, Papageno and The Marriage of Figaro, Figaro, and created roles in premieres such as Mephistopheles in Dusapin's ''Faustus, the Last Night'' in 2006. Career Born in Cologne, Müller-Brachmann was a member of the boys' choir Knabenkantorei Basel, where his musical talent was discovered. He studied music pedagogy in Freiburg im Breisgau with Ingeborg Most. He continued his studies of ''Lied'' with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Berlin, on a scholarship of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. He studied further with Rudolf Piernay at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim, Musikhochschule Mannheim and took his concert diploma singing the role of Elijah (oratorio), Elijah in Mendelssohn's oratorio. In 1995, he achieved a second prize at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 million people in the urban region. Centered on the left (west) bank of the Rhine, Cologne is about southeast of NRW's state capital Düsseldorf and northwest of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany. The city's medieval Catholic Cologne Cathedral (), the third-tallest church and tallest cathedral in the world, constructed to house the Shrine of the Three Kings, is a globally recognized landmark and one of the most visited sights and pilgrimage destinations in Europe. The cityscape is further shaped by the Twelve Romanesque churches of Cologne, and Cologne is famous for Eau de Cologne, that has been produced in the city since 1709, and "cologne" has since come to be a generic term. Cologne was founded and established in Germanic Ubii ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lied
In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangeably with " art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages as well. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love. The earliest lied date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, and can even refer to from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss. History For G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
What Next? (opera)
''What Next?'' is the only opera by Elliott Carter. Paul Griffiths wrote the libretto to the one-act work in 1997/98 on a commission from Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. The opera premiered there on 16 September 1999 in a fully staged production conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Performance history *US premiere 24 February 2000, Orchestra Hall, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, under Daniel Barenboim *Netherlands premiere on 9 September 2000 at Amsterdam Concertgebouw under Péter Eötvös *French premiere on 7 November 2000 at Cité de la Musique, Paris, under Kent Nagano *British premiere on 5 January 2001 at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, under Oliver Knussen *Belgian premiere on 24 March 2002 at Concertgebouw, Bruges, under Péter Eötvös *U.S. staged premiere on 27 July 2006 at the Tanglewood Music Festival under James Levine *Munich staged premiere on 20 November 2007 at Prinzregententheater under Ulf Schirmer *New York staged premiere on 7 December 2007 at Miller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon; the " Habanera" from act 1 and the " Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of '' opéra comique'' with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. José abandons h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Freischütz
' ( J. 277, Op. 77 ''The Marksman'' or ''The Freeshooter'') is a German opera with spoken dialogue in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind, based on a story by Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun from their 1810 collection '' Gespensterbuch''. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin. It is considered the first German Romantic opera. The opera's plot is mainly based on August Apel's tale "Der Freischütz" from the '' Gespensterbuch'' though the hermit, Kaspar and Ännchen are new to Kind's libretto. That Weber's tunes were just German folk music is a common misconception. Its unearthly portrayal of the supernatural in the famous Wolf's Glen scene has been described as "the most expressive rendering of the gruesome that is to be found in a musical score". Performance history The reception of ''Der Freischütz'' surpassed Weber's own hopes and it quickly became an international success, with productions in Vienna the same year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Così Fan Tutte
(''All Women Do It, or The School for Lovers''), K. 588, is an opera buffa in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was first performed on 26 January 1790 at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte who also wrote '' Le nozze di Figaro'' and ''Don Giovanni''. Although it is commonly held that was written and composed at the suggestion of the Emperor Joseph II, recent research does not support this idea. There is evidence that Mozart's contemporary Antonio Salieri tried to set the libretto but left it unfinished. In 1994, John Rice uncovered two terzetti by Salieri in the Austrian National Library. The short title, ''Così fan tutte'', literally means "So do they all", using the feminine plural ('' tutte'') to indicate women. It is usually translated into English as "Women are like that". The words are sung by the three men in act 2, scene 3, just before the finale; this melodic phrase is also quoted in the overture to the oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Nozze Di Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, '' La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro'' ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity. Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. ''The Marriage of Figaro'' came in first out o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; Köchel catalogue, K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The rake (stock character), Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play ''The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''. It is a ''dramma giocoso'' blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as ''opera buffa''). It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. ''Don Giovanni'' is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim (; in he, דניאל בארנבוים, born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. He has been since 1992 General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeister" of its orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin. The current general music director of the Berlin State Opera and the Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim previously served as Music Director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and La Scala in Milan. Barenboim is known for his work with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, a Seville-based orchestra of young Arab and Israeli musicians, and as a resolute critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Barenboim has received many awards and prizes, including seven Grammy awards, an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, France's Légion d'honneur both as a Commander and Grand Officier, and the German Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz mit Ste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertelsmann Foundation
The Bertelsmann Stiftung is an independent foundation under private law, based in Gütersloh, Germany. It was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn as the result of social, corporate and fiscal considerations. As the Bertelsmann Stiftung itself has put it, the foundation promotes "reform processes" and "the principles of entrepreneurial activity" to build a "future-oriented society." Since 1993, the Bertelsmann Stiftung has held the majority of capital shares in the Bertelsmann Group. It holds 80.9% together with the Reinhard Mohn Stiftung and the BVG Stiftung but has no voting rights. History Establishment of the foundation At the end of the 1970s, there were discussions concerning who would follow Reinhard Mohn as chairman of Bertelsmann. Against this background and because he believed that the state must be able to count on its citizens' willingness to assume responsibility and take the initiative, Mohn founded the Bertelsmann Stiftung on 8 February 1977. It was offici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neue Stimmen
Neue Stimmen (''New Voices'') is an international singing competition. It was established in 1987 on the initiative of Liz Mohn with the support of August Everding to promote operas young talent. It is considered an important forum for new talent, one that has marked the beginning of international careers for many participants. The singing competition was hosted every two years by the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Gütersloh, most recently in June 2022. History In 1985, the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Herbert von Karajan gave a concert at the to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Bertelsmann media group. During the event, Karajan spoke with Liz Mohn about the lack of programs for promoting new opera talent, saying that, compared to other countries, it was difficult to find suitable young singers in Germany. As a result, Mohn, who became a member of the Bertelsmann Stiftung's Advisory Board in 1986, organized an international singing competit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elijah (oratorio)
''Elijah'' (german: Elias), Op. 70, MWV A 25, is an oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn depicting events in the life of the Prophet Elijah as told in the books 1 Kings and 2 Kings of the Old Testament. It premiered on 26 August 1846. Music and its style This piece was composed in the spirit of Mendelssohn's Baroque predecessors Bach and Handel, whose music he greatly admired. In 1829 Mendelssohn had organized the first performance of Bach's '' St Matthew Passion'' since the composer's death and was instrumental in bringing this and other Bach works to widespread popularity. By contrast, Handel's oratorios never went out of fashion in England. Mendelssohn prepared a scholarly edition of some of Handel's oratorios for publication in London. ''Elijah'' is modelled on the oratorios of these two Baroque masters; however, in its lyricism and use of orchestral and choral colour the style clearly reflects Mendelssohn's own genius as an early Romantic composer. The work is scored for ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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