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Hector Dufranne
Hector Dufranne (25 October 1870 – 4 May 1951) was a Belgian operatic bass-baritone who enjoyed a long career that took him to opera houses throughout Europe and the United States for more than four decades. Admired for both his singing and his acting, Dufranne appeared in a large number of world premieres, most notably the role Golaud in the original Opéra-Comique production of Claude Debussy's '' Pelléas et Mélisande'' at the Salle Favart in Paris in 1902, which he went on to sing 120 times at that house.Pelléas et Mélisande. L’Avant-Scène Opera. 9, March–April 1977. He had an excellent singing technique which maintained the quality of his voice even into the latter part of his career. His wide vocal range and rich resonant voice enabled him to sing a variety of roles which encompassed French, German, and Italian opera. J.B. Steane: "Hector Dufranne", ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed 5 February 2009)(subscription access) Biography Dufranne was born in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hector Dufranne (1870-1951) In 1918
Hector Dufranne (25 October 1870 – 4 May 1951) was a Belgian operatic bass-baritone who enjoyed a long career that took him to opera houses throughout Europe and the United States for more than four decades. Admired for both his singing and his acting, Dufranne appeared in a large number of world premieres, most notably the role Golaud in the original Opéra-Comique production of Claude Debussy's '' Pelléas et Mélisande'' at the Salle Favart in Paris in 1902, which he went on to sing 120 times at that house.Pelléas et Mélisande. L’Avant-Scène Opera. 9, March–April 1977. He had an excellent singing technique which maintained the quality of his voice even into the latter part of his career. His wide vocal range and rich resonant voice enabled him to sing a variety of roles which encompassed French, German, and Italian opera.J.B. Steane: "Hector Dufranne", ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed 5 February 2009)(subscription access) Biography Dufranne was born in Mons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Monnaie
The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie (french: Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, italic=no, ; nl, Koninklijke Muntschouwburg, italic=no; both translating as the "Royal Theatre of the Mint") is an opera house in central Brussels, Belgium. The National Opera of Belgium, a federal institution, takes the name of this theatre in which it is housed—La Monnaie in French or De Munt in Dutch—referring both to the building as well as the opera company. As Belgium's leading opera house, it is one of the few cultural institutions which receive financial support from the Federal Government of Belgium. Other opera houses in Belgium, such as the Vlaamse Opera and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie, are funded by regional governments. La Monnaie is located on the Place de la Monnaie/Muntplein, not far from the Rue Neuve/Nieuwstraat and the Place de Brouckère/De Brouckèreplein. The current edifice is the third theatre on the site. The facade dates from 1818 with major alterations made in 1856 and 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Gioielli Della Madonna
''I gioielli della Madonna'' (English: ''The Jewels of the Madonna'') is an opera in three acts by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to an Italian libretto by and Enrico Golisciani, based on news accounts of a real event. It was first performed at the on 23 December 1911 under the title ''Der Schmuck der Madonna''. That performance was in German, but now it is usually given in Italian. (Wolf-Ferrari stated that his operas were often first given in German simply because he had a German publisher.) The opera was given in Budapest in 1913, conducted by Fritz Reiner, who also conducted the first Dresden performance the following year.Philip Hart, Fritz Reiner, Evanston Illinois, 1994, pages 7 & 9 Its controversial themes include love between a brother and his adopted sister, implied criticism of the Catholic Church, and an on-stage orgy. There is an extant recording of the opera, made in 1967, featuring Pauline Tinsley, André Turp and Peter Glossop, conducted by Alberto Erede. It was issued o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (born Ermanno Wolf) (January 12, 1876 – January 21, 1948) was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as '' Il segreto di Susanna'' (1909). A number of his works were based on plays by Carlo Goldoni, including ''Le donne curiose'' (1903), ''I quatro rusteghi'' (1906) and ''Il campiello'' (1936). Life Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was born in Venice in 1876, the son of German painter August Wolf and Emilia Ferrari, from Venice. He added his mother's maiden-name, Ferrari, to his surname in 1895. Although he studied piano from an early age, music was not the primary passion of his young life. As a teenager Wolf-Ferrari wanted to be a painter like his father; he studied intensively in Venice and Rome and traveled abroad to study in Munich. It was there that he decided to concentrate instead on music, taking lessons from Josef Rheinberger. He enrolled at the Munich conservatory and began taking counterpoint and composition classes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Königskinder
' (German for ''King's Children'' or “Royal Children”) is a stage work by Engelbert Humperdinck that exists in two versions: as a melodrama and as an opera or more precisely a '' Märchenoper''. The libretto was written by Ernst Rosmer (pen name of Else Bernstein-Porges), adapted from her play of the same name. In 1894, Heinrich Porges asked Humperdinck to write incidental music for his daughter Else's play. Humperdinck was interested in making the story into an opera but since Else Bernstein-Porges initially refused, he opted for the play to be staged as a melodrama – that is with spoken dialogue taking place along with an instrumental backdrop. (The work also included operatic arias and choruses, as well as unaccompanied dialogue.) In the melodramatic passages, Humperdinck designed an innovative hybrid notation that called for a text delivery somewhere between singing and speech. With this notation, the singer was expected to deliver a substantial portion of the text wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Engelbert Humperdinck (composer)
Engelbert Humperdinck (; 1 September 1854 – 27 September 1921) was a German composer. He is known widely for his opera ''Hansel and Gretel (opera), Hansel and Gretel'' (1893). Biography Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province in 1854. After receiving piano lessons, he produced his first composition at the age of seven. His first attempts at works for the stage were two singspiele written when he was 13. His parents disapproved of his plans for a career in music and encouraged him to study architecture. But he began taking music classes under Ferdinand Hiller and Isidor Seiss at the Cologne Conservatory in 1872. In 1876, he won a scholarship that enabled him to go to Munich, where he studied with Franz Lachner and later with Josef Rheinberger. In 1879, he won the first Mendelssohn Scholarship, Mendelssohn Award given by the Mendelssohn Scholarship, Mendelssohn Stiftung (foundation) in Berlin. He went to Italy, where he became acquainted with composer Richard Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iphigénie En Tauride
''Iphigénie en Tauride'' (, ''Iphigenia in Tauris'') is a 1779 opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. It was his fifth opera for the French stage. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard. With ''Iphigénie,'' Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and they are ''récitatif accompagné'' (i.e. the strings and perhaps other instruments are playing, not just continuo accompaniment). The normal dance movements that one finds in the French ''tragédie en musique'' are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play ''Iphigenia in Tauris'' by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Performance history ''Iphigénie en Tauride'' was first performed on 18 May 1779 by the Paris Opéra at the second Salle du Palais-Royal and was a great success. Some think that the head of the Paris Opéra, Devismes, had at ... [...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] |
Jan Blockx
Jan Blockx (25 January 1851 – 26 May 1912) was a Belgian composer, pianist and teacher. He was a leader of the Flemish nationalist school in music. Biography Born in Antwerp, Blockx studied the piano with Frans Aerts, the organ with Joseph Callaerts and composition with Peter Benoît at the Antwerp Conservatory. When he was still a student he wrote some songs, in Flemish, which became popular. However, his musical education studies were quite irregular, and he was essentially self-taught person. Later he studied with Carl Reinecke at Leipzig. Despite the fact that he was Benoits favorite pupil, Blockx wanted to make his own way in life, independent of his teacher and the Flemish Movement. Unlike Benoit, Blockx never intended his works to have the educational, uplifting effect that was typical for the Flemish Movement. This caused tensions between student and master: despite the fact that Blockx's work helped to spread Flemish music across the Belgian borders and even save ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Rheingold
''Das Rheingold'' (; ''The Rhinegold''), WWV 86A, is the first of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (English: ''The Ring of the Nibelung''). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, and received its first performance as part of the ''Ring'' cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, on 13 August 1876. Wagner wrote the ''Ring'' librettos in reverse order, so that ''Das Rheingold'' was the last of the texts to be written; it was, however, the first to be set to music. The score was completed in 1854, but Wagner was unwilling to sanction its performance until the whole cycle was complete; he worked intermittently on this music until 1874. The 1869 Munich premiere of ''Das Rheingold'' was staged, much against Wagner's wishes, on the orders of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Following its 1876 Bayreuth premiere, the ''Ring'' cycle was introduced into the worldwide repertory, with perf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fervaal
''Fervaal'', Op. 40, is an opera (''action musicale'' or lyric drama) in three acts with a prologue by the French composer Vincent d'Indy. The composer wrote his own libretto, based in part on the lyric poem ''Axel'' by the Swedish author Esaias Tegnér. D'Indy worked on the opera during the years 1889 to 1895, and the score was published in 1895. Background ''Fervaal'' premiered at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels on 12 March 1897. It was subsequently produced in Paris in 1898, and again in that city in 1912. The first of 13 performances by the Opéra-Comique company (at the Théâtre du Châtelet), on 10 May 1898 was conducted by André Messager and included in the cast Raunay and Imbart de la Tour from the Brussels premiere, along with Gaston Beyle, Ernest Carbonne and André Gresse. It was last performed on stage in 1912/13 (at the Paris Palais Garnier, again with Messager conducting). In concert, it was presented by RTF in 1962. The Bern Opera House presented ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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