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John Van Kesteren
John van Kesteren (4 May 1921 in The Hague – 11 July 2008 in Jupiter, Florida) was a Dutch operatic tenor. De Pers July 13, 2008 Career Van Kesteren first worked as an electronic specialist for the Dutch Telegraph Company PTT. His very first appearance as a non-professional singer was in 1942 with an operetta company in Apeldoorn in the French operetta ''The Bells of Corneville''. During World War II he appeared in five French and German operettas. From 1946 on he studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with the Bass (vocal range), bass Willem Ravelli. He went on to study with Prof. Dr. Lothar Wallerstein of the Vie ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of the Netherlands is Amsterdam, The Hague has been described as the country's de facto capital. The Hague is also the capital of the province of South Holland, and the city hosts both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Hague is the core municipality of the Greater The Hague urban area, which comprises the city itself and its suburban municipalities, containing over 800,000 people, making it the third-largest urban area in the Netherlands, again after the urban areas of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Rotterdam–The Hague metropolitan area, with a population of approximately 2.6&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Malfrid Flagstad (12 July 1895 – 7 December 1962) was a Norwegian opera singer, who was the outstanding Wagnerian soprano of her era. Her triumphant debut in New York on 2 February 1935 is one of the legends of opera. Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the longstanding General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera said, “I have given America two great gifts — Caruso and Flagstad.” Called "the voice of the century", she ranks among the greatest singers of the 20th century. Desmond Shawe-Taylor wrote of her in the '' New Grove Dictionary of Opera'': "No one within living memory surpassed her in sheer beauty and consistency of line and tone." Early life and career Flagstad was born in Hamar, Norway, in her grandparents' home, now the Kirsten Flagstad Museum. Though she never actually lived in Hamar, she always considered it her home town. She was raised in Oslo within a musical family; her father Michael Flagstad was a conductor and her mother Maja Flagstad a pianist. Their othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Comte Ory
''Le comte Ory'' (''Count Ory'') is a comic opera written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera ''Il viaggio a Reims'' written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X of France, Charles X. The French libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson adapted from a comedy they had first written in 1817. The work is ostensibly a comic opera in that the story is humorous, even farcical. However, it was devised for the Académie Royale de Musique, Opéra rather than for the Opéra-Comique, Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique and there are structural inconsistencies with the contemporary ''opéra comique'' genre: whereas the latter consists of relatively short lyrical numbers and spoken dialogue, ''Le comte Ory'' consists of "highly developed, even massive musical forms linked by accompanied recitative". Although the opera contains some of Rossini's most colorful orchestral writing, the quaint, brief overture is oddly restraine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein (30 May 1901 – 8 October 1975) was an Austrian theater and opera director. He was one of the most important exponents of textual accuracy, productions in which dramatic and musical values were exquisitely researched and balanced. His most famous students were Götz Friedrich and Harry Kupfer both of whom went on to have important careers developing Felsenstein's work. Opera director Siegfried Schoenbohm was one of his assistants. Biography Felsenstein was born in Vienna and began his career at the Burgtheater there. From 1923 to 1932, he was a theater actor in Lübeck, Mannheim and Beuthen, where he first worked as a director. In Basel and Freiburg im Breisgau, he became closely acquainted with the contemporary concert hall. From 1932 to 1934 he worked as an opera director in Cologne, and from 1934 to 1936 at the Oper Frankfurt. He worked in Zürich from 1938 to 1940 and returned in 1940 to Germany, where he was active at the Berlin Schillertheater u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Barber Of Baghdad
''Der Barbier von Bagdad'' (''The Barber of Baghdad'') is a comic opera in two acts by Peter Cornelius to a German libretto by the composer, based on ''The Tale of the Tailor'' and ''The Barber’s Stories of his Six Brothers'' in ''One Thousand and One Nights''. The first of three operas by Cornelius, the piece was first performed at the Hoftheater in Weimar on 15 December 1858.Holden, p. 88 Performance history Cornelius planned the work as a one-act comedy, but on the advice of Franz Liszt expanded it to two. Franz Liszt later arranged the second overture for orchestra (S.352). Unlike most German comic operas of the period, which have spoken dialogue, ''Der Barbier von Bagdad'' is through composed. Cornelius offered the inventive and complex opera as an alternative to the contemporary German opera composers such as Richard Wagner, whose ideological fervor he found overwhelming. At its first performance the opera was a failure, and it was not played again in the composer's li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Cornelius
Carl August Peter Cornelius (24 December 1824 – 26 October 1874) was a German composer, writer about music, poet and translator. Life He was born in Mainz to Carl Joseph Gerhard (1793–1843) and Friederike (1789–1867) Cornelius, actors in Mainz and Wiesbaden. From an early age he played the violin and composed, eventually studying with Tekla Griebel-Wandall and composition with Heinrich Esser in 1841. He lived with his painter uncle Peter von Cornelius in Berlin from 1844 to 1852, and during this time he met prominent figures such as Alexander von Humboldt, the Brothers Grimm, Friedrich Rückert and Felix Mendelssohn. Cornelius's first mature works (including the opera ''Der Barbier von Bagdad'') were composed during his brief stay in Weimar (1852–1858). His next place of residence was Vienna, where he lived for five years. It was in Vienna that Cornelius began a friendship with Richard Wagner. At the latter's behest, Cornelius moved to Munich in 1864, where he mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Komische Oper
The Komische Oper Berlin is a German opera company based in Berlin. The company produces opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ..., operetta and musical theatre, musicals. The opera house is located on Behrenstraße, just a few steps from Unter den Linden. Since 2004, the Komische Oper Berlin, along with the Berlin State Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Berlin State Ballet, and the Bühnenservice Berlin (Stage and Costume Design), has been a member of the Berlin Opera Foundation. History of the building The theatre was built between 1891 and 1892 by architects Fellner & Helmer, Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer for a private society. It first opened on 24 September 1892 as ''"Theater Unter den Linden"'' with Adolf Ferron's operetta ''Daphne'' and Gaul and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded as an episcopal see in 696 and became a Prince-Archbishopric of Salzburg, seat of the archbishop in 798. Its main sources of income were salt extraction, trade, and gold mining. The fortress of Hohensalzburg Fortress, Hohensalzburg, one of the largest medieval fortresses in Europe, dates from the 11th century. In the 17th century, Salzburg became a center of the Counter-Reformation, with monasteries and numerous Baroque churches built. Historic Centre of the City of Salzburg, Salzburg's historic center (German language, German: ''Altstadt'') is renowned for its Baroque architecture and is one of the best-preserved city centers north of the Alps. The historic center was enlisted as a UN ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nadia Boulanger
Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she gave up writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Burt Bacharach, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, Virgil Thomson, and George Walker. Boulanger taught in the U.S. and England, workin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Münch
Charles Munch (; born Charles Münch, 26 September 1891 – 6 November 1968) was an Alsatian French symphonic conductor and violinist. Noted for his mastery of the French orchestral repertoire, he was best known as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Life and career Munch was born in 1891 in Strasbourg, Alsace. The son of organist and choir director Ernst Münch, he was the fifth of six children. He was the brother of conductor Fritz Münch and the cousin of conductor and composer Hans Münch. Although his first ambition was to be a locomotive engineer, he studied violin at the Strasbourg Conservatoire. His father, Ernst, was a professor of organ at the Conservatoire and performed at the cathedral; he also directed an orchestra with his son Charles in the second violins. After receiving his diploma in 1912, Charles studied with Carl Flesch in Berlin and Lucien Capet at the Conservatoire de Paris. He was conscripted into the German army in World War I, serving as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)
The Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, is a Solemn Mass composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819 to 1823. It was first performed on 7 April 1824 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei were conducted by the composer. It is generally considered one of the composer's supreme achievements and, along with Bach's Mass in B minor, one of the most significant Mass settings of the common practice period. Written around the same time as his Ninth Symphony, it is Beethoven's second setting of the Mass, after his Mass in C major, Op. 86. The work was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf of Austria, archbishop of Olmütz, Beethoven's foremost patron as well as pupil and friend. The copy presented to Rudolf was inscribed "Von Herzen—Möge es wieder—Zu Herzen gehn!" ("From the heart – may it return to the heart!") Structure Like ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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