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Julietta
''Juliette'' is an opera by Bohuslav Martinů, who also wrote the libretto, in French, based on the play ''Juliette, ou La clé des songes'' (''Juliette, or The Key of Dreams)'' by the French author Georges Neveux. A libretto in Czech was later prepared for its premiere which took place at the Prague National Theatre on 16 March 1938. ''Juliette'' has become widely considered as Martinů's masterpiece. Performance history Martinů became aware of the play by Neveux in 1932, two years after its premiere at the in Paris (8th arrondissement) on 7 March 1930.Smaczny, Jan. "''Julietta''". In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. It appears that Neveux had come to an agreement with Kurt Weill to base a musical comedy on his play, but on hearing some of Martinů's music, passed his favour to the Czech.Bohuslav Martinů: ''Juliette ou la Clé des songes''. In: Kaminski, Piotr. ''Mille et Un Opéras''. Fayard, 2003, pp. 839–841. The initial work on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rebecca Caine
Rebecca Caine (born 25 November 1959) is a Canadian soprano, and musical theatre performer. Life and career Caine was born in Toronto, Ontario and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She is the daughter of Australian statistician Geoffrey Watson and the granddaughter of British constitutional law scholar Sir William Ivor Jennings. Caine currently resides in London. Caine's career has been divided between opera and musical theatre. She made her West End debut at the age of 19 in the role of Laurey in ''Oklahoma!''. She then sang the role of Eliza in ''My Fair Lady'' on a national tour. While making her debut at Glyndebourne as Amor in ''L'incoronazione di Poppea'', she was asked to join the Royal Shakespeare Company where she created the role of Cosette in ''Les Misérables''. After a successful West End run, she joined the original cast of ''The Phantom of the Opera'' to play Christine opposite Michael Crawford as alternate (performing 2 shows a wee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bohuslav Martinů
Bohuslav Jan Martinů (; December 8, 1890 – August 28, 1959) was a Czech composer of modern classical music. He wrote 6 symphonies, 15 operas, 14 ballet scores and a large body of orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental works. He became a violinist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and briefly studied under Czech composer and violinist Josef Suk. After leaving Czechoslovakia in 1923 for Paris, Martinů deliberately withdrew from the Romantic style in which he had been trained. During the 1920s he experimented with modern French stylistic developments, exemplified by his orchestral works ''Half-time'' and ''La Bagarre''. He also adopted jazz idioms, for instance in his '' Kitchen Revue'' (''Kuchyňská revue''). In the early 1930s he found his main fount for compositional style: neoclassicism, creating textures far denser than those found in composers treating Stravinsky as a model. He was prolific, quickly composing chamber, orchestral, choral and instrumental w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bielefeld Opera
The Bielefeld Opera is the venue of Städtische Bühnen Bielefeld (Municipal stages Bielefeld) in Bielefeld, Germany. It is a ''Dreisparten Haus'' (three-department house), offering plays, music (opera, musical theatre), and ballet. The main performance venue is the ''Stadttheater am Niederwall'' (Municipal Theatre at the Lower Wall), built in 1904 and extensively renovated from 2004 to 2006. It is the largest theater in East Westphalia, offering 500 performances annually. It is under the direction of Michael Heicks; its resident orchestra is the 72-member Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra that also performs symphonic concerts at the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle. History Plans to build an opera house in Bielefeld were laid in 1885 by a foundation set up the widow of the founder of the Crüwell Tobacco Company. Bernhard Sehring was chosen as architect and construction was started in 1901 on the Niederwall. The Art Nouveau building was inaugurated with a performance of Carl Maria von Webe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera North
Opera North is an English opera company based in Leeds. The company's home theatre is the Leeds Grand Theatre, but it also presents regular seasons in several other cities, at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, the Lowry Centre, Salford Quays and the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. The company's orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, regularly performs and records in its own right. Operas are performed either in English translation or in the original language of the libretto, in the latter case usually with surtitles. The major funders of Opera North include Arts Council England and, in Yorkshire, Leeds City Council, West Yorkshire Grants, North Yorkshire County Council, and East Riding of Yorkshire Council. History Opera North was established in 1977 as English National Opera North, as an offshoot of English National Opera, with the specific intention of delivering high-quality opera to the northern areas of England which, up to that point, had had no permanently established oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Neveux
Georges Neveux (1900–1982) was a French people, French dramatist and poet. Neveux's first notable work was the play ''Juliette ou la clé des songes (Juliet or the key to dreams)'', written in 1927 and produced in 1930. It became the basis of Theodor Schaefer's 1934 melodrama ''Julie aneb Snar'' (Julie or the Book of Dreams) for piano, jazz instruments, and small orchestra; for Bohuslav Martinů's 1937 opera ''Julietta'', and for the 1951 film ''Juliette, or Key of Dreams''. During the 1930s, when he was general secretary of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, he wrote little. In 1943 there appeared ''Le Voyage de Thésée (The Voyage of Theseus)'', which was also later adapted by Martinů as an opera ''(Ariane (Martinů), Ariane'', 1958). In 1945 he translated and adapted Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''. Neveux also wrote numerous filmscripts, although he greatly preferred the theatre. As he said: 'the first because one must earn a living, the second because one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Opera Company
The New Opera Company was a British opera company active during the period 1956 to 1984. It was mainly based at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London and later worked in co-ordination with English National Opera. The company was responsible for the premieres or major revivals of important work in the operatic canon.Hume, Robert D, Jacobs, Arthur. "London, §II: Institutions, 1: Companies, K–N". In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. London & New York, Macmillan, 1997. History The Cambridge university opera company was formed in 1956 and the following year became the New Opera Company. The founders of the company were the conductor Leon Lovett, the administrator Peter Hemmings and musicologist Brian Trowell. Its inaugural productions were welcomed with enthusiasm by London critics; Andrew Porter praised the conducting of Lovett and Trowell's production of ''The Rake's Progress'' while in ''A Tale of Two Cities'' Lovett was described as a "born conductor of opera", Besch's product ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Jones (director)
Richard Jones CBE (born 7 June 1953) is a British theatre and opera director. He was born in London, and studied at the University of Hull and University of London. After working as a jazz musician, he spent 1982–83 on a bursary working with Scottish Opera and the Citizens Theatre. His work has become controversial and has provoked considerable reactions from the UK press. However, he is also seen as a major figure in the worlds of theatre and opera, as has been noted in a 2002 interview which appeared in London's ''The Guardian'': : isgift for the thrilling, the gaudy and the wayward is one of the characteristics that marks Jones out. "He is the best British director around at the moment," says director David Pountney, part of the "powerhouse" triumvirate that presided over English National Opera in the 1980s. "He is extremely imaginative, he has a very individual, quirky response to the material, and a very sharp eye for humour." Professional career Opera Jones's earlie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Moull
Geoffrey Moull is a Canadian professional conductor. He was principal conductor of the Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra and music director of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. Education Geoffrey Moull was born in London, Ontario, Canada and studied conducting with Kirill Kondrashin, Sergiu Celibidache and Martin Stephani. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree in performance from McGill University and post-graduate degrees in conducting and piano from the Hochschule für Musik Detmold in Germany. Career Moull was Principal Conductor and coach of the Trier Opera and Symphony Orchestra in Germany from 1986 to 1989, conducting both opera and concert performances, and was additionally responsible for the development of music education programs and school concerts. He was Associate Conductor of the Münster Symphony Orchestra and Opera from 1989 to 1992. The opera magazine Opernwelt presented Moull with their 'Production of the Year' award in 1992 for Francesco Cavalli's ''"La Cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist)
Elizabeth Forbes (3 August 1924 – 22 October 2014) was an English author, music critic, and musicologist who specialised in writing about opera. Her main areas of interest were 19th- and 20th-century opera (French and Scandinavian in particular) and singers, both historical and present-day. She contributed many reviews and articles to several notable periodicals and newspapers internationally including the ''Financial Times'' (which she joined in the early 1970s, working with Andrew Porter and then Ronald Crichton), ''The Independent'', ''The Musical Times'', ''Opera'', ''Opera Canada'' and ''Opera News'' among several others. Born in Camberley, she was the author of numerous books on various subjects related to opera, including her 1985 work, ''Mario and Grisi'', which details the lives of opera singers Giulia Grisi and Giovanni Matteo Mario. She wrote a significant number of singing translations of many operas, from French, German and Swedish, including works by Gaspare Spontin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodney Milnes
Rodney Milnes Blumer OBE (26 July 1936 – 5 December 2015) was an English music critic, musicologist, writer, translator and broadcaster, with a particular interest in opera.Rodney Milnes. ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera''. Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. He wrote under the professional name of Rodney Milnes. Life and career Milnes was born in Stafford, where his father was a surgeon. He learnt the piano as a child, to the level of playing the early Beethoven sonatas, and later recalled accompanying a fellow Oxford student in ''Winterreise'' at the Holywell Music Room. Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. Rodney Milnes, 1936-2015. ''Opera'', Vol 67 No 2, February 2016, p140-145. Milnes attended Rugby School and studied history at Christ Church, Oxford University. He was a member of the Oxford University Opera Club, taking part in ''The Fair Maid of Perth'' in 1955 (with Dudley Moore among the first violins and David Lloyd-Jones in the chorus),Rodney remembered (letters). L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera (British Magazine)
''Opera'' is a monthly Great Britain, British magazine devoted to covering all things related to opera. It contains reviews and articles about current opera productions internationally, as well as articles on opera recordings, opera singers, opera companies, opera directors, and opera books. The magazine also contains major features and analysis on individual operas and people associated with opera. The magazine employs a network of international correspondents around the world who write for the magazine. Contributors to the magazine, past and present, include William Ashbrook, Martin Bernheimer, Julian Budden, Rodolfo Celletti, Alan Blyth, Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist), Elizabeth Forbes, and J.B. Steane among many others. Format ''Opera'' is printed in ISO 216, A5 size, with colour photos, and consists of around 130 pages. Page numbering is consecutive for a complete year (e.g. September 2009 covers pages 1033–1168). All issues since February 1950 are available online to cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
