James Meena
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James Meena
James Meena (born 1951) is an American conductor and opera administrator. Formerly the General Director and Principal Conductor of Toledo Opera in Ohio, since 2000 he has been the General Director and Principal Conductor of Opera Carolina, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Early life and education Meena was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of V. Rev. James C. Meena an Antiochian Orthodox priest and musician who studied composition and wrote three hymnals as well as arranging and translating Tchaikovsky's '' Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom'' into English. He spent his childhood in Los Angeles and Pittsburgh before returning to Cleveland when his father became pastor of the St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church there.Apone, Carl (12 August 1982)"Concert Winds Up Opera Workshop" ''The Pittsburgh Press'' Meena did his undergraduate studies at Baldwin Wallace College Conservatory of Music, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973, and then taught music for three years in Cleveland's h ...
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Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912 and began granting four-year degrees in the same year. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, founded in 1913 by Andrew Mellon and Richard B. Mellon and formerly a part of the University of Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon University has operated as a single institution since the merger. The university consists of seven colleges and independent schools: The College of Engineering, College of Fine Arts, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mellon College of Science, Tepper School of Business, Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, and the School of Computer Science. The university has its main campus located 5 miles (8 km) from Dow ...
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Bolshoi Ballet
The Bolshoi Ballet is an internationally renowned classical ballet company based at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia. Founded in 1776, the Bolshoi is among the world's oldest ballet companies. In the early 20th century, it came to international prominence as Moscow became the capital of Soviet Russia. The Bolshoi has been recognised as one of the foremost ballet companies in the world. It has a branch at the Bolshoi Ballet Theater School in Joinville, Brazil. History The earliest iteration of the Bolshoi Ballet can be found in the creation of a dance school for a Moscow orphanage in 1773. In 1776, dancers from the school were employed by Prince Pyotr Vasilyevich Urusov and English theatrical entrepreneur Michael Maddox to form part of their new theatre company. Originally performing in privately owned venues, they later acquired the Petrovsky Theatre, which, as a result of fires and erratic redevelopment, would later be rebuilt as today's Bolshoi Theatre. While some g ...
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Eugene Onegin (opera)
''Eugene Onegin'' ( rus, Евгений Онегин, italic=yes, Yevgény Onégin, jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɐˈnʲeɡʲɪn, Ru-Evgeny_Onegin.ogg), Op. 24, is an opera ("lyrical scenes") in 3 acts (7 scenes), composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto, organised by the composer himself, very closely follows certain passages in Alexander Pushkin's 1825-1832 novel in verse, retaining much of his poetry. Tchaikovsky's friend Konstantin Shilovsky contributed M. Triquet's verses in Act 2, Scene 1, while Tchaikovsky himself arranged the text for Lensky's arioso in Act 1, Scene 1, and almost all of Prince Gremin's aria in Act 3, Scene 1. ''Eugene Onegin'' is a well-known example of lyric opera, to which Tchaikovsky added music of a dramatic nature. The story concerns a selfish hero who lives to regret his blasé rejection of a young woman's love and his careless incitement of a fatal duel with his best friend. The opera was first performed in Moscow in 1879. There are several recordin ...
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Faust (opera)
''Faust'' is an opera in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play ''Faust et Marguerite'', in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ''Faust, Part One''. It debuted at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris on 19 March 1859, with influential sets designed by Charles-Antoine Cambon and Joseph Thierry, Jean Émile Daran, Édouard Desplechin, and Philippe Chaperon. Performance history The original version of Faust employed spoken dialogue, and it was in this form that the work was first performed. The manager of the Théâtre Lyrique, Léon Carvalho cast his wife Caroline Miolan-Carvalho as Marguerite and there were various changes during production, including the removal and contraction of several numbers. The tenor Hector Gruyer was originally cast as Faust but was found to be inadequate during rehearsals, being eventually replaced by a principal of the Opéra-Comique, Joseph-Th ...
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Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ...
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Transit Of Venus (opera)
''Transit of Venus'' is an opera in three acts by Victor Davies. The English libretto is by Canadian playwright Maureen Hunter based on her play of the same name first produced at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in November 1992. Performance history The opera was first performed by Manitoba Opera on November 24, 2007. Roles {, class="wikitable" !Role !Voice type !Premiere Cast, 24 November 2007 (Conductor: James Meena) , - , Le Gentil, ''age 35, astronomer'' , baritone , Russell Braun , - , Celeste, ''age 15, his fiancée'' , soprano , Monica Huisman , - , Margot, ''age 36, his mother’s companion'' , mezzo-soprano , Jean Stilwell , - , Demarais, ''age 18, his assistant'' , tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ... , Colin Ainsworth , - , Madame Sylvie, ' ...
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Victor Davies
Victor Albert Davies is a Canadian composer, pianist, and conductor, best known for his opera ''Transit of Venus'' and '' The Mennonite Piano Concerto''. Biography Davies was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1939. As a child and teenager, he studied the piano and violin, sang in church choirs, played in jazz and rock bands, and took courses with Ronald Gibson and Peggie Sampson at the University of Manitoba. He studied composition at Indiana University where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in music in 1964. Between 1968-70 he led and composed for a 'third stream' jazz ensemble and attended Pierre Boulez's 1969 conducting class in Switzerland. In 1959 he became organist-choirmaster at Wesley United Church, Winnipeg where he served for many years. He became the music director at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in 1964 and from 1966-1970 he worked as a composer, arranger, and conductor for CBC Radio and television. In 1970 he began to work as a freelance composer and arrang ...
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Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its performances take place in the Keller Auditorium and Newmark Theatre, both part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. Portland Opera also produces a separate subscription series of touring Broadway musicals, which also take place at the Keller Auditorium. History Portland Opera was founded as the Portland Opera Association in 1964 by the conductor Henry Holt. Its first performance was Strauss' '' Die Fledermaus'', the only opera presented that season. Holt served as the company's General Director for the first two years of existence. The next General Director post was the Austrian conductor Herbert Weiskopf, who died of a heart attack in March 1970 after conducting a performance of '' Lucia di Lammermoor''. The conductor Stefan Minde then took over as General Director and served until 1984, followed by Robert Bailey, a stage director, and National Public Radio's firs ...
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Teatro Massimo Bellini
The Teatro Massimo Bellini is an opera house located on Piazza Vincenzo Bellini in Catania, Sicily, southern Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical .... Named after the local-born composer Vincenzo Bellini, it was inaugurated on 31 May 1890 with a performance of the composer's masterwork, '' Norma''. It seats 1,200. History The creation of what was to finally become the Teatro Massimo Bellini took almost two hundred years, beginning with discussions following the disastrous 1693 earthquake which completely destroyed Catania. The construction of a public theatre was discussed, and a foundation stone was finally laid in 1812. Architect Salvatore Zahra Buda began to prepare a plan for a theatre in the Piazza Nuovaluce, in front of the Santa Maria di Nuovaluce mo ...
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Cairo Symphony Orchestra
The Cairo Symphony Orchestra, ( ar, اوركسترا القاهرة السيمفونى; ''Orkestra el-Qāhera el-Semfōni''), is an orchestra based in Cairo, Egypt. It was founded in 1959 by its first music director and conductor, Franz Litschauer. Its current principal conductor is Ahmed El Saedi. History The Orchestra was founded in 1959 under its first music director and conductor, Franz Litschauer, and from mid-1959 to 1963 it was conducted by the Yugoslavian Serbs Gika Zdravkovitch (1959–1960) and Dushan Miladinovitch (1960–1963) (Serbian: Живојин Здравковић, Živojin Zdravković; Душан Миладиновић, Dušan Miladinović). Two Egyptian conductors, Ahmed Ebeid and Youssef Elsisi, succeeded Litschauer as conductors of the Cairo Symphony Orchestra. Guest conductors and soloists Many international guest conductors such as Charles Munch, Yehudi Menuhin, Alexander Frey, Patrick Fournillier, Carlo Zecchi, Otakar Trhlik, Ole Schmidt, Gennady R ...
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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 ...
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Pittsburgh Opera
Pittsburgh Opera is an American opera company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh Opera gives performances in several venues, primarily at the Benedum Center, with other performances at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts School (CAPA) TheaterPittsburgh Opera headquartersis located in the former George Westinghouse Air Brake Factory, 2425 Liberty Avenue, in the Strip District. Pittsburgh Opera has been awarded LEED Silver Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council and is the firs"green" opera companyin the U.S. in the Operations and Maintenance Category. Pittsburgh Opera's headquarters is also the oldest green building in Pittsburgh. History Pittsburgh Opera was established in 1939 as the Pittsburgh Opera Company and is the eighth-oldest opera company in the United States. The company was founded by five women who established the Pittsburgh Opera Society in 1939, making possible the inaugural performance of Offenbach's ''Les Contes d'Hoffmann'' at th ...
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