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Karoline Stern
Karoline Stern (16 April 1800 – May 1885) was a German opera soprano. This online article is based on '' Großes Sängerlexikon'', compiled by Karl-Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens. She was the inspiration for one of Heinrich Heine's first published poems: "An eine Sängerin – Als sie eine alte Romanze sang" (loosely, "To a singer – as she sang an old romance"). Life and works Karoline Stern was born in Mainz, the daughter of the Jewish violinist Joachim Stern and his wife, born Regina Bamberger. Her first music teacher was her father. Later she studied singing with Anton Joseph Heideloff. She made her stage debut on 20 October 1816 in Peter Winter's ''Das unterbrochene Opferfest'' at the Theater Trier. Very soon after that she moved to Düsseldorf. It was here that she became friendly with the : the young Heinrich Heine was so inspired by her that he celebrated Stern in a song lyric. That was followed by an engagement of a few months at Aachen, followed by a move south to ... [...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] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hohenzollern-Hechingen
Hohenzollern-Hechingen was a small principality in southwestern Germany. Its rulers belonged to the Swabian branch of the Hohenzollern dynasty. History The County of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was created in 1576, upon the partition of the County of Hohenzollern, a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. When the last count of Hohenzollern, Charles I of Hohenzollern (1512–1579) died, the territory was to be divided up between his three sons: * Eitel Frederick IV of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (1545–1605) * Charles II of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1547–1606) * Christopher of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch (1552–1592) Unlike the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg and Prussia, the Hohenzollerns of southwest Germany remained Roman Catholic. The county was raised to a principality in 1623. The principality joined the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806 and was a member state of the German Confederation between 1815 and 1850. The democratic Revolution of 1848 was relatively successful in Hohenzoller ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constantine, Prince Of Hohenzollern-Hechingen
, spouse = , issue = , house = Hohenzollern-Hechingen , father = Friedrich Hermann Otto, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen , mother = Princess Pauline of Courland , birth_date = , birth_place = Schloss Sagan, Sagan, Silesia, Prussia , death_date = , death_place = Schloss Polnisch Nettkow, Grünberg, Silesia, Prussia , religion = Roman Catholicism Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen (Friedrich Wilhelm Konstantin Hermann Thassilo; 16 February 1801 – 3 September 1869), was the last Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. Constantine was the only child of Frederick, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and his wife, Princess Pauline of Courland, the daughter of the last Duke of Courland, Peter von Biron. Regency and reign Constantine served as regent for his ill father, Frederick, beginning in 1834. Upon his father's death in 1838, Constantine became Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and after the death of his mother ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daniel Auber
Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (; 29 January 178212 May 1871) was a French composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire. Born into an artistic family, Auber was at first an amateur composer before he took up writing operas professionally when the family's fortunes failed in 1820. He soon established a professional partnership with the librettist Eugène Scribe that lasted for 41 years and produced 39 operas, most of them commercial and critical successes. He is mostly associated with opéra-comique and composed 35 works in that genre. With Scribe he wrote the first French grand opera, ''La Muette de Portici'' (The Dumb Woman of Portici) in 1828, which paved the way for the large-scale works of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Auber held two important official musical posts. From 1842 to 1871 he was director of France's premier music academy, the Paris Conservatoire, which he expanded and modernised. From 1852 until the fall of the Second Empire in 1870 he was director of the imperial chap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Maçon
' (French for ''The Mason'') is an ''opéra comique'' in three acts by Daniel Auber to a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne. It premiered at the Opéra-Comique Salle Feydeau in Paris on 3 May 1825. It was to become Auber's first enduring success.Letellier, Robert Ignatius, ed. ''Daniel-François-Esprit Auber: 'Le Maçon''. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011. Among the original cast was the tenor Antoine Ponchard. Synopsis ''Le maçon'' is set in Paris, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, around 1820. Act 1 Roger, a mason, and his bride Henriette (the sister of his friend Baptiste, a locksmith) are rejoicing at their wedding. An officer, Léon de Mérinville, whose life was once saved by Roger, arrives at the wedding reception. He explains that he is on his way to a nearby château A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François-Adrien Boieldieu
François-Adrien Boieldieu (, also ) (16 December 1775 – 8 October 1834) was a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart". His date of birth was also cited as December 15 by his biographer and writer Lucien Augé de Lassus (b. 1841) and as September 15 by some local press releases. Biography Born during the Ancien Régime in Rouen, François-Adrien Boieldieu received his musical education first from the choirmaster and then from the organist of the local cathedral. During the Reign of Terror, Rouen was one of the few towns to maintain a significant musical life and in 1793 a series of concerts was organised featuring the celebrated violinist Pierre Rode and the tenor Pierre-Jean Garat. It was during this time that Boieldieu composed his earliest works to texts written by his father (''La fille coupable'' in 1793, followed by ''Rosalie et Mirza'' in 1795). They brought him immediate success. During the Revolutionary period, Boieldieu left for Paris and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Dame Blanche
''La dame blanche'' (English: ''The White Lady'') is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boieldieu. The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no fewer than five works of the Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, including his novels ''Guy Mannering'' (1815), ''The Monastery'' (1820), and ''The Abbot'' (1820). Elizabeth Forbes: "La dame blanche", ''Grove Music Online'' ed. L. Macy (Accessed February 19, 2009)(subscription access)/ref> The opera has typical elements of the Romantic in its Gothic mode, including an exotic Scottish locale, a lost heir, a mysterious castle, a hidden fortune, and a ghost, in this case benevolent. The work was one of the first attempts to introduce the fantastic into opera and is a model for works such as Giacomo Meyerbeer's ''Robert le diable'' (1831) and Charles Gounod's ''Faust'' (1859). The opera's musical style also heavily influenced later operas like ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', ''I purita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Deux Journées
''Les deux journées, ou Le porteur d'eau'' (''The Two Days, or The Water Carrier'') is an opera in three acts by Luigi Cherubini with a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly. It takes the form of an opéra comique, meaning not that the subject matter is humorous, but that the piece is a mixture of spoken dialogue and musical numbers. Bouilly claimed he took the story from a real-life incident during the French Revolution but, for fear of censorship, he moved the action back to 1647 and the time of Cardinal Mazarin. The opera was first performed on 16 January 1800 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. ''Les deux journées'' is sometimes considered Cherubini's most successful opera, though revivals have been rare in the past hundred years. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Ludwig van Beethoven both felt that Bouilly's libretto was one of the best of its day; Beethoven kept Cherubini's score on his desk and copied out passages from it while composing ''Fidelio''. Roles Synopsis :Place: Fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries. His operas were heavily praised and interpreted by Rossini. Early years Cherubini was born Maria Luigi Carlo Zenobio Salvatore Cherubini in Florence in 1760. There is uncertainty about his exact date of birth. Although 14 September is sometimes stated, evidence from baptismal records and Cherubini himself suggests the 8th is correct. Perhaps the strongest evidence is his first name, Maria, which is traditional for a child born on 8 September, the feast-day of the Nativity of the Virgin. His instruction in music began at the age of six with his father, Bartolomeo, '' maestro al cembalo'' ("Master of the harpsichord", in other words, ensemble leader from the harpsichord). Considered a child prodigy, Cherubini st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaspare Spontini
Gaspare Luigi Pacifico Spontini (14 November 177424 January 1851) was an Italian opera composer and conductor from the classical era. Biography Born in Maiolati, Papal State (now Maiolati Spontini, Province of Ancona), he spent most of his career in Paris and Berlin, but returned to his place of birth at the end of his life. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Spontini was an important figure in French ''opera''. In his more than twenty operas, Spontini strove to adapt Gluck's classical ''tragédie lyrique'' to the contemporary taste for melodrama, for grander spectacle (in ''Fernand Cortez'' for example), for enriched orchestral timbre, and for melodic invention allied to idiomatic expressiveness of words. As a youth, Spontini studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà de' Turchini, one of four active music conservatories of Naples. Working his way from Italian city to city, he got his first break in Rome, with his successful comedy ''Li Puntigli delle Donne'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Vestale (Spontini)
''La vestale'' (''The Vestal Virgin'') is an opera composed by Gaspare Spontini to a French libretto by Étienne de Jouy. It takes the form of a '' tragédie lyrique'' in three acts. It was first performed on 15 December 1807 by the Académie Impériale de Musique (Paris Opera) at the Salle Montansier and is regarded as Spontini's masterpiece. The musical style shows the influence of Gluck and anticipates the works of Berlioz, Wagner, and French Grand opera. Composition history Spontini had finished ''La vestale'' by the summer of 1805 but had faced opposition from leading members of the Opéra and rivalry from fellow composers.Del Teatro The premiere was made possible with the help of Spontini's patron, the Empress Joséphine, but only after being rearranged by Jean-Baptiste Rey and Louis-Luc Loiseau de Persuis. ''La vestale'' was an enormous success, enjoying over two hundred performances by 1830. Performance history Its fame soon spread abroad; it appeared in Naples ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
