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Koanga Institute
''Koanga'' is an opera written between 1896 and 1897, with music by Frederick Delius and a libretto by Charles Francis Keary, inspired partly by the book '' The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life'' by George Washington Cable (1880). Inspiration also came from Delius's own experiences as a young man, when his family sent him to work in Florida. It was Delius's third opera, and he thought better of it than of its predecessors, ''Irmelin'' and ''The Magic Fountain'', because of the incorporation of dance scenes and his treatment of the choruses. ''Koanga'' is reputed to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music. Performance history ''Koanga'' was the first of Delius's operas to be performed. It was also the most labour-intensive with regard to the libretto, which was continually revised. The opera was posthumously published in 1935. It was performed privately in March 1899 at the residence of Adela Maddison in Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Delius
Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius ( 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934), originally Fritz Delius, was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce. He was sent to Florida in the United States in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. He soon neglected his managerial duties and in 1886 returned to Europe. Having been influenced by African-American music during his short stay in Florida, he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in Germany beginning in 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in Paris and then in nearby Grez-sur-Loing, where he and his wife Jelka lived for the rest of their lives, except during the First World War. Delius's first successes came in Germany, where Hans Haym and other conductors promoted his music from the late 1890s. In Delius's native Britain, his music did not make regular appearances ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. History Origins The first issue, published on 4 December 1791 by W.S. Bourne, was the world's first Sunday newspaper. Believing that the paper would be a means of wealth, Bourne instead soon found himself facing debts of nearly £1,600. Though early editions purported editorial independence, Bourne attempted to cut his losses and sell the title to the government. When this failed, Bourne's brother (a wealthy businessman) made an offer to the government, which also refused to buy the paper but agreed to subsidise it in return for influence over its editorial content. As a result, the paper soon took a strong line against radicals such as Thomas Paine, Francis Burdett and Joseph Priestley. 19th century In 180 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...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] |
Amanuensis
An amanuensis () is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another, and also refers to a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority. In one example Eric Fenby assisted the blind composer Frederick Delius in writing down the notes that Delius dictated. Origin and secretarial uses The word originated in ancient Rome, for a slave at his master's personal service "within hand's reach", performing any command; later it was specifically applied to an intimately trusted servant (often a freedman) acting as a personal secretary (amanuensis is what he does, not what he is). In the Bible, the Apostle Paul is shown as the author of the Book of Romans. However, at the end of the book, Tertius of Iconium describes himself as the scribe who wrote the letter. A similar semantic evolution occurred at the French royal court, where the ''secrétaire de la main du roi'', originally a lowly clerk specializing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Fenby
Eric William Fenby Order of the British Empire, OBE (22 April 190618 February 1997) was an English composer, conductor, pianist, organist and teacher who is best known for being Frederick Delius's amanuensis from 1928 to 1934. He helped Delius realise a number of works that would not otherwise have been forthcoming. Fenby was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and as a youth took lessons in the piano, organ and cello. At the age of 12 he was appointed organist at Holy Trinity Church. As a composer he was largely self-taught. By 1925 he had conducted a work for string orchestra at the The Spa, Scarborough, Spa Grand Hall in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Scarborough and had written some minor pieces. Working for Delius In 1928, hearing that Delius had become virtually helpless because of blindness and paralysis (due to syphilis), he offered to serve him as an amanuensis. Fenby worked, at the composer's home in Grez-sur-Loing, near Paris, for extended periods until Delius died ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olwen Wymark
Olwen Margaret Wymark (née Buck, 14 February 1932 – 14 June 2013) was an American writer and playwright. Biography Olwen Margaret Buck was born on 14 February 1932 in Oakland, California, the daughter of Philip W. (a professor of political science) and Barbara (Jacobs) Buck, and the granddaughter of English author W. W. Jacobs. She attended Pomona College from 1949–51 and University College, London from 1951–52. Her most successful play was ''Find Me'' (1977), about mental illness, which is still used as a set text for drama qualifications in UK schools. Others included ''Gymnasium'' (1972), ''Loved'' (1980), ''Best Friends'' (1984), ''Strike Up The Banns'' (1990), and ''Mirror Mirror'' (1992). She also wrote dozens of BBC radio play adaptations, including her 2001 version of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''; one of her last works, it starred Paul Scofield in one of his greatest radio roles. Personal life She was married to British actor Patrick Wymark, whom she met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Groves
Sir Charles Barnard Groves CBE (10 March 191520 June 1992) was an English conductor. He was known for the breadth of his repertoire and for encouraging contemporary composers and young conductors. After accompanying positions and conducting various orchestras and studio work for the BBC, Groves spent a decade as conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. His best-known musical directorship was of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, beginning in 1963, with which he made most of his recordings. From 1967 until his death, Groves was associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and in the 1970s he was one of the regular conductors of the Last Night of the Proms. He also served as president of the National Youth Orchestra from 1977, and, during the last decade of his life, as guest conductor for orchestras around the world. Life and career Early years Groves was born in London, the only child of Frederick Groves and Annie (née Whitehead). Groves b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sadler's Wells Theatre
Sadler's Wells Theatre is a performing arts venue in Clerkenwell, London, England located on Rosebery Avenue next to New River Head. The present-day theatre is the sixth on the site since 1683. It consists of two performance spaces: a 1,500-seat main auditorium and the Lilian Baylis Studio, with extensive rehearsal rooms and technical facilities also housed within the site. Sadler's Wells is renowned as one of the world's leading dance venues. As well as a stage for visiting companies, the theatre is also a producing house, with a number of associated artists and companies that produce original works for the theatre. Sadler's Wells is also responsible for the management of the Peacock Theatre in the West End, during times not used by the London School of Economics. History First theatre and pleasure gardens Richard Sadler opened a "Musick House" in 1683, the second public theatre newly opened in London after the Restoration, the first being the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Corsaro
Frank Corsaro (December 22, 1924, New York City, New York – November 11, 2017, Suwanee, GeorgiaRobert ViagasNight of the Iguana Director Frank Corsaro Is Dead at 92/ref>) was one of America's foremost stage directors of opera and theatre. His Broadway productions include ''The Night of the Iguana'' (1961). Career A graduate of De Witt Clinton High School, he made his operatic directing debut at the New York City Opera in 1958 with a staging of Carlisle Floyd's ''Susannah''. It was this production that the company took to the Brussels World's Fair that year, starring Phyllis Curtin, Norman Treigle and Richard Cassilly. He became one of the City Opera's leading directors, creating such important productions as Prokofiev's '' The Fiery Angel'', Verdi's ''La traviata'' (with Patricia Brooks and Plácido Domingo), Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly'', Robert Ward's ''The Crucible'' (featuring Chester Ludgin), Gounod's ''Faust'' (with Beverly Sills and Treigle), Borodin's ''Prince Igor'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lisner Auditorium
Lisner Auditorium is a performance venue sited on the Foggy Bottom campus of The George Washington University, at 730 21st Street Northwest, Washington, D.C. Named for Abram Lisner (1852-1938), a university trustee and benefactor whose will provided one million dollars towards its construction, it was designed in 1940 and completed in 1946. Constructed in the stripped classicist style of the late Art Deco and host to major classical, folk, rock, blues, opera, and theatrical performances over the decades, it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 for its dual significance as an architectural work and as a performance venue. It also played a key role in desegregation at GW and in D.C.; its 1946 grand opening became a city-wide target for the desegregation of D.C. theaters and a catalyst for GW students calling on the university to admit African American students. The auditorium seats 1,490 and is the home of the Washington Concert Opera. Architecture Lisner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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