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Konkordia Antarova
Concordia Antarova (russian: Конкордия Евгеньевна Антарова, also known as Cora Antarova, 25 April 1886 O.S./13 April 1886 (N. S.) – 6 February 1959) was a Russian contralto who starred in the Bolshoi Theater for more than twenty years. After her singing career ended, she wrote theosophical texts. She was recognized as an Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1933. Early life Concordia Evgenievna Antarova was born on 13 April 1886 in Warsaw, Russian Poland. Her father was an employee of the Department of Public Education. Her mother, who gave language lessons, was the first cousin of Arkady Vladimirovich Tyrkov and the niece of Sophia Perovskaya, two of the members of Narodnaya Volya, who had attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia. Her father died when Antarova was eleven years old, and her mother died when she was in the sixth grade, aged fourteen. In spite of being orphaned, she completed her studies at Gymnasium in 1901. Deciding to enter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officially estimated at 1.86 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 3.1 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 7th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures and comprises 18 districts, while the metropolitan area covers . Warsaw is an Alpha global city, a major cultural, political and economic hub, and the country's seat of government. Warsaw traces its origins to a small fishing town in Masovia. The city rose to prominence in the late 16th century, when Sigismund III decided to move the Polish capital and his royal court from Kraków. Warsaw served as the de facto capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, and subsequently as the seat of Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saint Petersburg Conservatory
The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory (russian: Санкт-Петербургская государственная консерватория имени Н. А. Римского-Корсакова) (formerly known as the Petrograd Conservatory and Leningrad Conservatory) is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members and 1,400 students. History The conservatory was founded in 1862 by the Russian Music Society and Anton Rubinstein, a Russian pianist and composer. On his resignation in 1867, he was succeeded by Nikolai Zaremba. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was appointed as a professor in 1871, and the conservatory has borne his name since 1944. In 1887, Rubinstein returned to the conservatory with the goal of improving overall standards. He revised the curriculum, expelled inferior students, fired and demoted many professors, and made entrance and examination requirements more stringent. In 1891, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov . At the time, his name was spelled Николай Андреевичъ Римскій-Корсаковъ. la, Nicolaus Andreae filius Rimskij-Korsakov. The composer romanized his name as ''Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakow''.The BGN/PCGN transliteration of Russian is used for his name here. ALA-LC system: Nikolaĭ Andrevich Rimskiĭ-Korsakov, ISO 9 system: Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov. (18 March 1844 – 21 June 1908) was a Russian composer, a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—''Capriccio Espagnol'', the ''Russian Easter Festival Overture'', and the symphonic suite ''Scheherazade''—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. ''Scheherazade'' is an example of his frequent use of fairy-tale and folk subjects. Rimsky-Korsakov believed in developing a nationalistic style of classical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the " Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow. Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, violin, voice, and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms has been considered both a traditionalist and an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vier Ernste Gesänge
''Vier ernste Gesänge'' (''Four Serious Songs''), Op. 121, is a cycle of four songs for bass and piano by Johannes Brahms. As in his ''Ein deutsches Requiem'', the texts are compiled from the Luther Bible. Three songs deal with death and the transience of life, while the fourth has an outlook of faith, hope and charity. Brahms composed the work in Vienna in 1896 and dedicated it to Max Klinger. The songs were premiered there in the presence of the composer by baritone Anton Sistermans and pianist Coenraad V. Bos. They have been recorded often by both female and male singers. History Between 1865 and 1868, as a young man, Brahms had composed ''Ein deutsches Requiem'' (''A German Requiem''), dealing with death, based on a compilation of biblical quotations in Luther's translation. He wrote ''Vier ernste Gesänge'' late in life, again on words from the Bible. His friend Clara Schumann had suffered a stroke on 26March 1896. Brahms completed the composition of this set of songs ... [...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. Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petite Messe Solennelle
Gioachino Rossini's ''Petite messe solennelle'' (Little solemn mass) was written in 1863, possibly at the request of Count Alexis Pillet-Will for his wife Louise to whom it is dedicated. The composer, who had retired from composing operas more than 30 years before, described it as "the last of my '' péchés de vieillesse''" (sins of old age). The extended work is a missa solemnis, but Rossini labeled it, not without irony, ''petite'' (little). He scored it originally for twelve singers, four of them soloists, two pianos and harmonium. The mass was first performed on 14 March 1864 at the couple's new home in Paris. Rossini later produced an orchestral version, including an additional movement, a setting of the hymn "" as a soprano aria. This version of the mass was not performed during his lifetime because he could not obtain permission to perform it with female singers in a church. It was first performed three months after his death, at the Salle Ventadour in Paris by the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Konstantin Stanislavski
Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski ( Alekseyev; russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈgʲejɪvʲɪtɕ stənʲɪˈslafskʲɪj; 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor and the many productions that he directed garnered him a reputation as one of the leading theatre directors of his generation. His principal fame and influence, however, rests on his "system" of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal technique. Stanislavski (his stage name) performed and directed as an amateur until the age of 33, when he co-founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) company with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, following a legendary 18-hour discussion. Its influential tours of Europe (1906) and the US (1923–24), and its landmark productions of ''The Seagull'' (1898) and ''Hamlet'' (1911–12), established his reputation and o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Glinka
Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recognition within his own country and is often regarded as the fountainhead of Russian classical music. His compositions were an important influence on Russian composers, notably the members of The Five, who produced a distinctive Russian style of music. Early life and education Glinka was born in the village of Novospasskoye, not far from the Desna River in the Smolensk Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in the Yelninsky District of the Smolensk Oblast). His wealthy father had retired as an army captain, and the family had a strong tradition of loyalty and service to the tsars, and several members of his extended family had lively cultural interests. His great-great-grandfather was a Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth nobleman, Wiktoryn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ruslan And Lyudmila (opera)
''Ruslan and Lyudmila'' ( rus, Руслан и Людмила, Ruslán i Lyudmíla, link=no ) is an opera in five acts (eight tableaux) composed by Mikhail Glinka between 1837 and 1842. The opera is based on the 1820 poem of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. The Russian libretto was written by Valerian Shirkov, Nestor Kukolnik and N. A. Markevich, among others. Pushkin's death in the famous duel prevented him from writing the libretto himself as planned. Today, the best-known music from the opera is its overture. Performance history The premiere took place in Saint Petersburg on 27 November(Old Style) 1842 at the Bolshoi Kamenniy Teatr. The initial lack of enthusiasm for this Russian-inspired production has been attributed to the Saint Petersburg's audience's growing taste at the time for Italian opera, which was so pronounced that in 1843, Tsar Nicholas I established an Italian opera company in the Bolshoi Kamenniy Teatr, and the Russian opera company lost its home. Four year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bolshoi Theatre
The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, literally "Big Theater", p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈatər) is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and opera performances. Before the October Revolution it was a part of the Imperial Theatres of the Russian Empire along with Maly Theatre (''Small Theatre'') in Moscow and a few theatres in Saint Petersburg ( Hermitage Theatre, Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theatre, later Mariinsky Theatre and others). The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are among the oldest and best known ballet and opera companies in the world. It is by far the world's biggest ballet company, with more than 200 dancers. The theatre is the parent company of The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, a leading school of ballet. It has a branch at the Bolshoi Theater School in Joinville, Brazil. The main building of the theatre, rebuilt and renovated several times during its history, is a landmark o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic mezzo-soprano. History While mezzo-sopranos typically sing secondary roles in operas, notable exceptions include the title role in Bizet's '' Carmen'', Angelina ( Cinderella) in Rossini's '' La Cenerentola'', and Rosina in Rossini's '' Barber of Seville'' (all of which are also sung by sopranos and contraltos). Many 19th-century French-language operas give the leading female role to mezzos, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
