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L'Upupa
''L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe'' (English: ''The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filial Love'') is an opera by Hans Werner Henze with a German libretto by the composer, inspired by Arab and Persian legends. This is Henze's 15th, and self-stated final, opera, and the first where he has written his own libretto. The opera was first performed at the Salzburg Festival on 12 August 2003 in a co-production with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Teatro Real, Madrid, staged by Dieter Dorn, set by Jürgen Rose. For the premiere, the originally scheduled conductor was Christian Thielemann and the original singer scheduled as "The demon" was Ian Bostridge, but in their places, Markus Stenz conducted and John Mark Ainsley sang "The demon". Critics have noted stylistic allusions to the music of Alban Berg and Igor Stravinsky, as well as to the operas '' Die Entführung aus dem Serail'', '' The Magic Flute'', '' Die Frau ohne Schatten'', '' Tristan und Isolde'' and '' Parsifa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laura Aikin
Laura Aikin (born June 20, 1964) is an American operatic coloratura soprano. She is noted for her portrayal of the title character in ''Lulu'', which has received very positive reviews in the press. She has also appeared as Mozart's Queen of the Night, Zerbinetta by Richard Strauss and in contemporary opera at international opera houses and festivals. Life Born in Buffalo, Aikin is the daughter of a metal worker and a housewife, growing up together with four sisters in modest circumstances. At the age of 15 she experienced an opera on stage for the first time. She first studied art at the State University of New York in Buffalo, and then music at Indiana University Bloomington, as well as on a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship with Reri Grist at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. In 1991, Aikin made her debut at an opera gala in Berlin. From 1992 to 1998 she was a member of the ensemble of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin where she performed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dieter Dorn
Dieter Dorn (born 31 October 1935 in Leipzig) is a German theatre director, also for the opera, the manager of the Münchner Kammerspiele from 1983 to 2001 and now manager of the Bavarian Staatsschauspiel. Career Dieter Dorn studied at the Theaterhochschule Leipzig. In 1956, he left East Germany and studied at the ''Max-Reinhardt-Schule für Schauspiel'' in Berlin with Hilde Körber, the founder of the school, and Lucie Höflich. He was engaged at the State Theatre in Hanover from 1958 until 1961 as an actor and a dramaturge, then worked as a journalist and radio speaker for the NDR. In 1964, he returned to the theatre at the Landesbühne Hanover, then in Essen. In the early 1970s, he staged at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg and at the Schaubühne in Berlin, and as a guest in Oberhausen, Basel, Wien and the Burgtheater. Münchner Kammerspiele In 1976, Dorn moved to the Münchner Kammerspiele as a senior director, opening with Lessing’s ''Minna von Barnhelm'' with Cornelia Fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Mark Ainsley
John Mark Ainsley (born 9 July 1963) is an English lyric tenor. Known for his supple voice, Ainsley is particularly admired for his interpretations of baroque music and the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the course of his career, he has gravitated towards 20th-century music, singing in operas by Henze, Janáček, and Britten. Early life and education Ainsley was born in Crewe, Cheshire, the son of an Anglican priest and a teacher. He spent most of his childhood in Worcester and was educated at the Royal Grammar School Worcester (singing in the Worcester Cathedral Voluntary Choir), and Magdalen College, Oxford. He studied privately with Anthony Rolfe Johnson for five years and went to sing as a lay clerk at Christ Church. He later spent some time in Chicago where he studied with Diane Forlano, who remains his teacher to this day.Jolly, ''Grove Music Online'' Career Ainsley made his official solo debut in 1987 when he sang in Stravinsky's ''Mass'' under Simon Rattle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Markus Stenz
Markus Stenz (born 28 February 1965, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa. Stenz has served as Artistic Director of the Montepulciano Festival (1989–1995), and Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta (1994–1998). In Australia, from 1998 to 2004, he was Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), which he took on their first European tour in 2000. Stenz is known for his championing of contemporary composers, which included the appointment of Brett Dean as the MSO's composer-in-residence in 2001. Stenz was Principal Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra (Gürzenich-Kapellmeister) from 2003 to 2014. During his tenure, beginning in October 2005, concerts of the Gürzenich Orchestra have been recorded live on their own label "GO live!" and made available within 5 minutes of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as traditional schools of German composition. In particular, his stage works reflect "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life". Henze was also known for his political convictions. He left Germany for Italy in 1953 because of a perceived intolerance towards his leftist politics and homosexuality. Late in life he lived in the village of Marino in the central Italian region of Lazio, and in his final years still travelled extensively, in particular to Britain and Germany, as part of his work. An avowed Marxist and member of the Italian Communist Party, Henze produced compositions honoring Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara. At the 1968 Hamburg premiere of his requiem for Che Guevara, titled ''Das Floß der Medusa'' (' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Muff
Alfred Muff (born 31 May 1949) is a Swiss operatic bass-baritone. Life and career Born in Lucerne, Muff studied at the Lucerne conservatory until he was introduced by its director Rudolf Baumgartner to the opera singer and teacher Elisabeth Grümmer, who took him to the Berlin University of the Arts. There he studied for five semesters, at the end with Irmgard Hartmann. In 1973, he began his artistic career at the in the role of the Minister in ''Fidelio''. After seven instructive years, his path led him via Linz, Mannheim back to Switzerland to Zurich, where he has been a permanent member of the Zürich Opera House since 1984. As an internationally sought-after singer, he gives guest performances at all the world's important opera houses and concert halls, such as the Vienna State Opera, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, La Scala in Milan, Opéra Bastille de Paris. Various performances in opera and concer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baritone
A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C (i.e. F2–F4) in choral music, and from the second A below middle C to the A above middle C (A2 to A4) in operatic music, but the range can extend at either end. Subtypes of baritone include the baryton-Martin baritone (light baritone), lyric baritone, ''Kavalierbariton'', Verdi baritone, dramatic baritone, ''baryton-noble'' baritone, and the bass-baritone. History The first use of the term "baritone" emerged as ''baritonans'', late in the 15th century, usually in French sacred polyphonic music. At this early stage it was frequently used as the lowest of the voices (including the bass), but in 17th-century Italy the term was all-encompassing and used to describe the averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, 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 widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail
' () ( K. 384; ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''; also known as ') is a singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's ''Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail''. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Constanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting. Origins The company that first sponsored the opera was the ''Nationalsingspiel'' ("national Singspiel"), a pet project (1778–1783) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. The Emperor had set up the company to perform works in the German language (as opposed to the Italian opera style widely popular in Vienna). This project was ultimately given up as a failure, but along the way it produced a number of successes, mostly a series of translated works. Mozart's opera emerged ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880 Hz in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C6, two octaves above middle C) = 1046 Hz or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which often encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto, and dramatic soprano. Etymology The word "soprano" comes from the Italian word '' sopra'' (above, over, on top of),"Soprano" '' |
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, includin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival'' of the ''Minnesänger'' Wolfram von Eschenbach, recounting the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his Bayreuth Festspielhaus. ''Parsifal'' was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on ''Parsifal'' productions until 1903, when the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Wagner described ''Parsifal'' not as an opera, but as (a festival play for the consecration of the stage). At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that audiences do not applaud at the end of the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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