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London Symphony Chorus
The London Symphony Chorus (abbreviated to LSC) is a large symphonic concert choir based in London, UK, consisting of over 150 amateur singers, and is one of the major symphony choruses of the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1966 as the ''LSO Chorus'' to complement the work of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO). The LSC is today an independent self-run organisation governed by a council of nine elected representatives. It continues to maintain a close association with the LSO but also takes part in projects with other orchestras and organisations both in the UK and abroad. The LSC performs mainly with the LSO at the Barbican Centre in London as well as appearing at other concert venues around the UK and Europe and regularly at the Avery Fisher Hall, New York. Repertoire The Chorus's core repertoire consists of the major nineteenth and twentieth century orchestral choral works. The Chorus has performed and recorded works such as Elgar's ''The Dream of Gerontius'', Mahle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra because of a new rule requiring players to give the orchestra their exclusive services. The LSO itself later introduced a similar rule for its members. From the outset the LSO was organised on co-operative lines, with all players sharing the profits at the end of each season. This practice continued for the orchestra's first four decades. The LSO underwent periods of eclipse in the 1930s and 1950s when it was regarded as inferior in quality to new London orchestras, to which it lost players and bookings: the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic after the Second World War. The profit-sharing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stabat Mater (Rossini)
Stabat Mater is a work by Gioachino Rossini based on the traditional structure of the Stabat Mater sequence for chorus and soloists. It was composed late in his career after retiring from the composition of opera. He began the work in 1831 but did not complete it until 1841. Composition In 1831 Rossini was traveling in Spain in the company of his friend the Spanish banker, Alexandre Aguado, owner of Château Margaux. In the course of the trip, Fernández Varela, a state councillor, commissioned a setting of the traditional liturgical text, the Stabat Mater. Rossini managed to complete part of the setting of the sequence in 1832, but ill health made it impossible for him to complete the commission. Having written only half the score (nos. 1 and 5–9), he asked his friend Giovanni Tadolini to compose six additional movements. Rossini presented the completed work to Varela as his own. It was premiered on Holy Saturday of 1833 in the Chapel of San Felipe el Real in Madrid, but this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otello
''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. The composer was reluctant to write anything new after the success of ''Aida'' in 1871, and he retreated into retirement. It took his Milan publisher Giulio Ricordi the next ten years, first to encourage the revision of Verdi's 1857 ''Simon Boccanegra'' by introducing Boito as librettist and then to begin the arduous process of persuading and cajoling Verdi to see Boito's completed libretto for ''Otello'' in July/August 1881. However, the process of writing the first drafts of the libretto and the years of their revision, with Verdi all along not promising anything, dragged on. It wasn't until 1884, five years after the first drafts of the libretto, that composition began, with most of the work finishing in late 1885. When it finally premiere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falstaff (opera)
''Falstaff'' () is a comic opera in three acts by the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian-language libretto was adapted by Arrigo Boito from the play '' The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and scenes from '' Henry IV, Part 1'' and '' Part 2'', by William Shakespeare. The work premiered on 9 February 1893 at La Scala, Milan. Verdi wrote ''Falstaff'', the last of his 28 operas, as he approached the age of 80. It was his second comedy, and his third work based on a Shakespeare play, following '' Macbeth'' and '' Otello''. The plot revolves around the thwarted, sometimes farcical, efforts of the fat knight Sir John Falstaff to seduce two married women to gain access to their husbands' wealth. Verdi was concerned about working on a new opera at his advanced age, but he yearned to write a comic work and was pleased with Boito's draft libretto. It took the collaborators three years from mid-1889 to complete. Although the prospect of a new opera from Verdi aroused im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigoletto (opera)
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play ''Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. The work, Verdi's sixteenth in the genre, is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, ''La maledizione'' (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by her father. Comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Budd (opera)
''Billy Budd'', Op. 50, is an opera by Benjamin Britten to a libretto by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, based on the short novel '' Billy Budd'' by Herman Melville. Originally in four acts, the opera received its premiere at the Royal Opera House (ROH), London, on 1 December 1951. Britten later revised the work into a two-act opera, with a prologue and an epilogue. The revised version received its first performance at the ROH, Covent Garden, London, on 9 January 1964. Composition history E. M. Forster had an interest in the novella, which he discussed in his Clark lectures at Cambridge University. Forster had admired Britten's music since 1937 when he attended a performance of the play ''The Ascent of F6'' (for which Britten wrote incidental music). Forster met Britten in October 1942, when he heard Peter Pears and Britten perform Britten's '' Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo'' at the National Gallery. In 1948, Britten and Forster discussed whether Forster ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Grimes
''Peter Grimes'', Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem '' The Borough''. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Crabbe's – and later Britten's – home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England's east coast. The work was conceived while Britten was living in the US in the early years of the Second World War and completed when he returned to Britain in 1943. It was first performed at Sadler's Wells in London on 7 June 1945, conducted by Reginald Goodall, and was a critical and popular success. It is still widely performed, both in Britain and internationally, and has become part of the standard repertoire. Among the tenors who have performed the title role in the opera house, or on record, or both are Britten's partner Peter Pears, who sang the part at the premiere, and Allan Clayton, Ben Heppner, Jonas Kaufmann, P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Candide (operetta)
''Candide'' is an operetta with music composed by Leonard Bernstein, based on the 1759 novella of the same name by Voltaire. The operetta was first performed in 1956 with a libretto by Lillian Hellman; but since 1974 it has been generally performed with a book by Hugh Wheeler which is more faithful to Voltaire's novel. The primary lyricist was the poet Richard Wilbur. Other contributors to the text were John Latouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, and Bernstein himself. Maurice Peress and Hershy Kay contributed orchestrations. Although unsuccessful at its premiere, ''Candide'' has now overcome the unenthusiastic reaction of early audiences and critics and achieved more popularity. Origins ''Candide'' was originally conceived by Lillian Hellman as a play with incidental music in the style of her previous work, '' The Lark''. Bernstein, however, was so excited about this idea that he convinced Hellman to do it as a "comic operetta"; s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini (, ; 3 November 150013 February 1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, and author. His best-known extant works include the ''Cellini Salt Cellar'', the sculpture of ''Perseus with the Head of Medusa'', and his autobiography, which has been described as "one of the most important documents of the 16th century." Biography Youth Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence, in present-day Italy. His parents were Giovanni Cellini and Maria Lisabetta Granacci. They were married for 18 years before the birth of their first child. Benvenuto was the second child of the family. The son of a musician and builder of musical instruments, Cellini was pushed towards music, but when he was fifteen, his father reluctantly agreed to apprentice him to a goldsmith, Antonio di Sandro, nicknamed Marcone. At the age of 16, Benvenuto had already attracted attention in Florence by taking part in an affray with youthful companions. He was banished for six months and lived in Siena, wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Troyens
''Les Troyens'' (; in English: ''The Trojans'') is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the ''Aeneid''; the score was composed between 1856 and 1858. ''Les Troyens'' is Berlioz's most ambitious work, the summation of his entire artistic career, but he did not live to see it performed in its entirety. Under the title ''Les Troyens à Carthage'', the last three acts were premièred with many cuts by Léon Carvalho's company, the Théâtre Lyrique, at their theatre (now the Théâtre de la Ville) on the Place du Châtelet in Paris on 4 November 1863, with 21 repeat performances. After decades of neglect, today the opera is considered by some music critics as one of the finest ever written. Composition history Berlioz began the libretto on 5 May 1856 and completed it toward the end of June 1856. He finished the full score on 12 April 1858. Berlioz had a keen affection for literature, and he had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fidelio
''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with the work premiering at Vienna's Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. The following year, Stephan von Breuning helped shorten the work from three acts to two. After further work on the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, a final version was performed at the Kärntnertortheater on 23 May 1814. By convention, both of the first two versions are referred to as ''Leonore''. The libretto, with some spoken dialogue, tells how Leonore, disguised as a prison guard named "Fidelio", rescues her husband Florestan from death in a political prison. Bouilly's scenario fits Beethoven's aesthetic and political outlook: a story of personal sacrifice, heroism, and eventual triumph. With its underlying struggle for liberty and justice mirroring con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Requiem (Verdi)
The ''Messa da Requiem'' is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi admired. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. The work was at one time referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. Considered too operatic to be performed in a liturgical setting, it is usually given in concert form of around 90 minutes in length. Musicologist David Rosen calls it "probably the most frequently performed major choral work composed since the compilation of Mozart's Requiem". Composition history After Gioachino Rossini's death in 1868, Verdi suggested that a number of Italian composers collaborate on a ''Requiem'' in Rossini's honor. He began the effort by submitting the concluding movement, the " Libera me". During the next year a '' Messa per Rossini'' was compiled by Verdi and twelv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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