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Ludmila Červinková
Ludmila Červinková (29 April 1908 – 16 September 1980) was a Czech operatic soprano who had a celebrated international career during the 1930s through the 1960s. She notably had a long and fruitful association with the National Theatre in Prague from 1942 until 1966. Her voice is preserved on a number of recordings on the Supraphon label.Ludmila Cervinkova, Ludmila Biography at operissimo.com (in German) Retrieved 14 September 2009 Biography Born in , Červinková studied singing privately with Jarmila Pěničková, while attending a girl's college in Prague. Fr ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate oceanic climate, with relatively warm summers and chilly winters. Prague is a political, cultural, and economic hub of central Europe, with a rich history and Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectures. It was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia and residence of several Holy Roman Emperors, most notably Charles IV (r. 1346–1378). It was an important city to the Habsburg monarchy and Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city played major roles in the Bohemian and the Protestant Reformations, the Thirty Years' War and in 20th-century history as the capital of Czechoslovakia between the World Wars and the post-war Communist era. Prague is home to a number of well-known cultural attractions, many of which survived the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jacobin
''The Jacobin'' (''Jakobín'' in Czech), Op. 84 (B. 159), is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to an original Czech libretto by Marie Červinková-Riegrová. Červinková-Riegrová took some of the story's characters from the story by Alois Jirásek, "At the Ducal Court", but devised her own plot about them. The first performance was on 12 February at the National Theatre, Prague, 1889. Červinková-Riegrová revised the libretto, with Dvořák's permission, in 1894, notably in the last act. Dvořák revised the music in 1897 (the revised premiere was on 19 June 1898, under Adolf Čech). The composer felt great affection for the subject of the opera, as the central character is a music teacher, and Dvořák had in mind his former teacher Antonin Liehmann, who had a daughter named Terinka, the name of one of the opera's characters. John Clapham has briefly discussed the presence of Czech musical style in the opera. H. C. Colles has described this opera as "the most subt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Kiss (opera)
''The Kiss'' ( cs, Hubička) is an opera in two acts, with music by Bedřich Smetana and text by Eliška Krásnohorská, based on a novel by Karolina Světlá. It received its first performance at the Provisional Theatre in Prague on 7 November 1876. Roles Synopsis Act 1 Lukáš, a peasant, has always been in love with Vendulka. Unfortunately for the young couple, his parents insisted that he marry another girl. However, his wife dies, leaving him with an infant. As they are both still young, Lukáš intends to woo the very eligible Vendulka. Paloucký, Vendulka's father, opposes the match: he reasons that since both Lukáš and Vendulka are stubborn people, they would make an incompatible couple. Vendulka is dismayed at his position, so Paloucký withdraws his objection, but his misgivings remain. With friends and relatives in his wake, Lukáš arrives at Paloucký's home to formally make his intentions towards Vendulka known. Paloucký gives his blessing to the coup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera ''The Bartered Bride'' and for the symphonic cycle ''Má vlast'' ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau"). Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of 6. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berlin State Opera
The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great from 1741 to 1743 according to plans by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff in the Palladian style. Damaged during the Allied bombing in World War II, the former Royal Prussian Opera House was rebuilt from 1951 to 1955 as part of the Forum Fridericianum square. Nicknamed ''Lindenoper'' in Berlin, it is "the first theater anywhere to be, by itself, a prominent, freestanding monumental building in a city." History Names Originally called the ''Königliche Oper'' (Royal Opera) from 1743, it was renamed as the ''Preußische Staatsoper'' (Prussian State Opera) in 1919, then as the ''Deutsche Staatsoper '' in 1955. Until 1990, it housed the state opera of East Germany. Since 1990, it is officially called the ''Staatsoper Unter den Linden'' (State Ope ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and has many mineral springs, such as the Sofia Central Mineral Baths. It has a humid continental climate. Being in the centre of the Balkans, it is midway between the Black Sea and the Adriatic Sea, and closest to the Aegean Sea. Known as Serdica in Antiquity and Sredets in the Middle Ages, Sofia has been an area of human habitation since at least 7000 BC. The recorded history of the city begins with the attestation of the conquest of Serdica by the Roman Republic in 29 BC from the Celtic tribe Serdi. During the decline of the Roman Empire, the city was raided by Huns, Visigoths, Avars and Slavs. In 809, Serdica was incorporated into the Bulgarian Empire by Khan Krum and became known as Sredets. In 1018, the Byzantines ended Bulgarian rule ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era Czech nationalism, nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák), First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tosca
''Tosca'' is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900. The work, based on Victorien Sardou's 1887 French-language dramatic play, ''La Tosca'', is a melodramatic piece set in Rome in June 1800, with the Kingdom of Naples's control of Rome threatened by Napoleon's Campaigns of 1800 in the French Revolutionary Wars#Italy, invasion of Italy. It contains depictions of torture, murder, and suicide, as well as some of Puccini's best-known lyrical arias. Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. Turning the wordy French play into a succinct Italian opera took four years, during which the composer repeatedly argued with his librettists and publisher. ''Tosca'' premiered at a time of unrest in Rome, and its first performance was delayed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libuše (opera)
''Libuše'' () is a "festival opera" in three acts, with music by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was originally written in German by Josef Wenzig, and was then translated into Czech by . In Czech historical myth, Libuše, the title character, prophesied the founding of Prague. The opera was composed in 1871–72 for the coronation of Franz Josef as King of Bohemia. This did not happen and Smetana saved ''Libuše'' for the opening of the National Theatre in Prague, which took place nine years later on 11 June 1881. After the destruction of the National Theatre in a fire, the same opera opened the reconstructed theatre in 1883. The first US performance was reported to have occurred March 1986, in a concert version at Carnegie Hall with Eve Queler and the Opera Orchestra of New York. In the UK, it was first staged by University College Opera in 2019. Commentators have noted the pageant-like nature of the opera and the influence of Richard Wagner in the music. Roles Synopsis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Káťa Kabanová
''Káťa Kabanová'' (also known in various spellings including ''Katia'', ''Katja'', ''Katya'', and ''Kabanowa'') is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by the composer based on '' The Storm'', a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, translated by . The opera was also largely inspired by Janáček's love for Kamila Stösslová. Although he was 67 when it was premiered, ''Káťa Kabanová'' is a clear response to Janáček's feelings for Kamila, and the work is dedicated to her. The first performance was at the National Theatre Brno on 23 November 1921. The opera has had a complex publication history. František Neumann, the conductor of the opera's first performance, made changes that were incorporated into the first publication of the score in 1922 by Universal Edition. Conductor Václav Talich later produced a "re-orchestrated" version of the score. In 1992, Sir Charles Mackerras published a critical edition of the opera.Wingfield, Paul, "Reviews of Music" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aida
''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, ''Aida'' has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera. Elements of the opera's genesis and sources Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write an opera to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but Verdi declined. However, Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, proposed to Khedive Pasha a plot for a celebratory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tannhäuser (opera)
''Tannhäuser'' (; full title , "Tannhäuser and the Minnesängers' Contest at Wartburg") is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner ( WWV 70 in the catalogue of the composer's works). It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work. The opera remains a staple of major opera house repertoire in the 21st century. Composition history Sources The libretto of ''Tannhäuser'' combines mythological elements characteristic of German ''Romantische Oper'' (Romantic opera) and the medieval setting typical of many French Grand Operas. Wagner brings these two together by constructing a plot involving the 14th-century Minnesingers and the myth of Venus and her subterranean realm of Venusberg. Both the historical and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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