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Lydia Steier
Lydia Steier (born 1978) is an American opera director who has made an international career based in Germany. She directed the Swiss premiere of Stockhausen's ''Donnerstag aus Licht'', chosen by critics as "Best Production of the Year" in 2016. In 2018, she became the first woman to stage Mozart's ''Die Zauberflöte'' at the Salzburg Festival, for the opening performance in 2018. Career Steier was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Her grandparents had left Vienna for the United States when the Nazis entered Vienna. She studied stage directing and voice at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. In 2002, she moved to Germany as a Fulbright student, and worked as an assistant at the Komische Oper Berlin. Steier staged a double bill of Leoncavallo's '' Pagliaccio'' and Busoni's ''Turandot'' at the Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, which was awarded the prize "Neuentdeckung des Jahres 2009" (discovery of the year) by Deutschlandradio Kultur. Her stagings of Handel's ''Saul'' at th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic ''Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theater Basel
Theater Basel is the municipal theatre of the city of Basel, Switzerland, which is home to the city's opera and ballet companies. The theatre also presents plays and musicals in addition to operas and operettas. Because the theatre does not have its own orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra is usually contracted to perform for opera and ballet productions as needed. For baroque-opera productions, La Cetra, the baroque orchestra of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, is engaged. History Theater Basel was founded in 1834 under the name Basler Stadttheater. The first theatre was designed by Swiss architect Melchior Berri. In 1873 work on a new theatre began which was designed by Johann Jakob Stehlin Jr.. This second theatre opened in 1875 and was used until it was destroyed by fire on 7 October 1904. Plans for a third theatre were soon made, but it was five years before the theatre finally opened in 1909. The fourth theatre opened in 1975. In October 2018, the company announ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sebastian Weigle
Sebastian Weigle (born 1961, in East Berlin) is a German conductor and horn player. He is currently ''Generalmusikdirektor'' of the Oper Frankfurt and principal conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. Biography Weigle is a nephew of the conductor and music educator Jörg-Peter Weigle and the brother of the late violist Friedemann Weigle of the Artemis Quartet. Weigle studied at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in horn, piano and conducting. In 1987 he founded the Berlin Chamber Choir, and later he led the New Berlin Chamber Orchestra. He was principal horn player in the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera for 15 years. He also was a member of the jazz orchestra "Vielharmonie" in East Berlin. In 1993, Weigle became chief conductor of the . In 1997, he became of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. In 2003, Weigle was named "Conductor of the Year" by the German magazine ''Opernwelt'', and subsequently won this award in 2005 and 2006. From 2004 to 2008, he was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iolanta
''Iolanta'', Op. 69, (russian: Иоланта, links=no ) is a lyric opera in one act by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. It was the last opera he composed. The libretto was written by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, and is based on the Danish play ' (''King René's Daughter'') by Henrik Hertz, a romanticised account of the life of Yolande de Bar. In the original Danish play, the spelling of the princess's name was "Iolanthe", later adopted for the otherwise unrelated Gilbert and Sullivan operetta of that name. The play was translated by Fyodor Miller and adapted by Vladimir Zotov. The opera received its premiere on 18 December 1892 in Saint Petersburg. Composition history Composing upon the completion of '' The Queen of Spades'', Tchaikovsky worried that he had lost his creative inspiration after such a large project. He started ''Iolanta'' in June 1891 with the central duet, and, despite his worries, finished composition in September and orchestration in November. The public ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oedipus Rex (opera)
''Oedipus rex'' is an opera-oratorio by Igor Stravinsky, scored for orchestra, speaker, soloists, and male chorus. The libretto, based on Sophocles's tragedy, was written by Jean Cocteau in French and then translated by Abbé Jean Daniélou into Latin; the narration, however, is performed in the language of the audience. ''Oedipus rex'' was written towards the beginning of Stravinsky's neoclassical period, and is considered one of the finest works from this phase of the composer's career. He had considered setting the work in Ancient Greek, but decided ultimately on Latin: in his words "a medium not dead but turned to stone." Performance history ''Oedipus rex'' is sometimes performed in the concert hall as an oratorio, similarly to its original performance in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt in Paris on 30 May 1927, and at its American premiere the following year, given by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Harvard Glee Club. It has also been presented on stage as an opera, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Monde
''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website since 19 December 1995, and is often the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non-French-speaking countries. It is considered one of the French newspapers of record, along with '' Libération'', and ''Le Figaro''. It should not be confused with the monthly publication '' Le Monde diplomatique'', of which ''Le Monde'' has 51% ownership, but which is editorially independent. A Reuters Institute poll in 2021 in France found that "''Le Monde'' is the most trusted national newspaper". ''Le Monde'' was founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry at the request of Charles de Gaulle (as Chairman of the Provisional Government of the French Republic) on 19 December 1944, shortly after the Liberation of Paris, and published continuously since its first edit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Klaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer (; born Klaus Georg Steng; 22 June 1943) is an Austrian actor and director. He is also a professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. Brandauer is known internationally for his roles in ''The Russia House'' (1990), ''Mephisto'' (1981), '' Never Say Never Again'' (1983), ''Out of Africa'' (1985), '' Hanussen'' (1988), '' Burning Secret'' (1988), and ''White Fang'' (1991). For his supporting role as Bror von Blixen-Finecke in the drama film ''Out of Africa'' (1985), Brandauer was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award. Brandauer has a working knowledge of at least five languages: German, Italian, Hungarian, English and French and has acted in each. Personal life Brandauer was born as Klaus Georg Steng in Bad Aussee, Austria. He is the son of Maria Brandauer and Georg Steng (or Stenj), a civil servant. He subsequently took his mother's first name as part of his professional name, Klaus Maria Brandauer. His first wife was Karin Katharina M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constantinos Carydis
Constantinos Carydis (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Καρύδης) is a Greek conductor, born in Athens in 1974 and active in both the symphonic and operatic repertories. He won the 201 bestowed by the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, with Kent Nagano and Mariss Jansons among the judges. His accomplishments to date include Gluck's ''Alceste'' at Stuttgart in 2006 and Mozart's ''Die Entführung aus dem Serail'' in Amsterdam in 2008, both of which have been released on DVD. In orchestral music, Carydis is noted for his reading of Falla's complete ''Three-Cornered Hat'' ballet and for Rimsky-Korsakov's coloristic ''Scheherazade''. After regular engagements at Munich's Gärtnerplatztheater, and after leading Mozart's '' Don Giovanni'' at the Vienna State Opera in 2009, he débuted at the Royal Opera in London, leading an innovative "3D" production of Bizet's '' Carmen'', which was later issued as a DVD. Carydis returned to the British company in 2012 for twelve performances o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Zauberflöte
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's ''Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil'' (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled ''The Magic Flute Part Two''. The allegorical plot was influenced by Schikaneder and Mozart's interest in Freemasonry and concerns the initiation of Prince Tamino. Enlisted by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the high priest Sarastro, Tamino comes to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hogarth
William Hogarth (; 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, engraver, pictorial satirist, social critic, editorial cartoonist and occasional writer on art. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", and he is perhaps best known for his series ''A Harlot's Progress'', ''A Rake's Progress'' and '' Marriage A-la-Mode''. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian". Hogarth was born in London to a lower-middle-class family. In his youth he took up an apprenticeship with an engraver, but did not complete the apprenticeship. His father underwent periods of mixed fortune, and was at one time imprisoned in lieu of outstanding debts, an event that is thought to have informed William's paintings and prints with a hard edge. Influenced by French and Italian painting and engraving, Hogarth's works are mostly sat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rake's Progress
''The Rake's Progress'' is an English-language opera from 1951 in three acts and an epilogue by Igor Stravinsky. The libretto, written by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman, is based loosely on the eight paintings and engravings ''A Rake's Progress'' (1733–1735) of William Hogarth, which Stravinsky had seen on 2 May 1947, in a Chicago exhibition. The story concerns the decline and fall of one Tom Rakewell, who deserts Anne Trulove for the delights of London in the company of Nick Shadow, who turns out to be the Devil. After several misadventures, all initiated by the devious Shadow, Tom ends up in Bedlam, a hospital for the insane at that time situated in the City of London. The moral of the tale is: "For idle hearts and hands and minds the Devil finds work to do." Performance history It was first performed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 11 September 1951, with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf creating the role of Anne Trulove, and Robert Rounseville that of Tom Rakewell. It was fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claude Schnitzler
Claude Schnitzler (born in 1949) is a French organist and conductor. Career Born in Strasbourg, Schnitzler studied music at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg (organ, harpsichord, conducting, and writing) before completing his training as a conductor at the Mozarteum University Salzburg while giving numerous organ recitals in France and abroad. In 1971, he was appointed titular organist of the great organ of the Strasbourg Cathedral. He joined the Opéra national du Rhin in 1972 as a singing conductor and in 1975 became Alain Lombard's assistant at the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg and at the Opéra national du Rhin, where he has since conducted numerous shows. From 1981 to 1985, he collaborated regularly with the Paris Opera, where he conducted opera and ballet shows at both the Palais Garnier and the Salle Favart. In 1986, he took over the direction of the Orchestra of the city of Rennes, combining this position with that of permanent conductor of the Opéra national ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
