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Loren Driscoll
Loren Driscoll (April 14, 1928 – April 8, 2008) was an American tenor who had an active international career from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Driscoll was particularly noted for his performances in contemporary operas and sang in many world premieres. Biography Driscoll was born in Midwest, Wyoming and after studies at Syracuse University and Boston University made his professional operatic debut in 1954 as Dr. Cajus in Verdi's '' Falstaff'' with Opera of Boston. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Driscoll sang several roles with Santa Fé Opera. He made his company debut there in 1957 as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky's ''The Rake's Progress'' and went on to sing Edgar Linton in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's ''Wuthering Heights'' (1958) and Hermann in the United States premiere of Paul Hindemith's ''Neues vom Tage'' (1961). In 1962 Driscoll became a principal singer with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and remained based with company for the next 25 years, while also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loren Driscoll
Loren Driscoll (April 14, 1928 – April 8, 2008) was an American tenor who had an active international career from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Driscoll was particularly noted for his performances in contemporary operas and sang in many world premieres. Biography Driscoll was born in Midwest, Wyoming and after studies at Syracuse University and Boston University made his professional operatic debut in 1954 as Dr. Cajus in Verdi's '' Falstaff'' with Opera of Boston. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Driscoll sang several roles with Santa Fé Opera. He made his company debut there in 1957 as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky's ''The Rake's Progress'' and went on to sing Edgar Linton in the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's ''Wuthering Heights'' (1958) and Hermann in the United States premiere of Paul Hindemith's ''Neues vom Tage'' (1961). In 1962 Driscoll became a principal singer with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and remained based with company for the next 25 years, while also ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England. History Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000. Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued. Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. While Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Barber
Samuel Osmond Barber II (March 9, 1910 – January 23, 1981) was an American composer, pianist, conductor, baritone, and music educator, and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. The music critic Donal Henahan said, "Probably no other American composer has ever enjoyed such early, such persistent and such long-lasting acclaim." Principally influenced by nine years' composition studies with Rosario Scalero at the Curtis Institute and more than 25 years' study with his uncle, the composer Sidney Homer, Barber's music usually eschewed the experimental trends of musical modernism in favor of traditional 19th-century harmonic language and formal structure embracing lyricism and emotional expression. However, he adopted elements of modernism after 1940 in some of his compositions, such as an increased use of dissonance and chromaticism in the ''Cello Concerto'' (1945) and '' Medea's Dance of Vengeance'' (1955); and the use of tonal ambiguity and a narrow use of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Noces
''Les Noces'' (French for The Wedding; russian: Свадебка, ''Svadebka'') is a ballet and orchestral concert work composed by Igor Stravinsky for percussion, pianists, chorus, and vocal soloists. The composer gave it the descriptive title "Choreographed Scenes with Music and Voices" and dedicated it to impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Though initially intended to serve as a ballet score, it is often performed without dance. The ballet premiered under the musical direction of Ernest Ansermet at the Ballets Russes with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska on 13 June 1923, in Paris. Several versions of the score have been performed, either substituting orchestra for the percussion and pianos or using pianolas in accordance with a version of the piece that Stravinsky abandoned without completing. Composition Stravinsky first conceived of writing the ballet in 1913 and completed it in short score by October 1917. He wrote the libretto himself using Russian wedding lyrics taken pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renard (Stravinsky)
(The Fox: burlesque tale sung and played) is a one-act chamber opera-ballet by Igor Stravinsky, written in 1916. The Russian text by the composer was based on Russian folk tales from the collection by Alexander Afanasyev. The full Russian name of the piece is (– The Fable of the Vixen, the Cock, the Cat and the Goat. A burlesque for the stage with singing and music). History In April 1915, Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Stravinsky to write a piece that could be played in her salon. She paid the composer 2,500 Swiss francs. The work was completed in Morges, Switzerland in 1916, and Stravinsky himself made a staging plan, trying to avoid any resemblance to conventional operatic staging . He created, rather, a new form of theatre in which the acrobatic dance is connected with singing, and the declamation comments on the musical action. However, the piece was never performed in the salon of the princess. It was not in fact staged until 1922. The p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regina (Blitzstein)
''Regina'' is an opera by Marc Blitzstein, to his own libretto based on the play '' The Little Foxes'' by Lillian Hellman. It was completed in 1948 and premiered the next year. Blitzstein chose this source in order to make a strong statement against capitalism. In three acts, the musical style has been described as new American verismo, abounding in the use of spirituals, Victorian parlour music, dance forms, ragtime, aria and large, symphonic score. Borrowing from both opera and Broadway styles, in a manner similar to Leonard Bernstein in ''Trouble in Tahiti'' and Virgil Thomson in '' Four Saints in Three Acts'', ''Regina'' has been said to straddle the line between entertainment and so-called serious music. Hellman gave Blitzstein considerable advice and strongly objected to any departures from the play's structure. Blitzstein planned an elaborate choral prologue, but Hellman convinced him to shorten and finally jettison it. Before the premiere, producer Cheryl Crawford insist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juno (musical)
''Juno'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Marc Blitzstein and book by Joseph Stein, based closely on the 1924 play ''Juno and the Paycock'' by Seán O'Casey. The story centers on the disintegration of an Irish family in Dublin in the early 1920s, during the Irish War of Independence. Juno is a hardworking matriarch who strives to hold her family together in the face of war, betrayal, and her worthless husband's drinking. The original production opened on Broadway in 1959 and closed after only 16 performances. Its somber tone did not please the critics, who were disappointed that its stars, particularly Shirley Booth, did not have an opportunity to play comedy. The score and original cast album have found some praise. Several revivals have been staged, but none has met with great success. Background Despite light moments, the musical, even more than the satiric play, is essentially a tragedy. Modern scholars of musical theatre consider Blitzstein and Stein's musicaliz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marc Blitzstein
Marcus Samuel Blitzstein (March 2, 1905January 22, 1964), was an American composer, lyricist, and librettist. He won national attention in 1937 when his pro- union musical ''The Cradle Will Rock'', directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration. He is known for ''The Cradle Will Rock'' and for his off-Broadway translation/adaptation of ''The Threepenny Opera'' by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. His works also include the opera '' Regina'', an adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play '' The Little Foxes''; the Broadway musical '' Juno'', based on Seán O'Casey's play '' Juno and the Paycock''; and ''No for an Answer''. He completed translation/adaptations of Brecht's and Weill's musical play '' Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' and of Brecht's play ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' with music by Paul Dessau. Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as ''Surf and Seaweed'' (1931) and '' The Spanish Earth'' (1937), and he contributed two son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Fair Lady
''My Fair Lady'' is a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play '' Pygmalion'', with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature and difficulty understanding women, Higgins grows attached to her. The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a notable critical and popular success, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It set a record for the longest run of any musical on Broadway up to that time and was followed by a hit London production. Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews starred in both productions. Many revivals have followed, and the 1964 film version won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Plot Act I In Edwardian London, Eliza Doolittle is a flower girl with a thick Cockney accent. The noted phonetician Professor Henry Higgins encounters Eliza at C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kismet (musical)
''Kismet'' is a musical adapted by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis from the 1911 play of the same name by Edward Knoblock, with lyrics and musical adaptation (as well as some original music) by Robert Wright and George Forrest. The music was mostly adapted from several pieces composed by Alexander Borodin. The story concerns a wily poet who talks his way out of trouble several times; meanwhile, his beautiful daughter meets and falls in love with the young caliph. The musical was first produced on Broadway in 1953 and won the Tony Award for best musical in 1954. It was also successful in London's West End and has been given several revivals. A 1955 film version was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Background The musical was commissioned by Edwin Lester, founder and director of the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, who conceived of a musical based on the 1911 play '' Kismet'' by Edward Knoblock.Rooney, David''Kismet'' ''Variety'', February 10, 2006, accessed November 28, 2011 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway (theatre)
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous with the district and its collection of 41 theaters, and it is also closely identified with Times Square, only three of the theaters are located on Broadway itself (namely the Broa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Fledermaus
' (, ''The Flittermouse'' or ''The Bat'', sometimes called ''The Revenge of the Bat'') is an operetta composed by Johann Strauss II to a German libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée, which premiered in 1874. Background The original literary source for ' was ' (''The Prison''), a farce by German playwright Julius Roderich Benedix that premiered in Berlin in 1851. On 10 September 1872, a three-act French vaudeville play by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, ', loosely based on the Benedix farce, opened at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. Meilhac and Halévy had provided several successful libretti for Offenbach and ''Le Réveillon'' later formed the basis for the 1926 silent film '' So This Is Paris'', directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Meilhac and Halévy's play was soon translated into German by Karl Haffner (1804–1876), at the instigation of Max Steiner, as a non-musical play for production in Vienna. The French custom of a New Year's Eve '' réveillon'', or supper party, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
