|
Maddalena (opera)
''Maddalena'' (russian: Маддалена, links=no) is an opera in one act by the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, who also wrote the libretto based on a play of the same name by Magda Gustavovna Lieven-Orlov (under the pen name Baron Lieven). That play was in turn based on Oscar Wilde's play ''A Florentine Tragedy''. Origins Although Prokofiev had already written four operas (the earliest being '' The Giant'' which he composed at the age of eight and was written down by the composer's mother), ''Maddalena'' is the first of his works in this genre to which he gave an opus number (op. 13). The opera was written in the summer of 1911 while Prokofiev was still a student at Saint Petersburg Conservatory and abandoned with only one of its four scenes orchestrated. The plot centres on a torrid love triangle in Venice in the fifteenth century. Prokofiev wrote in his autobiography that 'the action abounded in conflicts, love, treachery and murder' but added that 'Baron Lieven' was 'mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from ''The Love for Three Oranges,'' the suite ''Lieutenant Kijé'', the ballet ''Romeo and Juliet''—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and ''Peter and the Wolf.'' Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lina Prokofiev
Lina Ivanovna Prokofieva ( rus, Ли́на Ива́новна Проко́фьева), born Carolina Codina Nemísskaia, (21 October 1897 – 3 January 1989) was a Spanish singer and the first wife of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. They married in 1923. Despite misgivings about her husband's decision to move to the Soviet Union, she settled there with him in 1936. They separated in 1941. In 1948, their marriage was ruled null and void, a verdict that was upheld in 1958 by the Supreme Court of the USSR. Her stage name was Lina Llubera. Early life Carolina Codina was born in Madrid on 21 October 1897 to Olga Vladislavovna (''née'' Nemísskaia) and Juan Codina y Llubera. Her mother was a Russian of Polish, Lithuanian, and Alsatian ancestry; her father was a Spaniard born to a Catalan family in Barcelona. Both of her parents were singers and they met while studying singing in Milan at the . In 1899, Carolina traveled to Russia with her parents. Along the way they stayed with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rita McAllister
Margaret 'Rita' McAllister (born 6 March 1946) is a Scottish musicologist, composer and academic. She is the Director of Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a renowned authority on the works of Sergei Prokofiev. Biography McAllister was born on 6 March 1946 in Mossend, North Lanarkshire. She undertook her undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow, graduating BMus with first class honours. At the same time she was a part-time student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama studying piano with Wight Henderson and viola with Frieda Peters. She studied composition with Anthony Hedges and Robin Orr, and won the first BBC Scotland Young Composer’s prize in 1966. In the late 1960s she spent three years at the University of Cambridge researching the operas of Sergei Prokofiev; she completed her PhD in 1970. Her work on Prokofiev resulted in intensive work in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and throughout the southern USSR. In the 1970s and 1980s she broad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by John Reith, then general manager of the British Broadcasting Company (from 1 January 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation), it was the world's first broadcast listings magazine. It was published entirely in-house by BBC Magazines from 8 January 1937 until 16 August 2011, when the division was merged into Immediate Media Company. On 12 January 2017, Immediate Media was bought by the German media group Hubert Burda. The magazine is published on Tuesdays and carries listings for the week from Saturday to Friday. Originally, listings ran from Sunday to Saturday: the changeover meant 8 October 1960 was listed twice, in successive issues. Since Christmas 1969, a 14-day double-sized issue has been published each December containing schedule ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alchemist
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, China, Rasayana, India, the Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Egypt (Roman province), Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD.Principe, Lawrence M. The secrets of alchemy'. University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 9–14. Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an Elixir of life, elixir of immortality; and the creation of Panacea (medicine), panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondolier
The gondola (, ; vec, góndoła ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a sculling manner and also acts as the rudder. The uniqueness of the gondola includes its being asymmetrical along the length making the single-oar propulsion more efficient. For centuries, the gondola was a major means of transportation and the most common watercraft within Venice. In modern times, the boats still do have a role in public transport in the city, serving as ''traghetti'' (small ferries) over the Grand Canal operated by two oarsmen. Various types of gondola boats are also used in special regattas (rowing races) held amongst gondoliers. Their primary role today, however, is to carry tourists on rides at fixed rates. There are approximately 400 licensed gondoliers in Venice and a similar number of boats, down from the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the title role in ''Der fliegende Holländer'', Wotan/Der Wanderer in the ''Ring Cycle'' and Hans Sachs in '' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''. Wagner labelled these roles as ''Hoher Bass'' ("high bass")—see fach for more details. The bass-baritone voice is distinguished by two attributes. First, it must be capable of singing comfortably in a baritonal tessitura. Secondly, however, it needs to have the ripely resonant lower range typically associated with the bass voice. For example, the role of Wotan in ''Die Walküre'' covers the range from F2 (the F at the bottom of the bass clef) to F4 (the F above middle C), but only infrequently descends beyond C3 (the C below middle C). Bass-baritones are typically divide ... [...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] |
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" '' |
Voice Type
A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, though it, and the terms it utilizes, are used in other styles of music as well. A singer will choose a repertoire that suits their voice. Some singers such as Enrico Caruso, Rosa Ponselle, Joan Sutherland, Maria Callas, Jessye Norman, Ewa Podleś, and Plácido Domingo have voices that allow them to sing roles from a wide variety of types; some singers such as Shirley Verrett and Grace Bumbry change type and even voice part over their careers; and some singers such as Leonie Rysanek have voices that lower with age, causing them to cycle through types over their careers. Some roles are hard to classify, having very unusual vocal requirements; Mozart wrote many of his roles for specific singers who often had remarkable voices, and some of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graz Opera
The Graz Opera (German: Oper Graz) is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Graz. The orchestra of the opera house also performs concerts as the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra (''Grazer Philharmonisches Orchester''). History Opera had been performed in Graz since the 17th century, originally in a converted coach house on the Habsburg royal estates. The National Theatre (Schauspielhaus Graz), constructed in 1776, saw many early performances of Mozart's operas, although today (after many reconstructions) it is devoted to the performances of plays. The city's first dedicated opera house and the immediate predecessor of the Graz Opera was the Thalia Theatre, adapted in 1864 from an old circus hall. Plans for a new theatre suitable to the growing size and importance of the city and intended to be a "new home for German art" were first proposed in 1887. Designed by Ferdinand Fellner and Herman Helmer in the neo-baroque style, the Graz Opera was inaugurated in 1899 with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jill Gomez
Jill Carnegy, Countess of Northesk (''née'' Gomez; born 21 September 1942) is a Trinidadian and British soprano who enjoyed an active career on the operatic stage and in the concert hall in a wide repertoire, and has made many recordings. Life and career Gomez was born in New Amsterdam, Guyana,Blyth, A. Jill Gomez. In: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera.'' Macmillan, London and New York, 1997. to Albert Clyde Gomez, a Spanish Trinidadian and to Denise Price Gomez (née Denham), and brought up in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Her father became managing director and vice-chairman of Angostura, the famous distillers, and her British mother was a well-known actress and broadcaster in Trinidad. After studying at St. Joseph's Convent (Port of Spain) in Trinidad and dominating at the islands' biennial Music Festival, she moved to England at 13, where she studied voice and piano at London's Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where her most importan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.JPG "Click for more on -> Graz Opera")