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Margarethe Arndt-Ober
Margarethe Arndt-Ober (b. Berlin, April 15, 1885–d. Bad Sachsa, March 17, 1971) was a German opera singer who had an active international career during the first half of the twentieth century. A highly skilled contralto,''First Week's Opera Bills'', New York Times, November 8, 1913, pg. 13. Ober enjoyed a particularly long and fruitful association with the Berlin State Opera from 1907 to 1944. She also was notably a principal singer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1913 and 1917. Biography A native of Berlin, Margarethe Ober studied singing in Berlin with Benno Stolzenberg and Arthur Arndt, the latter of whom she eventually married in 1910. Ober made her professional opera debut as Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Il trovatore'' at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt in 1906. After a short stint at the opera in Stettin, she became a principal singer with the Berlin State Opera in 1907, remaining with that company for over 35 years. In 1908 she had her fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margarethe Arndt-Ober
Margarethe Arndt-Ober (b. Berlin, April 15, 1885–d. Bad Sachsa, March 17, 1971) was a German opera singer who had an active international career during the first half of the twentieth century. A highly skilled contralto,''First Week's Opera Bills'', New York Times, November 8, 1913, pg. 13. Ober enjoyed a particularly long and fruitful association with the Berlin State Opera from 1907 to 1944. She also was notably a principal singer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1913 and 1917. Biography A native of Berlin, Margarethe Ober studied singing in Berlin with Benno Stolzenberg and Arthur Arndt, the latter of whom she eventually married in 1910. Ober made her professional opera debut as Azucena in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Il trovatore'' at the Opern- und Schauspielhaus Frankfurt in 1906. After a short stint at the opera in Stettin, she became a principal singer with the Berlin State Opera in 1907, remaining with that company for over 35 years. In 1908 she had her fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''). His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euryanthe
''Euryanthe'' ( J. 291, Op. 81) is a German grand heroic-romantic opera by Carl Maria von Weber, first performed at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna on 25 October 1823.Brown, p. 88 Though acknowledged as one of Weber's most important operas, the work is rarely staged because of the weak libretto by Helmina von Chézy (who, incidentally, was also the author of the failed play ''Rosamunde'', for which Franz Schubert wrote music). ''Euryanthe'' is based on the 13th-century French romance ''L'Histoire du très-noble et chevalereux prince Gérard, comte de Nevers et la très-virtueuse et très chaste princesse Euriant de Savoye, sa mye''. Only the overture, an outstanding example of the early German Romantic style (heralding Richard Wagner), is regularly played today. Like Schubert's lesser-known ''Alfonso und Estrella'', of the same time and place (Vienna, 1822), ''Euryanthe'' parts with the German Singspiel tradition, adopting a musical approach without the interruption of spok ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Maria Von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 17865 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and critic who was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas, he was a crucial figure in the development of German ''Romantische Oper'' (German Romantic opera). Throughout his youth, his father, , relentlessly moved the family between Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg and Vienna. Consequently he studied with many teachers – his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher and Georg Joseph Vogler – under whose supervision he composed four operas, none of which survive complete. He had a modest output of non-operatic music, which includes two symphonies; a viola concerto; bassoon concerti; piano pieces such as Konzertstück in F minor and '' Invitation to the Dance''; and many pieces that featured the clarinet, usually written for the virtuoso c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samson Et Dalila
''Samson and Delilah'' (french: Samson et Dalila, links=no), Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar at the (Grand Ducal) Theater (now the Staatskapelle Weimar) on 2 December 1877 in a German translation. The opera is based on the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah found in Chapter 16 of the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. It is the only opera by Saint-Saëns that is regularly performed. The second act love scene in Delilah's tent is one of the set pieces that define French opera. Two of Delilah's arias are particularly well known: "" ("Spring begins") and "" ("My heart opens itself to your voice", also known as "Softly awakes my heart"), the latter of which is one of the most popular recital pieces in the mezzo-soprano/contralto repertoire. Composition history In the middle of the 19th century, a revival of interest in choral music swept France, and Sain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano Concerto No. 2 (Saint-Saëns), Second Piano Concerto (1868), the Cello Concerto No. 1 (Saint-Saëns), First Cello Concerto (1872), ''Danse macabre (Saint-Saëns), Danse macabre'' (1874), the opera ''Samson and Delilah (opera), Samson and Delilah'' (1877), the Violin Concerto No. 3 (Saint-Saëns), Third Violin Concerto (1880), the Symphony No. 3 (Saint-Saëns), Third ("Organ") Symphony (1886) and ''The Carnival of the Animals'' (1886). Saint-Saëns was a musical prodigy; he made his concert debut at the age of ten. After studying at the Paris Conservatoire he followed a conventional career as a church organist, first at Saint-Merri, Paris and, from 1858, La Madeleine, Paris, La Madeleine, the official church of the Second French Empire, Fren ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tristan Und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered at the Königliches Hoftheater und Nationaltheater in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting. Wagner referred to the work not as an opera, but called it "" (literally ''a drama'', ''a plot'', or ''an action''). Wagner's composition of ''Tristan und Isolde'' was inspired by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (particularly ''The World as Will and Representation''), as well as by Wagner's affair with Mathilde Wesendonck. Widely acknowledged as a pinnacle of the operatic repertoire, ''Tristan'' was notable for Wagner's unprecedented use of chromaticism, tonal ambiguity, orchestral colour, and harmonic suspension. The opera was enormously influential among Western classical com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Canterbury Pilgrims (De Koven)
''The Canterbury Pilgrims'' is an opera by the American composer Reginald De Koven. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House on March 8, 1917 just as the US was on the verge of declaring war on Germany. The unfolding world events caused its cancellation after just five performances. The libretto, written by Percy MacKaye, is loosely based on Geoffrey Chaucer's '' The Canterbury Tales''. Roles Synopsis Place: England. Time: April, 1387.The synopsis is taken from Leo Melitz, The Opera Goer's Complete Guide, 1921 version. The story has to do with the merry schemes of the Wife of Bath, who has fallen in love with Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ... who in his turn loves the Prioress, and of her winning of a bet to gain possession of a certain brooch wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reginald De Koven
Henry Louis Reginald De Koven (April 3, 1859January 16, 1920) was an American music critic and prolific composer, particularly of comic operas. Biography De Koven was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and moved to Europe in 1870, where he received the majority of his education. He graduated B.A. from St John's College, Oxford in England in 1880. He undertook piano studies at Stuttgart Conservatory with Wilhelm Speidel, Sigmund Lebert, and Dionys Pruckner. He studied composition at Frankfurt with Johann Christian Hauff, and after staying there for six months moved on to Florence, Italy, where he studied singing with Luigi Vanuccini. Study in operatic composition followed, first with Richard Genée in Vienna and then with Léo Delibes in Paris. De Koven returned to the U.S. in 1882 to live in Chicago, Illinois, and later lived in New York City. He was able to find scope for his wide musical knowledge as a critic with Chicago's ''Evening Post'', ''Harper's Weekly'' and ''New York W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung
' (also: ') (English: ''The Taming of the Shrew'') is a German-language comic opera in four acts by the German composer Hermann Goetz. It was written between 1868 and 1872 and first performed at the National Theatre Mannheim on 11 October 1874 under the conductor . The libretto, by and the composer, is based on Shakespeare's ''The Taming of the Shrew''. The style of the opera shows Goetz turning away from the musical ideas of Richard Wagner towards the classicism of Mozart. ' was a huge success, not only in Germany but in the United States and in Great Britain, where it received high praise from George Bernard Shaw. Roles Recordings * 1944: Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden chorus and orchestra, conducted by Karl Elmendorff (Urania) * 2007: Bayerischer Rundfunk chorus and orchestra, conducted by Joseph Keilberth Joseph Keilberth (19 April 1908 – 20 July 1968) was a German conductor who specialised in opera. Career He started his career in the State Theatre of his nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Goetz
Hermann Gustav Goetz (7 December 1840 – 3 December 1876) was a German composer who spent much of his career in Switzerland. He is best known for his 1872 opera '' Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung'', based on Shakespeare's ''The Taming of the Shrew''. Life Goetz was born in Königsberg, East Prussia. The son of a salesman, he came into contact with music early in his life. However, he did not receive his first serious piano lesson until 1857 – although he already had begun to compose some years before. At the end of the 1850s, he began to study for a degree in mathematics, but broke this off after three terms to study at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin, where he studied piano and composition with Hans von Bülow. In 1862, he graduated from the conservatory. He then moved to Switzerland in 1863. The following year, Goetz was appointed as city organist of Winterthur in Switzerland (thanks to the assistance of Carl Reinecke), where he taught the piano and began to make his name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Rosenkavalier
(''The Knight of the Rose'' or ''The Rose-Bearer''), Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel ''Les amours du chevalier de Faublas'' by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière's comedy ''Monsieur de Pourceaugnac''. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 26 January 1911 under the direction of Max Reinhardt, Ernst von Schuch conducting. Until the premiere, the working title was ''Ochs auf Lerchenau''. (The choice of the name Ochs is not accidental, for in German "Ochs" means "ox", which describes the character of the Baron throughout the opera.) The opera has four main characters: the aristocratic Marschallin; her very young lover, Count Octavian Rofrano; her brutish cousin Baron Ochs; and Ochs' prospective fiancée, Sophie von Faninal, the daughter of a rich bourgeois. At the Marschallin's suggestion, Octavian acts as Ochs' ''Rosenkavalier'' by pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
