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Marie-Luise Gilles
Marie-Louise Gilles (or Marie-Luise Gilles; born 1937) is a German mezzo-soprano in opera and concert, a professor of voice, and an opera stage director. Career Born in Düren, Gilles studied at the Folkwangschule in Essen with Hilde Wesselmann. After a first engament at the Stadttheater Oberhausen, she was a member of the Staatstheater Wiesbaden from 1961 to 1964, where she appeared as Dorabella in Mozart's ''Così fan tutte'' and performed trouser roles in operas by Richard Strauss, Octavian in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' and the composer in ''Ariadne auf Naxos''. After Munich and Bremen, she sang from 1968 at the Staatsoper Hannover. The same year, she appeared at the Bayreuth Festival as the valkyrie Grimgerde in Richard Wagner's ''Die Walküre''. She performed in 1969 in Hans Pfitzner's ''Palestrina'' another trousers role, Palestrina's pupil Silja. In 1973, she appeared in Benjamin Britten's ''Owen Wingrave ''Owen Wingrave'', Op. 85, is an opera in two acts with music by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Düren
Düren (; ripuarian: Düre) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, between Aachen and Cologne on the river Rur. History Roman era The area of Düren was part of Gallia Belgica, more specifically the territory of the Eburones, a people who were described as both Belgae and Germani. It was conquered by the Roman Republic under Julius Caesar and became part of Germania inferior. Durum became a supply area for the rapidly growing Roman city of Cologne (Roman name Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium). Furthermore, a few important Roman roads skirt Durum (including the road from Cologne to Jülich and Tongeren and the road from Cologne to Zülpich and Trier). By the 4th century, the area was settled by the Ripuarian Franks. The name ''villa duria'' occurred the first time in the Frankish Annals in the year 747. Frankish king Pippin the Short often visited Düren in the 8th century and held a few important conventions there. The Franks made of Durum a royal palace, from wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina ( – 2 February 1594) was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe. Primarily known for his masses and motets, which number over 105 and 250 respectively, Palestrina had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint. According to '' Grove Music Online'', Palestrina's "success in reconciling the functional and aesthetic aims of Catholic church music in the post-Tridentine period earned him an enduring reputation as the ideal Catholic composer, as well as giving his style (or, more precisely, later generations’ selective view of it) an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement." Biography Palestrina was born in the town of Palestrina, near Rome, then part of the Papal States to N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cavalleria Rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic ''verismo'' operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called ''Cav/Pag'' double-bill with ''Pagliacci'' by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Composition history In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozze ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lohengrin (opera)
''Lohengrin'', WWV 75, is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the ''Parzival'' of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and its sequel ''Lohengrin'', itself inspired by the epic of ''Garin le Loherain''. It is part of the Knight of the Swan legend. The opera has inspired other works of art. King Ludwig II of Bavaria named his castle Neuschwanstein Castle after the Swan Knight. It was King Ludwig's patronage that later gave Wagner the means and opportunity to complete, build a theatre for, and stage his epic cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. He had discontinued composing it at the end of Act II of ''Siegfried'', the third of the ''Ring'' tetralogy, to create his radical chromatic masterpiece of the late 1850s, ''Tristan und Isolde'', and his lyrical comic opera of the mid-1860s, '' Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''. The most popular and recognizabl ... [...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] |
Don Carlos
''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, several incidents, of which the Forest of Fontainebleau scene and ''auto-da-fé'' were the most substantial, were borrowed from Eugène Cormon's 1846 play ''Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne''. The opera is most often performed in Italian translation, usually under the title ''Don Carlo''. The opera's story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568). Though he was betrothed to Elisabeth of Valois, part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–59 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois demanded that she be married instead to his father Philip II of Spain. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra ( Paris Opera) and given its premiere at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ute Vinzing
Ute Vinzing (born 9 September 1936Gerhard Asche In ''Opernwelt''. September/October 2016 issue, .) is a German operatic soprano who received the title Kammersängerin. She is known for dramatic roles by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, including Brünnhilde, Isolde, Ortrud, Kundry, Elektra and the Dyer's Wife, which she performed internationally. Career Training and artistic beginnings Born in Wuppertal, Vinzing first learned the profession of seamstress. She then took private singing lessons, first with Elisabeth Boeker in Lüdenscheid. Without the knowledge of her family she continued her studies with Francesco Carrino in Düsseldorf. In December 1966, she won first prize at the first Bundeswettbewerb Gesang.,Alle Preisträger*innen Oper/Operette/Kon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbert Becker (tenor)
Herbert Lawrence Becker (born 1951) is an American former magician, escapologist, stunt performer, author, and businessman. As a magician, Becker performed as ''Kardeen''. Biography Early life Herbert Lawrence Becker was born in Hollywood, Florida in 1951. Magic Becker performed under the name "The Kardeen Brothers" with Marc Nicols. Later, he worked solo as "The Great Kardeen". He helped open the first Guinness Museums, toured with ''Guinness on Parade'' and performed at the Steel Pier and Radio City Music Hall (1976) with the Guinness show. As a magician, Becker toured worldwide until he retired in 1978. Becker appeared as himself (a magician) on the Orlando television program Bozo the Clown appearing weekly and The Maury Povich Show (2001).https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0065434/ In his book ''All the Secrets of Magic Revealed: The Tricks and Illusions of the World's Greatest Magicians'', Becker explained how magicians such as Harry Houdini, David Copperfield, Doug Henning, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Götterdämmerung
' (; ''Twilight of the Gods''), WWV 86D, is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas titled (''The Ring of the Nibelung'', or ''The Ring Cycle'' or ''The Ring'' for short). It received its premiere at the on 17 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of the whole work. The title is a translation into German of the Old Norse phrase ', which in Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period ... refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world. As with the rest of the ''Ring'', however, Wagner's account diverges significantly from these Old Norse sources. Composition Roles Synopsis Prologue Prelude to the Prologue Scene 1 T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theo Altmeyer
Theo Altmeyer (16 March 1931 – 28 July 2007) was a German classical tenor. Although he was a successful opera singer, he is chiefly remembered for his work as an oratorio soloist. He possessed a rich and lyrical voice that he employed with great expression and nuance. Biography Born in Eschweiler, Altmeyer began his performance career while still a voice student at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, where he studied under Clemens Glettenberg from 1953 to 1956. His first successes were primarily as an oratorio soloist. He was hired by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) to perform in several recordings of cantatas and other religious music. He went on to win second prize at the WDR's singing competition in 1955. In 1956, Altmeyer joined the roster of singers at the Berlin State Opera, where he sang for the next four years. While there he notably portrayed the title role in the world premiere of Humphrey Searle's ''The Diary of a Madman (opera), The Diary of a Madman''. Then starting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrid Schirmer
Astrid Schirmer (born 8 November 1942) is a German operatic soprano and an academic teacher. She sang mostly dramatic parts at major German opera houses and appeared at the Bayreuth Festival. Career Schirmer studied voice at the Musikhochschule Berlin with Johanna Rakow and Elisabeth Grümmer. She made her debut at the Landestheater Coburg in 1967 as Senta in Wagner's ''Der fliegende Holländer''. She was a member of the Staatsoper Hannover, the Essen Opera and the Nationaltheater Mannheim. Her roles were mostly leading parts as a dramatic soprano, such as Leonore in Beethoven's ''Fidelio'' and Wagner's Sieglinde in ''Die Walküre'', Brünnhilde in ''Siegfried'', and both Elisabeth and Venus in ''Tannhäuser''. She also appeared in Verdi operas, in the title role of ''Aida'', as Amelia in ''Un ballo in maschera'', and as Leonore in ''La forza del destino''. She performed the title roles of ''Ariadne auf Naxos'' and ''Arabella'' by Richard Strauss, and of Puccini's ''Tosca'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
