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Peter Konwitschny
Peter Konwitschny (born 21 January 1945 in Frankfurt am Main) is a German opera and theatre director. Biography Peter Konwitschny grew up in Leipzig, where his father Franz Konwitschny was principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. After an aborted study of physics, he studied theatre direction from 1965 until 1970 in Berlin. In the 1970s, Konwitschny worked as an assistant director with Ruth Berghaus at the Berliner Ensemble. From 1980 onwards he chiefly worked as a free-lance director. During this period he directed both opera and theatre productions in Berlin, Halle, Greifswald and Rostock. From 1986 until 1990 he was chief director of the Landestheater Halle. His Handel productions ''Rinaldo'', ''Aci, Galatea e Polifemo'' and ''Tamerlano'', as well as ''Rigoletto'' and ''Carmen'' received high acclaim. Even though Konwitschny had already directed operas in West Germany (''Bluebeard's Castle'', Kassel, 1987, and ''Fidelio'', Basel, 1989), it was only after t ...
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List Of Opera Directors
This list of opera directors is a list of notable stage producers and directors who have worked, or are working, in the opera world. * Christopher Alden (born 1949) * David Alden (born 1949) * Neil Armfield (born 1955) * Lucy Bailey (born 1962) * Stephen Barlow (born 1969) * Ruth Berghaus (1927–1996) * Anthony Besch (1924–2002) * Calixto Bieito (born 1963) * Saskia Boddeke (born 1962) * Luc Bondy (1948–2015) * Tito Capobianco (1931–2018) * Albert Carré (1852–1938) * Robert Carsen (born 1954) * Patrice Chéreau (1944–2013) * Martha Clarke (born 1944) * John Copley (born 1933) * Frank Corsaro (1924–2017) * John Cox (born 1935) * Paul Curran (born 1964) * Willy Decker (born 1950) * John Dexter (1925–1990) * Doris Dörrie (born 1955) * Carl Ebert (1887–1980) * Peter Ebert (1918–2012) * Johannes Erath (born 1975) * August Everding (1928–1999) * Brigitte Fassbaender (born 1939) * Walter Felsenstein (1901–1975) * Jürgen Flimm (born 1941) * Götz Fr ...
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Bluebeard's Castle
''Duke Bluebeard's Castle'' ( hu, A kékszakállú herceg vára, link=no, or ''The Blue-Bearded Duke's Castle'') is a one-act expressionism, expressionist opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer, and is written in Hungarian, based on the French literary tale ''Bluebeard, La Barbe bleue'' by Charles Perrault. The opera lasts only a little over an hour and there are just two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard (), and his new wife Judith (); the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time. ''Bluebeard's Castle'', András Szőllősy, Sz. 48, was composed in 1911 (with modifications made in 1912 and a new ending added in 1917) and first performed on 24 May 1918 at the Royal Hungarian Opera House in Budapest. Universal Edition published the vocal (1921) and full score (1925). The Boosey & Hawkes full score includes only the German and English singing translations ...
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Semperoper
The Semperoper () is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden (Saxon State Opera) and the concert hall of the Staatskapelle Dresden (Saxon State Orchestra). It is also home to the Semperoper Ballett. The building is located on the Theaterplatz near the Elbe River in the historic centre of Dresden, Germany. The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841. After a devastating fire in 1869, the opera house was rebuilt, partly again by Semper, and completed in 1878. The opera house has a long history of premieres, including major works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. History The first opera house at the location of today's Semperoper was built by the architect Gottfried Semper. It opened on 13 April 1841 with an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. The building style itself is debated among many, as it has features that appear in three styles: early Renaissance and Baroque, with Corinthian style pillars typical of Greek classical r ...
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Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth largest by area (after Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne), and the third most populous city in the area of former East Germany, after Berlin and Leipzig. Dresden's urban area comprises the towns of Freital, Pirna, Radebeul, Meissen, Coswig, Radeberg and Heidenau and has around 790,000 inhabitants. The Dresden metropolitan area has approximately 1.34 million inhabitants. Dresden is the second largest city on the River Elbe after Hamburg. Most of the city's population lives in the Elbe Valley, but a large, albeit very sparsely populated area of the city east of the Elbe lies in the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands (the westernmost part of the Sudetes) and thus in Lusatia. Many boroughs west of the Elbe lie in the foreland of the Ore Mounta ...
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Tannhäuser (opera)
''Tannhäuser'' (; full title , "Tannhäuser and the Minnesängers' Contest at Wartburg") is an 1845 opera in three acts, with music and text by Richard Wagner ( WWV 70 in the catalogue of the composer's works). It is based on two German legends: Tannhäuser, the mythologized medieval German Minnesänger and poet, and the tale of the Wartburg Song Contest. The story centres on the struggle between sacred and profane love, as well as redemption through love, a theme running through most of Wagner's work. The opera remains a staple of major opera house repertoire in the 21st century. Composition history Sources The libretto of ''Tannhäuser'' combines mythological elements characteristic of German ''Romantische Oper'' (Romantic opera) and the medieval setting typical of many French Grand Operas. Wagner brings these two together by constructing a plot involving the 14th-century Minnesingers and the myth of Venus and her subterranean realm of Venusberg. Both the historical and the ...
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Bavarian State Opera
The Bayerische Staatsoper is a German opera company based in Munich. Its main venue is the Nationaltheater München, and its orchestra the Bayerische Staatsorchester. History The parent ensemble of the company was founded in 1653, under Electress consort Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, when Giovanni Battista Maccioni's ''L'arpa festante'' was performed in the court theatre. In 1753, the Residence Theatre (Cuvilliés Theatre) was opened as a major stage. While opera performances were also held in the Prinzregententheater (completed in 1901), the company's home base is the Nationaltheater München on Max-Joseph-Platz. In 1875, the Munich Opera Festival took place for the first time. Sir Peter Jonas became the general manager in 1993, the first British general manager of any major German-speaking opera house. In 2008, Nikolaus Bachler became Intendant (general manager) of the opera company, and Kirill Petrenko became Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) in 2013. In 2014, the ...
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Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival'' of the ''Minnesänger'' Wolfram von Eschenbach, recounting the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his Bayreuth Festspielhaus. ''Parsifal'' was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on ''Parsifal'' productions until 1903, when the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Wagner described ''Parsifal'' not as an opera, but as (a festival play for the consecration of the stage). At Bayreuth a tradition has arisen that audiences do not applaud at the end of the first ...
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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, ...
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Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the population of the Graz larger urban zone (LUZ) stood at 652,654, based on principal-residence status. Graz is known as a college and university city, with four colleges and four universities. Combined, the city is home to more than 60,000 students. Its historic centre ('' Altstadt'') is one of the best-preserved city centres in Central Europe. In 1999, the city's historic centre was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and in 2010 the designation was expanded to include Eggenberg Palace (german: Schloss Eggenberg) on the western edge of the city. Graz was designated the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2003 and became a City of Culinary Delights in 2008. Etymology The name of the city, Graz, formerly spelled Gratz, most likely stems ...
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Gioachino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of 12 and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During ...
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Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long line of composers, stemming from the late-Baroque era. Though his early work was firmly rooted in traditional late-19th-century Romantic Italian opera, he later developed his work in the realistic ''verismo'' style, of which he became one of the leading exponents. His most renowned works are ''La bohème'' (1896), ''Tosca'' (1900), '' Madama Butterfly'' (1904), and ''Turandot'' (1924), all of which are among the most frequently performed and recorded of all operas. Family and education Puccini was born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini in Lucca, Italy, in 1858. He was the sixth of nine children of Michele Puccini (1813–1864) and Albina Magi (1830–1884). The Puccini family was established in Lucca as a local musi ...
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Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" from building a socialist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the ''Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart'' (german: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, ). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separat ...
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