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Rusalka (opera)
''Rusalka'' (), Op. 114, is an opera ('lyric fairy tale') by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868–1950) based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. A rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology, usually inhabiting a lake or river. ''Rusalka'' was the ninth opera Dvořák composed. It is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses. Dvořák had played viola for pit orchestras in Prague (the Estates Theatre from 1857 until 1859 while a student, then from 1862 until 1871 at the Provisional Theatre). He thus had direct experience of a wide range of operas by Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Lortzing, Wagner, Verdi and Smetana. For many years unfamiliarity with Dvořák's operas outside the Czech lands helped reinforce a perception that composition of operas was a marginal activity, and that despite the beauty of its melodies and orchestra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era Czech nationalism, nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". Dvořák displayed his musical gifts at an early age, being an apt violin student from age six. The first public performances of his works were in Prague in 1872 and, with special success, in 1873, when he was 31 years old. Seeking recognition beyond the Prague area, he submitted a score of his Symphony No. 1 (Dvořák), First Symphony to a prize competition in Germany, but did not win, and the unreturned manuscript was lost until it was rediscovered many decades ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Undine (novella)
''Undine'' is a fairytale novella (''Erzählung'') by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué in which Undine, a water spirit, marries a knight named Huldbrand in order to gain a soul. Published in 1811, it is an early German romance, which has been translated into English and other languages. Plot summary A knight named Huldbrand comes across a fisherman's hut in the forest, and is welcomed in by the fisherman and his wife. He also meets their capricious eighteen-year-old foster daughter, Undine. The fisherman explains that years ago, their young daughter was lost in the lake and apparently drowned, but that same day, Undine appeared on their doorstep. Since then, they have raised her as their own. Undine asks Huldbrand what he’s doing in the forest. He explains that he was participating in a tournament when he met Bertalda, a duke's foster daughter. As they flirted, she promised to give him her glove if he would explore the haunted forest. He did so, encountering strange and threateni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages, have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well. His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes", "The Little Mermaid", " The Nightingale", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", " The Red Shoes", " The Princess and the Pea", "The Snow Queen", "The Ugly Duckling", " The Little Match Girl", and " Thumbelina". His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films. Early life Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805. He had a stepsister named Karen. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Little Mermaid
"The Little Mermaid" ( da, Den lille havfrue) is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The story follows the journey of a young mermaid who is willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul. The tale was first published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children. The original story has been a subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bøggild and Pernille Heegaard as well as the folklorist Maria Tatar. These analyses cover various aspects of the story from interpreting the themes to discussing why Andersen chose to write a tragic story with a happy ending. It has been adapted to various media, including musical theatre, anime, ballet, opera, and film. There is also a statue portraying the mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written and first published. Plot summary The Little Mermaid lives in an underwater kingdom with her widowed father ( Mer-King), her dowager grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operabase
Operabase is an online database of opera performances, opera houses and companies, and performers themselves as well as their agents. Found at operabase.com, it was created in 1996 by English software engineer and opera lover Mike Gibb.Edward Schneider (29 July 2001),"Singing and Their Suppers" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved 13 May 2011. Initially a hobby site, it became his full-time occupation after three years. ''Opera'' magazine describes the Operabase website as "the most comprehensive source of data on operatic activity". Public website By its tenth anniversary, in 2006, the site received "about 10,000 visitors a day to the public site, who look at over four million pages a month between them. Of these, fewer than half use English, 17% use German, 12% Italian, 10% French, 9% Spanish." In autumn of that year the British magazine ''Opera Now'' reported that "Operabase has taken on the Herculean task of making he siteavailable to every European Union citizen in their own la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armida (Dvořák)
''Armida'' is an opera by Antonín Dvořák in four acts, set to a libretto by Jaroslav Vrchlický that was originally based on Torquato Tasso's epic ''Jerusalem Delivered, La Gerusalemme liberata''. Dvořák's opera was first performed at Prague's National Theatre on 25 March 1904; the score was published as opus 115 in 1941. In terms of genre, ''Armida'' represents the culmination of Dvořák's experimentation with a Richard Wagner, Wagnerian style of opera composition, though much of the music belongs to Dvořák's own genre. Vrchlický's libretto parallels the one that Philippe Quinault wrote for Jean-Baptiste Lully in their Armide (Lully), opera of the same name. Roles Synopsis In the Royal gardens of Damascus the call to prayer is heard. Ismen enters with news of the approaching Franks, but tries to dissuade the King from a confrontation: let him instead send his daughter (whose hand Ismen has been seeking) to sow dissention. She balks, but changes her mind when Ismen u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jacobin
''The Jacobin'' (''Jakobín'' in Czech), Op. 84 (B. 159), is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to an original Czech libretto by Marie Červinková-Riegrová. Červinková-Riegrová took some of the story's characters from the story by Alois Jirásek, "At the Ducal Court", but devised her own plot about them. The first performance was on 12 February at the National Theatre, Prague, 1889. Červinková-Riegrová revised the libretto, with Dvořák's permission, in 1894, notably in the last act. Dvořák revised the music in 1897 (the revised premiere was on 19 June 1898, under Adolf Čech). The composer felt great affection for the subject of the opera, as the central character is a music teacher, and Dvořák had in mind his former teacher Antonin Liehmann, who had a daughter named Terinka, the name of one of the opera's characters. John Clapham has briefly discussed the presence of Czech musical style in the opera. H. C. Colles has described this opera as "the most subt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Devil And Kate
''The Devil and Kate'', Op. 112, B.201, (''Čert a Káča'' in Czech) is an opera in three acts by Antonín Dvořák to a Czech libretto by Adolf Wenig. It is based on a farce by Josef Kajetán Tyl, and the story also had been treated in the ''Fairy Tales'' of Božena Němcová. The first performance of the opera was at the National Theatre, Prague, on 23 November 1899, under Adolf Čech. ''The Devil and Kate'' is one of the few operas of Dvořák, along with ''Rusalka'', to have remained in the repertory. This can be attributed to the high demand for Italian grand operas in his time and the difficulties of Dvořák's intricate staging. The opera has great appeal because of its combination of fairy tale and folk music; it is very close in feel to a Czech tone poem. At times, it feels like a Czech version of ''Hansel & Gretel''. The overture was written after the opera itself. John Clapham has written critical analysis of the opera and noted the presence of the style of Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Czech Lands
The Czech lands or the Bohemian lands ( cs, České země ) are the three historical regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia. Together the three have formed the Czech part of Czechoslovakia since 1918, the Czech Socialist Republic since 1 January 1969 and the Czech Republic since 1 January 1993. The Czech lands are also referred to as Czechia. In a historical context, Czech texts use the term to refer to any territory ruled by the Kings of Bohemia, i.e., the lands of the Bohemian Crown (') as established by Emperor Charles IV in the 14th century. This would include territories like the Lusatias (which in 1635 fell to Saxony) and the whole of Silesia, all ruled from Prague Castle at that time. After the conquest of Silesia by the Prussian king Frederick the Great in 1742, the remaining lands of the Bohemian Crown—Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia—have been more or less co-extensive with the territory of the modern-day Czech Republic. Alternative names The term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music. Internationally he is best known for his 1866 opera ''The Bartered Bride'' and for the symphonic cycle ''Má vlast'' ("My Fatherland"), which portrays the history, legends and landscape of the composer's native Bohemia. It contains the famous symphonic poem "Vltava", also popularly known by its German name "Die Moldau" (in English, "The Moldau"). Smetana was naturally gifted as a composer, and gave his first public performance at the age of 6. After conventional schooling, he studied music under Josef Proksch in Prague. His first nationalistic music was written during the 1848 Prague uprising, in which he briefly participated. After failing to establish his career in Prague, he left for Sweden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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