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Richard Armstrong (conductor)
Sir Richard Armstrong (born 7 January 1943, in Leicester, England) is an English conductor. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar. Overview From 1973 until 1986 Armstrong was musical director of the Welsh National Opera. In this period he worked in collaboration with many leading European directors, including Peter Stein, Joachim Herz, Lucian Pintilie, and Harry Kupfer, conducting a wide repertoire of Verdi, Wagner, Janáček, Strauss, Berg and Britten and, in 1986, performances of the complete Ring Cycle. He has returned regularly to WNO as a guest conductor, notably for the world première of Peter Maxwell Davies’s ''The Doctor of Myddfai'', and for Peter Stein’s 1988 production of ''Falstaff'', which he also conducted in New York, Milan, Paris and Tokyo. He was Music Director of Scottish Opera from 1993 to 2005. During this time he conducted operas including ''Jenůfa'', ''From the Hou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leicester
Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National Forest, England, National Forest. It is situated to the north-east of Birmingham and Coventry, south of Nottingham and west of Peterborough. The population size has increased by 38,800 ( 11.8%) from around 329,800 in 2011 to 368,600 in 2021 making it the most populous municipality in the East Midlands region. The associated Urban area#United Kingdom, urban area is also the 11th most populous in England and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 13th most populous in the United Kingdom. Leicester is at the intersection of two railway lines: the Midland Main Line and the Birmingham to London Stansted Airport line. It is also at the confluence of the M1 motorway, M1/M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salome (opera)
''Salome'', Op. 54, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss. The libretto is Hedwig Lachmann's German translation of the 1891 French play '' Salomé'' by Oscar Wilde, edited by the composer. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer. The opera is famous (at the time of its premiere, infamous) for its " Dance of the Seven Veils". The final scene is frequently heard as a concert-piece for dramatic sopranos. Composition history Oscar Wilde originally wrote his ''Salomé'' in French. Strauss saw the Lachmann version of the play in Max Reinhardt's production at the Kleines Theater in Berlin on 15 November 1902, and immediately set to work on an opera. The play's formal structure was well-suited to musical adaptation. Wilde himself described ''Salomé'' as containing "refrains whose recurring ''motifs'' make it so like a piece of music and bind it together as a ballad". Strauss pared down Lachmann's German text to what he saw as its essentials, and in the process r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hansel And Gretel (opera)
''Hansel and Gretel'' (German: ') is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a ' (fairy-tale opera). The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel". It is much admired for its folk music-inspired themes, one of the most famous being the "" ("Evening Benediction") from act 2. The idea for the opera was proposed to Humperdinck by his sister, who approached him about writing music for songs that she had written for her children for Christmas based on "Hansel and Gretel". After several revisions, the musical sketches and the songs were turned into a full-scale opera. Humperdinck composed ''Hansel and Gretel'' in Frankfurt in 1891 and 1892. The opera was first performed in the Hoftheater in Weimar on 23 December 1893, conducted by Richard Strauss. It has been associated with Christmas since its earliest performances and today it is still most often performed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic ''Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cunning Little Vixen
''The Cunning Little Vixen'' (original title ''Příhody lišky Bystroušky'' or ''Tales of Vixen Sharp-Ears'' in English), is a three-act Czech-language opera by Leoš Janáček completed in 1923 to a libretto the composer himself adapted from a novella by Rudolf Těsnohlídek. Name The opera's libretto was adapted by the composer from a 1920 serialized novella, ''Liška Bystrouška'', by Rudolf Těsnohlídek, which was first published in the newspaper ''Lidové noviny'' (with illustrations by Stanislav Lolek). For the title of the opera, ''Příhody'' means ''tales''; ''lišky'' is the genitive of ''vixen''. ''Bystroušky'', still genitive, is the pun ''sharp'', having the double meaning of ''pointed'', like fox ears, and ''clever''. The opera first became familiar outside Czechoslovakia in a 1927 German adaptation by Max Brod who provided the new name ''Das schlaue Füchslein'', by which Germans still know it and which in English means ''The Cunning Little Vixen''. Compositio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James MacMillan
Sir James Loy MacMillan, (born 16 July 1959) is a Scottish classical composer and conductor. Early life MacMillan was born at Kilwinning, in North Ayrshire, but lived in the East Ayrshire town of Cumnock until 1977. His father is James MacMillan and his mother is Ellen MacMillan (née Loy). He studied composition at the University of Edinburgh with Rita McAllister and Kenneth Leighton, and at Durham University with John Casken, where he gained an undergraduate degree and then a PhD degree in 1987. At Durham he was a member of the College of St Hild and St Bede as an undergraduate student and the Graduate Society while studying for his PhD. He was a lecturer in music at the Victoria University of Manchester from 1986 to 1988. After his studies, MacMillan returned to Scotland, composing prolifically, and becoming Associate Composer with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, often working on education projects. As a young man he was briefly a member of the Young Communist League. R ... [...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] |
La Traviata
''La traviata'' (; ''The Fallen Woman'') is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on ''La Dame aux camélias'' (1852), a play by Alexandre Dumas ''fils'' adapted from his own 1848 novel. The opera was originally titled ''Violetta'', after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at La Fenice opera house in Venice. Piave and Verdi wanted to follow Dumas in giving the opera a contemporary setting, but the authorities at La Fenice insisted that it be set in the past, "c. 1700". It was not until the 1880s that the composer's and librettist's original wishes were carried out and " realistic" productions were staged. ''La traviata'' has become immensely popular and is among the most frequently performed of all operas. Composition history For Verdi, the years 1851 to 1853 were filled with operatic activity. First, he had agreed with the librettist Salvadore Cammarano on a subject for what would ... [...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] |
La Forza Del Destino
' (; ''The Power of Fate'', often translated ''The Force of Destiny'') is an Italian opera by Giuseppe Verdi. The libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on a Spanish drama, ' (1835), by Ángel de Saavedra, 3rd Duke of Rivas, with a scene adapted from Friedrich Schiller's '' Wallensteins Lager'' (''Wallenstein's Camp''). It was first performed in the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of Saint Petersburg, Russia, on 29 November 1862 O.S. (N.S. 10 November). ' is frequently performed, and there have been a number of complete recordings. In addition, the overture (to the revised version of the opera) is part of the standard repertoire for orchestras, often played as the opening piece at concerts. Performance history Revisions After its premiere in Russia, ''La forza'' underwent some revisions and made its debut abroad with performances in Rome in 1863 under the title ''Don Alvaro''. Performances followed in Madrid (with the Duke of Rivas, the play's author, in attend ... [...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] |
Peter Grimes
''Peter Grimes'', Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem '' The Borough''. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Crabbe's – and later Britten's – home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England's east coast. The work was conceived while Britten was living in the US in the early years of the Second World War and completed when he returned to Britain in 1943. It was first performed at Sadler's Wells in London on 7 June 1945, conducted by Reginald Goodall, and was a critical and popular success. It is still widely performed, both in Britain and internationally, and has become part of the standard repertoire. Among the tenors who have performed the title role in the opera house, or on record, or both are Britten's partner Peter Pears, who sang the part at the premiere, and Allan Clayton, Ben Heppner, Jonas Kaufmann, P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
