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Sir Edward Downes
Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Verdi. He and his wife, Lady (Joan) Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media coverage. Early life and education Downes was born in Birmingham, England in 1924, the son of a bank teller. He began to learn the piano and violin at age five and was also a choirboy at King Edward's School, learning the organ and becoming choir master when his voice broke at 13. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Downes
Sir Edward Thomas ("Ted") Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera. He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Verdi. He and his wife, Lady (Joan) Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media coverage. Early life and education Downes was born in Birmingham, England in 1924, the son of a bank teller. He began to learn the piano and violin at age five and was also a choirboy at King Edward's School, learning the organ and becoming choir master when his voice broke at 13. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal College Of Music
The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performance, composition, conducting, music theory and history. The RCM also undertakes research, with particular strengths in performance practice and performance science. The college is one of the four conservatories of the ABRSM, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and a member of Conservatoires UK. Its buildings are directly opposite the Royal Albert Hall on Prince Consort Road, next to Imperial College and among the museums and cultural centres of Albertopolis. History Background The college was founded in 1883 to replace the short-lived and unsuccessful National Training School for Music (NTSM). The school was the result of an earlier proposal by the Albert, Prince Consort, Prince Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Scherchen
Hermann Scherchen (21 June 1891 – 12 June 1966) was a German conductor. Life Scherchen was born in Berlin. Originally a violist, he played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga from 1914 to 1916 and in Königsberg from 1928 to 1933, after which he left Germany in protest of the new Nazi regime and worked in Switzerland. Along with the philanthropist Werner Reinhart, Scherchen played a leading role in shaping the musical life of Winterthur for many years, with numerous premiere performances, the emphasis being placed on contemporary music. From 1922 to 1950, he was the principal conductor of the city orchestra of Winterthur (today known as Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur). Making his debut with Arnold Schoenberg's ''Pierrot Lunaire'', he was a champion of 20th-century composers such as Richard Strauss, Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Edgard Varèse, and actively promoted the work of younger contemporary composers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in history. He became a leading philanthropist in the United States, Great Britain, and the British Empire. During the last 18 years of his life, he gave away around $350 million (roughly $ billion in ), almost 90 percent of his fortune, to charities, foundations and universities. His 1889 article proclaiming " The Gospel of Wealth" called on the rich to use their wealth to improve society, expressed support for progressive taxation and an estate tax, and stimulated a wave of philanthropy. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, and emigrated to Pittsburgh with his parents in 1848 at age 12. Carnegie started work as a telegrapher, and by the 1860s had investments in railroads, railroad sleeping cars, bridges, and oil derricks. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Marriage Of Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, '' La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro'' ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity. Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. ''The Marriage of Figaro'' came in first out of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is an Ancient universities of Scotland, ancient university founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen and Lord Chancellor of Scotland, Chancellor of Scotland, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of James IV of Scotland, James IV, King of Scots to establish King's College, Aberdeen, King's College, making it Scotland's 3rd oldest university and the 5th oldest in the English-speaking world and the United Kingdom. Aberdeen is consistently ranked among the top 160 universities in the world and is ranked within the top 20 universities in the United Kingdom according to ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'', and 13th in the UK according to ''The Guardian''. The university comprises three colleges—King's College ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera (British Magazine)
''Opera'' is a monthly Great Britain, British magazine devoted to covering all things related to opera. It contains reviews and articles about current opera productions internationally, as well as articles on opera recordings, opera singers, opera companies, opera directors, and opera books. The magazine also contains major features and analysis on individual operas and people associated with opera. The magazine employs a network of international correspondents around the world who write for the magazine. Contributors to the magazine, past and present, include William Ashbrook, Martin Bernheimer, Julian Budden, Rodolfo Celletti, Alan Blyth, Elizabeth Forbes (musicologist), Elizabeth Forbes, and J.B. Steane among many others. Format ''Opera'' is printed in ISO 216, A5 size, with colour photos, and consists of around 130 pages. Page numbering is consecutive for a complete year (e.g. September 2009 covers pages 1033–1168). All issues since February 1950 are available online to cu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Carlo Opera Company
The San Carlo Opera Company was the name of two different opera companies active in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. Henry Russell's San Carlo Opera The first company was founded by impresario Henry Russell, initially as a touring arm of the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, Italy, in 1904. The company soon became its own institution and toured to The Royal Opera, London, in the Fall of 1905 and Boston in early 1906. The group remained based in Boston and gave tours annually of mostly Italian operas throughout the United States from 1906 to 1909 in addition to giving performances in Boston. With the opening of the Boston Opera House in 1909, the company essentially became the seed for the newly formed Boston Opera Company under the leadership of Russell. Notable singers to perform with Russell's San Carlo Opera Company included sopranos Fély Dereyne, Alice Nielsen, Lillian Nordica, and Tarquinia Tarquini; tenors Florencio Constantino, Riccardo Martin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)
''The Sleeping Beauty'' ( rus, Спящая красавица, Spyashchaya krasavitsa ) is a ballet in a prologue and three acts, first performed in 1890. The music was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Opus 66). The score was completed in 1889, and is the second of his three ballets. The original scenario was conceived by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, and is based on Charles Perrault's '' La Belle au bois dormant''. The choreographer of the original production was Marius Petipa. The premiere performance took place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on January 15, 1890. The work has become one of the classical repertoire's most famous ballets. History Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky on 25 May 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation on the subject of the story of ''Undine''. It was later decided that Charles Perrault's '' La Belle au bois dormant'' would be the story for which Tchaikovsky would co ... [...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] |
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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