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The Fair At Sorochyntsi
''The Fair at Sorochyntsi'' (russian: Сорочинская ярмарка, ''Sorochinskaya yarmarka'', '' Sorochyntsi Fair'') is a comic opera in three acts by Modest Mussorgsky, composed between 1874 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto, which is based on Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name, from his early (1832) collection of Ukrainian stories ''Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka''. The opera remained unfinished and unperformed at Mussorgsky's death in 1881. Today, the completion by Vissarion Shebalin has become the standard. Composition history Mussorgsky worked on the opera between 1874 and 1880, in competition with his work on ''Khovanshchina'' (1872–1880); both were incomplete at the time of his death in 1881. He reused some music that he had written previously (such as the "Market Scene" from Act II of the ill-fated ''Mlada'' of 1872, used for the opening scene of ''Fair''). Incorporation of the music of ''Night on Bald Mountain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, ''opera buffa'', emerged as an alternative to '' opera seria''. It quickly made its way to France, where it became ''opéra comique'', and eventually, in the following century, French operetta, with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian and French models along with their own musical traditions. Examples include German ''singspiel'', Viennese operetta, Spanish '' zarzuela'', Russian comic opera, English ballad and Savoy opera, North American operetta and musical comedy. Italian ''opera buffa'' In late 17th-century Italy, light-hearted m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nikolai Tcherepnin
Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (Russian: Николай Николаевич Черепнин; – 26 June 1945) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in Saint Petersburg and studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He conducted for the first Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. Life Nikolai Tcherepnin was born in 1873 to a well-known and wealthy physician of the same name. The elder Nikolai moved in elite circles of artists including Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Modest Mussorgsky. Young Nikolai's mother died when he was a baby, and when his father remarried, was replaced by an ambivalent stepmother. As a child, Nikolai's father beat him regularly and enforced a general code of strict discipline. At his father's insistence, Nikolai earned a law degree, though during this time he composed steadily. In 1895 he graduated with his degree in law from the University of Saint Petersburg. In 1898, he earned a degre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hopak
Hopak ( uk, гопа́к, ) is a Ukrainian folk dance originating as a male dance among the Zaporozhian Cossacks, but later danced by couples, male soloists, and mixed groups of dancers. It is performed most often as a solitary concert dance by amateur and professional Ukrainian dance ensembles, as well as other performers of folk dances. It has also been incorporated into larger artistic opuses such as operas, ballets and theatre. The hopak is often popularly referred to as the " National Dance of Ukraine" and has become very popular in Poland. There are similar folkloric dance tunes known as ''Sirmpa'' in Leros, Greece. Etymology The name ''hopak'' is derived from the verb ''hopaty'' ( uk, гопати) which means "to hop," as well as the corresponding exclamation ''hop!'' ( uk, гоп) which can be uttered during a jump as an expression of surprise or amazement. It is also referred to as gopak from the Ukrainian form. History Medieval history The Hopak developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass * woodwinds, such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, and bassoon * Brass instruments, such as the horn, trumpet, trombone, cornet, and tuba * percussion instruments, such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and mallet percussion instruments Other instruments such as the piano, harpsichord, and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone as soloist instruments, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments and guitars. A full-size Western orchestra may sometimes be called a or philharmonic orchestra (from Greek ''phil-'', "loving", and "harmony"). The actual number of musicians employ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Coates (musician)
Albert Coates (23 April 1882 – 11 December 1953) was an English conductor and composer. Born in St. Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses. He was a success in England conducting Richard Wagner, Wagner at the Royal Opera House, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1914, and in 1919 was appointed chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. His strengths as a conductor lay in opera and the Russian repertory, but he was not thought as impressive in the core Austro-German symphonic repertory. After 1923 he failed to secure a permanent conductorship in the UK, and for much of the rest of his life guest-conducted in continental Europe and the US. In his last years he conducted in South Africa, where he died at 71. As a composer, Coates is little remembered, but he composed seven operas, one of which, ''Pickw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Rosing
Vladimir Sergeyevich Rosing (russian: Владимир Серге́евич Розинг) (November 24, 1963), also known as Val Rosing, was a Russian-born operatic tenor and stage director who spent most of his professional career in the United Kingdom and the United States. In his formative years he experienced the last years of the "golden age" of opera, and he dedicated himself through his singing and directing into breathing new life into opera's outworn mannerisms and methods. Rosing was considered by many to rank as a singer and performer of the quality of Feodor Chaliapin. In ''The Perfect Wagnerite'', George Bernard Shaw called Chaliapin and Vladimir Rosing "the two most extraordinary singers of the 20th century". Vladimir Rosing's best known recordings are his performances of Russian art songs by composers such as Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Gretchaninov, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. He was the first singer to record a song by Igor Stravinsky: ''Akahito'' fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emil Cooper
Emil Albertovich Cooper (russian: Эмиль Альбертович Купер, ), also known as Emil Kuper (December 13 S December 1 1877, Kherson, Ukraine, then in Russian Empire – November 16, 1960, New York) was a Russian conductor and violinist, of English ancestry. Biography He graduated music school in Odessa, Ukraine as violinist and composer. Until 1898 he played recitals as violinist and learned conducting independently. He also studied conducting with Arthur Nikisch. In 1899, together with tenor Leonid Sobinov and bass Feodor Chaliapin, he toured Russian cities conducting opera. He conducted in many venues in Russia, Western Europe and the United States subsequently. He premiered Rimsky-Korsakov's opera ''The Golden Cockerel'' in 1909; Reinhold Glière's epic Third Symphony, ' Ilya Murometz' on 23 March 1912, Myaskovsky's gloomy and turbulent Third Symphony on April of 1914. He also conducted Rimsky-Korsakov's '' Kashchey the Immortal'' in January 1917 at the Bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuil Samosud
Samuil Abramovich Samosud (russian: Самуи́л Абра́мович Самосу́д) (Tbilisi, Georgia, — Moscow, 6 November 1964), PAU, was a Soviet and Russian conductor. He started his musical career as a cellist, before becoming a conductor at the Mariinsky Theater, Petrograd in 1917. From 1918 to 1936 he conducted at the Maly Operny, Leningrad. In 1936 he became musical director at the Bolshoi Theater, Moscow. He founded what became the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra in 1951. He premiered several important works, including Shostakovich's '' Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District'', '' The Nose'' and the Seventh Symphony; as well as Prokofiev's ''War and Peace'' and ''On Guard for Peace''. Shostakovich "had a high opinion" of Samosud's theatrical performances, and regarded him as "the supreme interpreter" of operatic works including ''Lady Macbeth''. Nonetheless, after hearing Samosud conduct the Seventh Symphony, the composer wrote that he wanted to hear Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhaylovsky Theatre
The Mikhailovsky Theatre (russian: Миха́йловский теа́тр) is one of Russia's oldest opera and ballet houses. It was founded in 1833 and is situated in a historical building on 1, Arts Square in Saint Petersburg. It is named after Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia. Since 1989, it has borne the Modest Mussorgsky name. Since 1991 it has officially been named The St Petersburg Mussorgsky State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre—Mikhailovsky Theatre. History Before 1871 The theatre was established in 1833 by decree of Tsar Nicholas I. Before the 1917 Revolution, the Mikhailovsky did not have its own resident company. Performances were given either by a French company, hired by the Russian Imperial Theatres, or at the end of the century by the Mariinsky Theatre and Alexandrinsky Theatre companies. When the Bolsheviks took power the French company was forced to leave Russia, and in 1917 the Mikhailovsky Theatre was closed. Communist era On 6 March 191 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), is the second-largest city in Russia. It is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea, with a population of roughly 5.4 million residents. Saint Petersburg is the fourth-most populous city in Europe after Istanbul, Moscow and London, the most populous city on the Baltic Sea, and the world's northernmost city of more than 1 million residents. As Russia's Imperial capital, and a historically strategic port, it is governed as a federal city. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after apostle Saint Peter. In Russia, Saint Petersburg is historically and culturally associated with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yuri Sakhnovsky
Yuri Sergeevich Sakhnovsky (russian: Ю́рий Серге́евич Сахно́вский) (1866–1930) was a Russian composer, conductor and music critic. Sakhnovsky came from a well-off family and was known as a "bon vivant (he weighed 260.lbs) handsome, brilliant and wealthy". Sakhnovsky studied chant with Stepan Vasilevich Smolensky, to whom Sergei Rachmaninoff dedicated his ''Vespers'', though Sakhnovsky later turned to a more "lush" style of choral writing.Strimple, Nick. ''Choral Music in the Twentieth Century'': p. 141. While a student Sakhnovsky took in his eight-year younger fellow student Rachmaninoff during the difficult winter when it seemed he was suffering from malaria. In later life Sakhnovsky was active more as a critic than a composer. Particularly notorious were his attacks on Alexander Scriabin's music as "decadent" from 1911-1914. His song "The Blacksmith" was recorded by Maxim Mikhailov and his song "The Clock" was recorded by Vladimir Rosing Vlad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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