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The Makropulos Affair (opera)
''The Makropulos Affair'' (or ''The Makropoulos Case'', ''The Makropulos Secret'', or, literally, ''The Makropulos Thing''; Czech ''Věc Makropulos'') is a Czech opera in 3 acts, with music and libretto by Leoš Janáček. Janáček based his opera on the play ''Věc Makropulos'' by Karel Čapek. Composed between 1923 and 1925, ''The Makropulos Affair'' was his penultimate opera and, like much of his later work, was inspired by his infatuation with Kamila Stösslová, a married woman much younger than himself. The opera received its world premiere at the National Theatre in Brno on 18 December 1926, conducted by František Neumann. Composition history Janáček had seen the play early in its run in Prague on 10 December 1922, and immediately saw its potential as an opera. He entered into a correspondence with Čapek, who was accommodating towards the idea, although legal problems in securing the rights to the play delayed work. When these problems were cleared on 10 September 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European folk music, to create an original, modern musical style.Sehnal and Vysloužil (2001), p. 175 Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research. While his early musical output was influenced by contemporaries such as Antonín Dvořák, his later, mature works incorporate his earlier studies of national folk music in a modern, highly original synthesis, first evident in the opera ''Jenůfa'', which was premiered in 1904 in Brno. The success of ''Jenůfa'' (often called the "Moravian national opera") at Prague in 1916 gave Janáček access to the world's great opera stages. Janáček's later works are his most celebrated. They include operas such as ''Káťa Kabanová'' and ''The Cunning Little Vixen'', the Sinfonietta, the ''Glag ... [...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] |
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The BBC SO is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The orchestra was originally conceived in 1928 as a joint enterprise by the BBC and the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, but the latter withdrew the next year and the task of assembling and training the orchestra fell to the BBC's director of music, Adrian Boult. Among its guest conductors in its first years was Arturo Toscanini, who judged it the finest orchestra he had ever conducted. During and after the Second World War, Boult strove to maintain standards, but the senior management of the post-war BBC did not allocate the orchestra the resources to meet competition from new and well-funded rivals. After Boult's retirement from the BBC in 1950, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no government funding. It can seat 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres have appeared on its stage. It is the venue for the BBC Proms concerts, which have been held there every summer since 1941. It is host to more than 390 shows in the main auditorium annually, including classical, rock and pop concerts, ballet, opera, film screenings with live orchestral accompaniment, sports, awards ceremonies, school and community events, and charity performances and banquets. A further 400 events are held each year in the non-auditorium spaces. Over its 151 year history the hall has hosted people from various fields, including meetings by Suffragettes, speeches from Winston Churchi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an annual opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England. History Under the supervision of the Christie family, the festival has been held annually since 1934, except in 1941–45 during World War II and 1993 when the theatre was being rebuilt, for a 1994 reopening. Gus Christie, son of Sir George Christie and grandson of festival founder John Christie, became festival chairman in 2000. Since the company's inception, Glyndebourne has been particularly celebrated for its productions of Mozart operas. Recordings of Glyndebourne's past historic Mozart productions have been reissued. Other notable productions included their 1980s production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'', directed by Trevor Nunn, and later expanded from the Glyndebourne stage and videotaped in 1993 for television, with Nunn again directing. While Mozart operas have continued to be the mainstay of its repertory, the compa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. The Proms were founded in 1895, and are now organised and broadcast by the BBC. Each season consists of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, chamber music concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the UK on the Last Night of the Proms, and associated educational and children's events. The season is a significant event in British culture and in classical music. Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as "the world's largest and most democratic musical festival". ''Prom'' is short for ''promenade concert'', a term which originally referred to outdoor concerts in London's pleasure gardens, where the audience was free to stroll around while the orchestra was playing. In the conte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Von Dohnányi
Oliver von Dohnányi (born 2 March 1955) is a Slovaks, Slovak conducting, conductor based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is currently serving as the music director of the Ural Opera House in Yekaterinburg, Yekaterinburg, Russia. Dohnányi was born in Trenčín, Czechoslovakia (now in Slovakia) and studied violin, Musical composition, composition and conducting at the Prague Academy for Music under Václav Neumann and the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under Otmar Suitner. He made his conducting debut in 1979 with the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra in Bratislava.Slovak National TheatreOliver Dohnányi/ref> Previously, Dohnányi served as the music director of the National Theatre (Prague), Czech National Theatre in Prague, Intendent/Artistic Director of the Opera of the Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava, Intendent/Artistic Director of the Opera of the Moravian-Silesian National Theatre in Ostrava, and principal co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Theatre (Brno)
The National Theatre Brno ( cs, Národní divadlo Brno) is an opera, ballet and drama company in the Czech Republic, that nation's second busiest. It was established in 1884 on the model of the National Theatre company in Prague. Today it runs the biennial Janáček Festival, in November, and has three venues: * Janáček Theatre, the largest, completed in 1965 * Mahen Theatre, originally the German-language Theatre on the Walls, with some 700 seats; finished in 1882; first theatre on the Continent with electric lighting (designed by Thomas Alva Edison himself); site of the premieres of Janáček's greatest operas * Reduta Theatre, the oldest theatre house in Central Europe, recently reconstructed; in December 1767 the twelve-year-old 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 rapi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Sadnik
Roman Sadnik (born 26 February 1963) is an Austrian operatic tenor. Life Born in Vienna,Roman Sadnik Salzburg Festival 2015 Sadnik first trained as an actor before deciding to become a singer. He studied voice at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Walter Berry (bass-baritone), Walter Berry. He then took private lessons from Hugh Beresford. He was engaged by the opera studio of the Vienna State Opera at the beginning of the 1989/90 season. In November 1989, he took part in the world premiere of the opera ''Die Blinden'' by Beat Furrer. In April/May 1990, he sang at the Vienna State Opera in Bernd Alois Zimmermann's ''Die Soldaten''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gabriela Beňačková
Gabriela Beňačková also Gabriela Beňačková-Čápová (born 25 March 1947) is a Slovak lyric soprano. Life and career Beňačková was born in Bratislava. Her father Antonín was a lawyer, and her mother Elena was a housewife. She is the younger sister of television presenter Nora Beňačková. In her young age she had been involved in ballet lessons, children's choir of Czechoslovakian Radio, and learned singing and piano at school. Beňačková specializes in the music of her Slovak compatriots, particularly Eugen Suchoň, as well as Czech composers, notably Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček. She is considered to be one of the greatest 'Jenůfa's' in Janáček's opera of the same name. Her Carnegie Hall performance, and subsequent Metropolitan Opera run with Leonie Rysanek, are considered to be legendary. In 1981, Czechoslovakian television starred Ms Beňačková in a definitive version of ''Prodaná nevěsta'' (The Bartered Bride) by Bedřich ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Versalle
Richard Lee Versalle (3 December 1932 – 5 January 1996) was an American operatic tenor. Life and career Richard Versalle was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan on December 3, 1932. After serving in the Submarines in the United States Navy, submarine branch of the US Navy, he worked in business while studying singing. He was initially known as a concert and oratorio singer and did not make his operatic stage debut until the age of 45 when he sang Augustin Moser in ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' at Chicago Lyric Opera. He specialized in the heroic tenor roles such as the title role in ''Otello'', Florestan in ''Fidelio'', Tristan in ''Tristan und Isolde'', and most notably the title role in ''Tannhäuser (opera), Tannhäuser'', which made him a sought after Tenor, who performed regularly at the Bayreuth Festspiele in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1989, as well as in Genoa, Tokyo, Vienna, Bonn, Sydney, Pittsburg, Chicago, and the Met. Versalle made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 8 De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenor
A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is widely defined to be B2, though some roles include an A2 (two As below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the ''leggero'' tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or . History The name "tenor" derives from the Latin word ''wikt:teneo#Latin, tenere'', which means "to hold". As Fallows, Jander, Forbes, Steane, Harris and Waldman note in the "Tenor" article at ''Grove Music Online'': In polyphony between about 1250 and 1500, the [tenor was the] structurally fundamental (or 'holding') voice, vocal or instrumental; by the 15th century it came to signify the male voice that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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