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The State Opera
The State Opera (Czech: Státní opera) is an opera house in Prague, Czech Republic. It is part of the National Theatre of the Czech Republic, founded by Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic in 1992. The theatre itself originally opened in 1888 as the New German Theatre and from 1949 to 1989 it was known as the Smetana Theatre. More recently it was renamed the Prague State Opera. Currently it is home to approximately 300 performances a year. History New German Theatre The history of the theatre currently known as the Prague State Opera dates back to the late 19th century. While often overshadowed by the more prominent National Theatre of Prague, the company has its own distinct history. The birth of a magnificent Czech Theatre, the National Theatre, in 1883 indirectly created a longing among the Prague German community for a German-speaking opera house of its own. At that time the Czech lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and there was a large German minor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angelo Neumann
Josef Angelo Neumann (18 August 1838 – 20 December 1910) was a German operatic baritone and theater director. First a baritone at major opera houses in Europe, including the Vienna Imperial Opera, he was the managing director of the Leipzig Opera and the Estates Theatre in Prague. He is known as an early promoter of the stage works by Richard Wagner, namely the ''Ring'' cycle, which he presented with the sets and costumes of the world premiere at the Bayreuth Festival, first in Leipzig and then on a European tour. Life Neumann was born in Stampfen. He developed his interest in singing at an early age and received training as an opera singer. After engagements as a baritone in Berlin, Cologne, Krakow, Ödenburg, Bratislava and Gdansk, he came to the Vienna Imperial Opera in 1862, where he remained active until 1876. During these years he made his first acquaintance with Richard Wagner and his work. With his first wife Pauline Aurelie, ''née'' von Mihalovits, he had a son, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Baum
Kurt Baum (March 15, 1900 – December 27, 1989) was an Austria-Hungary born American operatic tenor. He is best remembered for his 25 seasons spent with the Metropolitan Opera, between 1941 and 1966. Life and career Born ethnic German-Jewish in Cologne on March 15, 1900, Kurt Baum attended high school in Cologne, Germany where his father did business and attended medical school at the University of Prague. Robust and athletic, Baum was at one time the amateur heavyweight boxing champion of Czechoslovakia and member of Max Schmeling's Sports Club in Cologne. Baum never considered a career in music until a friend urged him to study music after hearing him sing a German drinking song at a party. In 1933, he dropped out of medical school and began attending the Music Academy of Berlin where he studied for less than a year. In 1933 Baum won first prize at the Vienna International Singing Competition, and his operatic début came in the same year in Zurich in Zemlinsky's '' Der K ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Hotter
Hans Hotter (19 January 19096 December 2003) was a German operatic bass-baritone. He stood 6 ft 4 in and his appearance was striking. His voice and diction were equally recognisable. Early life and career Born in Offenbach am Main, Hesse, Hotter studied with Matthäus Roemer in Munich. He worked as an organist and choirmaster before making his operatic debut in Opava in 1930. He performed in Germany and Austria under the Nazi regime, avoiding pressure on performers to join the Nazi Party, and made some appearances outside the country, including concerts under the baton of Bruno Walter in Amsterdam, who advised him that if Hotter could not leave his family members he had little alternative but to remain in Germany. Hotter was unable to pursue an international career until his Covent Garden debut in 1947. After that, he sang in all the major opera houses of Europe. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut as the title character in ''Der fliegende Holländer'' in 1950. In four sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Piccaver
Alfred Piccaver (5 February 1884 – 23 September 1958) was a British-American operatic tenor. He was particularly noted for his performances as Rodolfo in Giacomo Puccini's ''La bohème'' and other popular mainstream operatic roles. Early years Piccaver was born on 5 February 1884 in the Lincolnshire town of Long Sutton to chemist Frederick Herman Piccaver (1864 - 17 February 1916) and his wife Sarah Ann Sissons. The Piccavers had been farm laborers, but there were also claims of Spanish ancestry dating back to the Spanish Armada. At a young age, Alfred emigrated with his family to the United States of America. The family resettled in Albany, NY and took American citizenship. Frederick Piccaver worked as head brewer of the Beverwyck Brewery. Alfred joined the choir of Albany's St. Peter's Episcopal Church as a boy soprano. He also became a soloist at the North Reformed Church in Watervliet. The young Piccaver went on to study voice with S. Graham Nobbes, who had been chief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Klemperer
Otto Nossan Klemperer (14 May 18856 July 1973) was a 20th-century conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the US, Hungary and finally Britain. His early career was in opera houses, but he was later better known as a concert-hall conductor. A protégé of the composer Gustav Mahler, Klemperer was appointed to a succession of increasingly senior conductorships in opera houses in and around Germany. From 1929 to 1931 he was director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin, where he presented new works and avant-garde productions of classics. The rise of the Nazis caused him to leave Germany in 1933, and shortly afterwards he was appointed chief conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and guest-conducted other American orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic and later the Pittsburgh Symphony, which he reorganised as a permanent ensemble. In the late 1930s Klemperer became ill with a brain tumour. An operation to remove it was succe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erich Kleiber
Erich Kleiber (5 August 1890 – 27 January 1956) was an Austrian, later Argentine, conductor, known for his interpretations of the classics and as an advocate of new music. Kleiber was born in Vienna, and after studying at the Prague Conservatory, he followed the traditional route for an aspiring conductor in German-speaking countries of the time, starting as a répétiteur in an opera house and moving into conducting in increasingly senior positions. After holding posts in Darmstadt (1912), Barmen-Elberfeld (1919), Düsseldorf (1921) and Mannheim (1922) he was appointed in 1923 to the important post of musical director of the Berlin State Opera. In Berlin, Kleiber's scrupulous musicianship and enterprising programming won him a high reputation, but after the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, he resigned in protest against its oppressive policies, and left the country, basing himself and his family in Buenos Aires. For the rest of his career he was a freelance, guest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georg Széll
George Szell (; June 7, 1897 – July 30, 1970), originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is widely considered one of the twentieth century's greatest conductors. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra of Cleveland, Ohio, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected if undersized orchestra, which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument." Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra. Whil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Zemlinsky
Alexander Zemlinsky or Alexander von Zemlinsky (14 October 1871 – 15 March 1942) was an Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher. Biography Early life Zemlinsky was born in Vienna to a highly diverse family. Zemlinsky's grandfather, Anton Semlinski, emigrated from Žilina, Hungary (now in Slovakia) to Austria and married an Austrian woman. Both were from staunchly Roman Catholic families, and Alexander's father, Adolf, was raised as a Catholic. Alexander's mother was born in Sarajevo to a Sephardic Jewish father and a Bosniak mother. Alexander's entire family converted to the religion of his maternal grandfather, Judaism, and Zemlinsky was born and raised Jewish. His father added an aristocratic "von" to his name, though neither he nor his forebears were ennobled. He also began spelling his surname "Zemlinszky". He was also a freemason. Alexander studied the piano from a young age. He played the organ in his synagogue on holidays, and was admitted to the Vienna Conser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Adler
Kurt Adler (March 1, 1907September 21, 1977) was an Austrian classical chorus master, music conductor, author and pianist. He was best known as the chorus master and lead conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1943 to 1973. He conducted in Austria, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, United States, Canada, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. Early life Kurt Adler was born in Jindřichův Hradec/Neuhaus, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), during the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a bourgeois Jewish family. He was the only child of Siegfried Adler (born June 26, 1876 in Luka u Jihlavy, Bohemia), a textile factory owner, and Olga (Fürth) Adler (born April 3, 1882 in Sušice/Schüttenhofen, Bohemia (now Czech Republic).From the Metropolitan Opera Association, Inc., New York Press Bureau Artist's Questionnaire, Nov. 13, 1945 Both parents were murdered by the Gestapo during World War II, after they were deported to Izbica concentration camp, which s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pavel Ludikar
Pavel Ludikar (3 March 1882 – 19 February 1970) was a Czech operatic bass who had a highly successful international singing career from 1904 through 1944. He began his career in his native country and by 1911 had arisen at many of the major opera houses in Europe. From 1913 to 1935 his career was mainly centered in North and South America. The peak of his opera career was reached at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, where he was committed from 1926 to 1932. He returned to Europe in 1935 to assume directorship of the Neues deutsches Theatre in Prague, remaining there until the theatre was closed in September 1938 due to Nazi occupation, effectively ending his stage career. The height of his later years in Prague was his portrayal of the title hero in the world premiere of Ernst Krenek's '' Karl V'' in June 1938. One of the great singer-actors of his generation, Ludikar sang a broad repertoire of music which encompassed a total of twelve languages. He was particularly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Eger
Paul may refer to: * Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Christian missionary and writer * Pope Paul (other), multiple Popes of the Roman Catholic Church * Saint Paul (other), multiple other people and locations named "Saint Paul" Roman and Byzantine empire * Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus (c. 229 BC – 160 BC), Roman general * Julius Paulus Prudentissimus (), Roman jurist * Paulus Catena (died 362), Roman notary * Paulus Alexandrinus (4th century), Hellenistic astrologer * Paul of Aegina or Paulus Aegineta (625–690), Greek surgeon Royals *Paul I of Russia (1754–1801), Tsar of Russia * Paul of Greece (1901–1964), King of Greece Other people *Paul the Deacon or Paulus Diaconus (c. 720 – c. 799), Italian Benedictine monk * Paul (father of Maurice), the father of Mau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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