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Theo Altmeyer
Theo Altmeyer (16 March 1931 – 28 July 2007) was a German classical tenor. Although he was a successful opera singer, he is chiefly remembered for his work as an oratorio soloist. He possessed a rich and lyrical voice that he employed with great expression and nuance. Biography Born in Eschweiler, Altmeyer began his performance career while still a voice student at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, where he studied under Clemens Glettenberg from 1953 to 1956. His first successes were primarily as an oratorio soloist. He was hired by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) to perform in several recordings of cantatas and other religious music. He went on to win second prize at the WDR's singing competition in 1955. In 1956, Altmeyer joined the roster of singers at the Berlin State Opera, where he sang for the next four years. While there he notably portrayed the title role in the world premiere of Humphrey Searle's ''The Diary of a Madman (opera), The Diary of a Madman''. Then starting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theo Altmeyer
Theo Altmeyer (16 March 1931 – 28 July 2007) was a German classical tenor. Although he was a successful opera singer, he is chiefly remembered for his work as an oratorio soloist. He possessed a rich and lyrical voice that he employed with great expression and nuance. Biography Born in Eschweiler, Altmeyer began his performance career while still a voice student at the Hochschule für Musik Köln, where he studied under Clemens Glettenberg from 1953 to 1956. His first successes were primarily as an oratorio soloist. He was hired by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) to perform in several recordings of cantatas and other religious music. He went on to win second prize at the WDR's singing competition in 1955. In 1956, Altmeyer joined the roster of singers at the Berlin State Opera, where he sang for the next four years. While there he notably portrayed the title role in the world premiere of Humphrey Searle's ''The Diary of a Madman (opera), The Diary of a Madman''. Then starting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Giovanni
''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; Vienna (1788) title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legend about a libertine as told by playwright Tirso de Molina in his 1630 play '' El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra''. It is a ''dramma giocoso'' blending comedy, melodrama and supernatural elements (although the composer entered it into his catalogue simply as ''opera buffa''). It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the National Theater (of Bohemia), now called the Estates Theatre, on 29 October 1787. ''Don Giovanni'' is regarded as one of the greatest operas of all time and has proved a fruitful subject for commentary in its own right; critic Fiona Maddocks has described it as one of Mozart's "trio of masterpieces with librettos by Da Ponte". Composition and premiere The opera was commissioned after the succes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival is one of the leading international festivals in the world of classical music and presents a series of classical music festivals based in Lucerne, Switzerland. Founded in 1938 by Ernest Ansermet and Walter Schulthess, it currently produces three festivals per year. Since 1999, Michael Haefliger has been its Executive and Artistic Director. Each festival features resident orchestras and soloists alongside guest performances from international ensembles and artists. The central festival takes place in summer from mid-August to mid-September and offers a widely varied range of approximately 100 concerts and related events primarily at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre (KKL) designed by Jean Nouvel. History The festival started with the so-called "Concert de Gala" in the gardens of Richard Wagner's villa at Tribschen in 1938 conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists from around Europe. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bachwoche Ansbach
The Bachwoche Ansbach (Ansbach Bach Week) is a biennial music festival in Ansbach, Germany, dedicated to the life and works of Johann Sebastian Bach, held since 1947. The main venues are the Orangerie and the great hall of the palace Residenz Ansbach, and the churches St. Johannis and St. Gumbertus. Renowned international have performed in Ansbach, including Yehudi Menuhin, Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Ludwig Hoelscher, Ferdinand Leitner and Karl Richter. In recent years, guests have included John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Ton Koopman, Andreas Staier, Martin Stadtfeld and Masaaki Suzuki. History In the first year, in 1947, the festival was held at the palace Schloss Weißenstein in Pommersfelden. In 1948, it was moved to the Ansbach and its palace. the Residenz Ansbach (also called Markgrafenschloss), where concerts were held at the Orangerie in the garden Hofgarten and in the Festsaal (Great hall). Other main venues are the churches St. Gumbertus and St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the ''Goldberg Variations'' and ''The Well-Tempered Clavier''; organ works such as the '' Schubler Chorales'' and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor; and vocal music such as the ''St Matthew Passion'' and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. The Bach family already counted several composers when Johann Sebastian was born as the last child of a city musician in Eisenach. After being orphaned at the age of 10, he lived for five years with his eldest brother Johann Christoph, after which he continued his musical education in Lüneburg. From 1703 he was back in Thuringia, working as a musician for Protestant c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Staatsoper Stuttgart
The Staatsoper Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Opera) is a German opera company based in Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Staatsorchester Stuttgart serves as its resident orchestra. History Performances of operas, ballet and plays in Stuttgart took place from the 17th century at the hall of . The probably first opera production was in 1660 the singspiel ''Der Raub der Proserpina'' by Hofkapellmeister Samuel Capricornus. Four years later, a permanent stage was established. In 1750, the building was remodeled as Stuttgart's opera house, named ''Königliches Hoftheater'' (Royal Court Theatre) in 1811. It burnt down in 1902, and opera was performed in a provisional ''Interimstheater''. Today's opera house was built from 1909 to 1912 by architect Max Littmann from Munich, with two halls, ''Großes Haus'' and ''Kleines Haus''. After the end of the monarchy in 1918, the theatres were named ''Württembergische Landestheater''. The ''Kleines Haus'', site of the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera (, ) is an opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll, and designs by Josef Hlávka. The opera house was inaugurated as the "Vienna Court Opera" (''Wiener Hofoper'') in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It became known by its current name after the establishment of the First Austrian Republic in 1921. The Vienna State Opera is the successor of the old Vienna Court Opera (built in 1636 inside the Hofburg). The new site was chosen and the construction paid by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1861. The members of the Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from the Vienna State Opera's orchestra. The building is also the home of the Vienna State Ballet, and it hosts the annual Vienna Opera Ball during the carnival season. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palestrina (opera)
''Palestrina'' is an opera by the German composer Hans Pfitzner, first performed in 1917. The composer referred to it as a ''Musikalische Legende'' (musical legend), and wrote the libretto himself, based on a legend about the Renaissance musician Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who saves the art of contrapuntal music (polyphony) for the Church in the sixteenth century through his composition of the ''Missa Papae Marcelli''. The wider context is that of the European Reformation and the role of music in relation to it. The character of Cardinal Borromeo is depicted, and a General Congress of the Council of Trent is the centrepiece of act 2. The conductor of the premiere was Bruno Walter. On 16 February 1962, the day before he died, Walter ended his last letter with: "Despite all the dark experiences of today I am still confident that ''Palestrina'' will remain. The work has all the elements of immortality". Critical appreciation Claire Taylor-Jay has discussed Pfitzner's depict ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner (5 May 1869 – 22 May 1949) was a German composer, conductor and polemicist who was a self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera ''Palestrina'' (1917), loosely based on the life of the sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and his ''Missa Papae Marcelli''. Life Pfitzner was born in Moscow where his father played cello in a theater orchestra. The family returned to his father's native town Frankfurt in 1872, when Pfitzner was two years old, he always considered Frankfurt his home town. He received early instruction in violin from his father, and his earliest compositions were composed at age 11. In 1884 he wrote his first songs. From 1886 to 1890 he studied composition with Iwan Knorr and piano with James Kwast at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt. (He later married Kwast's daughter Mimi Kwast, a granddaughter of Ferdinand Hiller, after she had rejected the advances of Percy Grainger.) He taught pi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orpheus In The Underworld
''Orpheus in the Underworld'' and ''Orpheus in Hell'' are English names for (), a comic opera with music by Jacques Offenbach and words by Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy. It was first performed as a two-act " opéra bouffon" at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens, Paris, on 21 October 1858, and was extensively revised and expanded in a four-act " opéra féerie" version, presented at the Théâtre de la Gaîté, Paris, on 7 February 1874. The opera is a lampoon of the ancient legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. In this version Orpheus is not the son of Apollo but a rustic violin teacher. He is glad to be rid of his wife, Eurydice, when she is abducted by the god of the underworld, Pluto. Orpheus has to be bullied by Public Opinion into trying to rescue Eurydice. The reprehensible conduct of the gods of Olympus in the opera was widely seen as a veiled satire of the court and government of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Some critics expressed outrage at the librettists' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera ''The Tales of Hoffmann''. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' remains part of the standard opera repertory. Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Herring
''Albert Herring'', Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten. Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera ''The Rape of Lucretia''. The libretto, by Eric Crozier, was based on Guy de Maupassant's novella '' Le Rosier de Madame Husson'', with the action transposed to an English setting. Composition history After having composed and staged ''The Rape of Lucretia'', Britten decided he should attempt a comedy, preferably set in England.Nigel Douglas. "Some personal memories of Benjamin Britten, the English Opera Group and ''Albert Herring''". Booklet note to Nimbus NI 5824/6 (2008). Crozier suggested adapting the Maupassant short story ''Le rosier de Madame Husson'' and transplanting it to the Suffolk landscape already familiar to Britten from his home in Snape. Britten composed ''Albert Herring'' at his home, The Old Mill at Snape, in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947. He scored the oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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