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The Prodigal Son (cantata)
''The Prodigal Son'' is an oratorio by Arthur Sullivan with text taken from the Parable of the Prodigal Son, parable of the same name in the Gospel of Luke. It features chorus with soprano, contralto, tenor and Bass (voice type), bass solos. It premiered in Worcester Cathedral on 10 September 1869 as part of the Three Choirs Festival.Howarth, Paul"''The Prodigal Son'': Historical Note" The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 16 September 2003, accessed 18 September 2017 The work was Sullivan's first oratorio, and it was the first sacred music setting of this parable, preceding Claude Debussy's 1884 cantata ''L'enfant prodigue'' and Sergei Prokofiev's 1929 ballet ''The Prodigal Son (ballet), The Prodigal Son'', Op. 46. Background Sullivan was still in his 20s when he composed this piece, which, like many of Sullivan's early works, shows the strong musical influence of Felix Mendelssohn. A rising star of British music, he had already produced his popular incidental music to William Sha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zelia Trebelli-Bettini
Zelia Trebelli-Bettini (1836–1892) also known as Zelia Gilbert or by her stage name Trebelli, was a French operatic mezzo-soprano. Born in Paris, she died in Etretat. Mme Trebelli's artistry was greatly admired by George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ..., who wrote about her a number of times in his various reviews. In particular, he admired her interpretations and her exemplary English diction, rare for a non-native English speaker. Her daughter Antonia (originally Antoinette) Dolores Trebelli (c. 1864 – ) was a distinguished soprano, and as "Mademoiselle Dolores" was well received in Australia and New Zealand. References External linksPhotograph of the singer, accessed 3 June 2008 Gallery File:Zelia Trebelli AEhrlichSängerinnen1895.jpg, Z ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thérèse Tietjens
Thérèse Carolina Johanne Alexandra Tietjens (17 July 1831, Hamburg3 October 1877, London) was a leading opera and oratorio soprano. She made her career chiefly in London during the 1860s and 1870s, but her sequence of musical triumphs in the British capital was terminated by cancer. During her prime, her powerful yet agile voice was said to span seamlessly a range of three octaves. Many opera historians consider her to have been the finest dramatic soprano of the second half of the 19th century. Hamburg, Vienna, Frankfurt She was of German birth but, according to some sources, Hungarian extraction. Tietjens received her vocal training in Hamburg and in Vienna. She studied with Heinrich Proch, who was also the teacher of Mme Peschka-Leutner and other ''prime donne''. She made a successful debut at Hamburg in 1849 as Lucrezia Borgia in Donizetti's opera, a work with which she was particularly associated all her professional life. She sang in Frankfurt from 1850 to 1856 an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical break ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the '' Belle Époque'' era of Continental Europe. There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists and the evangelical wing of the established Church of England. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period, and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even mysticism in religion, social values, and arts. This era saw a staggering amount of technological innovations that proved key to Britain's power and prosperity. Doctors started moving away from tradition and mysticism towards a science-based approach; medicine advanced thanks to the adoption ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Contrabandista
''The Contrabandista'', ''or The Law of the Ladrones'', is a two-act comic opera by Arthur Sullivan and F. C. Burnand. It premiered at St. George's Hall, in London, on 18 December 1867 under the management of Thomas German Reed, for a run of 72 performances. There were brief revivals in Manchester in 1874 and America in 1880. In 1894, it was revised into a new opera, ''The Chieftain'', with a completely different second act. The piece was the first of Sullivan's full-length operas that was produced. It was not a great success, with Burnand's libretto receiving criticism, but its music exhibits many of the qualities and techniques that Sullivan would employ in composing his twenty further comic operas, including the famous series of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas produced between 1871 and 1896. Background In 1866, F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan, then 24 years old, wrote the one-act comic opera ''Cox and Box'' for a private performance at Moray Lodge, where a group of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cox And Box
''Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers'', is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce '' Box and Cox'' by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two lodgers, one who works at night and one who works during the day. When one of them has the day off, they meet each other in the room and tempers flare. Sullivan wrote this piece five years before his first opera with W. S. Gilbert, '' Thespis''. The piece premiered in 1866 and was seen a few times at charity benefits in 1867. Once given a professional production in 1869, it became popular, running for 264 performances and enjoying many revivals and further charity performances. During the 20th century, it was frequently played by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in an abridged version, as a curtain raiser for the shorter Gilbert and Sullivan operas. It has been played by numerous pr ... [...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] |
L'Île Enchantée
''L'Île Enchantée'' (literally, The Enchanted Island) is an 1864 ballet by Arthur Sullivan written as a divertissement at the end of Vincenzo Bellini's ''La Sonnambula'' at Covent Garden. It was choreographed by H. Desplaces."Arthur Sullivan – ''L'Île Enchantée'': ballet in one act, "Procession March", "Day Dreams", ''The Sapphire Necklace'': Overture Dutton Vocalion (2022) Nick Barnard wrote for MusicWeb International: Penny understands the Sullivan idiom ... but this new performance edges it out. ... In the intervening years Sullivan’s original score has been found allowing a couple of brief extra movements to be reinstated and generally a more critical edition of the score to be created. ... The Dutton recording is in their undemonstratively sophisticated SACD sound made in the generous acoustic of the Watford Colosseum. The playing from both orchestras is neat and nimble but the BBC players are given more of an opportunity to shine. ... Conductor John Andrews sensibl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Masque At Kenilworth
''Kenilworth, A Masque of the Days of Queen Elizabeth'' (commonly referred to as "The Masque at Kenilworth"), is a cantata with music by Arthur Sullivan and words by Henry Fothergill Chorley (with an extended Shakespeare quotation) that premiered at the Birmingham Festival on 8 September 1864. In 1575, Queen Elizabeth visited Robert Dudley at Kenilworth Castle, where he presented her with lavish entertainments over a period of 19 days in an attempt to persuade her to marry him. This piece attempts to recreate the sort of masque that might have been performed for the queen's pleasure. The text is based partly on the description of the queen's visit in the 1821 novel ''Kenilworth'', by Sir Walter Scott and on other contemporary accounts and fiction. Background ''Kenilworth'' is one of Arthur Sullivan's earliest choral works, coming only three years after he completed his studies. Early in 1862, the critic Henry Fothergill Chorley, who served on the committee that had awarded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overture In C, "In Memoriam"
The Overture in C, "In Memoriam", by Arthur Sullivan, premiered on 30 October 1866 at the Norwich Festival, in honour of his father, who died just before composition began. The piece was written early in Sullivan's career, before he began to work with his famous collaborator, W. S. Gilbert, on their series of Savoy Operas. The sombre piece was well received. It was first published by Novello almost twenty years later, in 1885. Background and history In late 1864, Sullivan received commissions to write overtures for the Philharmonic Society of London and the Norwich Festival. The first was to be based on Sir Walter Scott's poem '' Marmion'', but the second had no theme assigned. Inspiration for the Norwich Festival commission came with the sudden death of Sullivan's father in September, 1866. Sullivan turned his grief to the completion of this overture. The work was premiered in Norwich, conducted by Julius Benedict. It was well received; the reviewer in ''The Observer'' wrote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
