|
The Santa Fe Opera
Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of . The company has presented operas each summer festival season since July 1957, and is internationally known for introducing new operas as well as for its productions of the standard operatic repertoire. Since its inception, Santa Fe Opera has staged 43 American premieres and 15 world premieres, as of 2017. General history John Crosby, who was a New York-based conductor, founded the company in 1956, initially with the financial support of his parents, who helped in the acquisition of the land and the building of the first opera house. One goal was to give American singers the opportunity to learn and perform new roles while having ample time for rehearsal and preparation in the context of a summer fes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kenneth Montgomery
Kenneth Montgomery OBE (born 1943, in Belfast) is a British conductor. The only child of Lily and Tom Montgomery, his upbringing was in Wandsworth Parade and he attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. His musical studies were at the Royal College of Music. He studied with Sir Adrian Boult, and later continued to study conducting with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt, Sergiu Celibidache, and Sir John Pritchard. His early conducting engagements included work at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, as an assistant conductor, assistant choral conductor and rehearsal pianist. He later served on the conducting staff at Sadler's Wells Opera. In 1973, Montgomery became music director of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He was music director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera from 1975 to 1976, and has continued with the ensemble as a guest conductor. In 1985, he became both artistic and musical director of Opera Northern Ireland. With the Ulster Orchestra, Montgomery served as its Principal Guest C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Letter (opera)
''The Letter'' is an opera by composer Paul Moravec and librettist Terry Teachout. It was commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera and was premiered there on 25 July 2009. The opera is based on '' The Letter'', a 1927 play adapted by W. Somerset Maugham from one of his short stories. The play has been filmed twice. The first version, called '' The Letter'', was made in 1929 and starred Jeanne Eagels. The better-known 1940 version, also called '' The Letter'', starred Bette Davis and Herbert Marshall and was directed by William Wyler. The inspiration for Maugham's story and his subsequent play came from a real-life event which took place in Kuala Lumpur in Malaya in April 1911. Development of the opera The collaboration Both Moravec and Teachout made their operatic debuts with ''The Letter''. Teachout began writing the libretto in November 2006 and started posting an ongoing account of the opera's genesis and development on his blogAbout Last Night when the commission was announced b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adriana Mater
''Adriana Mater'' is the second opera by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, with a libretto in French by her frequent collaborator, Amin Maalouf. The Opéra National de Paris and the Finnish National Opera jointly commissioned the opera. It received its world premiere at the Opéra Bastille on 3 April 2006 in a production directed by Peter Sellars. The production was dedicated to Gerard Mortier, Artistic Director of the Paris Opera. The opera's Finnish premiere took place on 23 February 2008 in Helsinki. The opera received its UK premiere in a concert performance on 24 April 2008 and its US premiere took place at the Santa Fe Opera on 26 July 2008 with the singers Monica Groop Gerd Monica Groop née Riska (born 14 April 1958 in Helsinki) is a Finnish operatic mezzo-soprano. After graduating from the Sibelius Academy, she joined the Finnish National Opera in 1986 where she remains a member. She has sung leading roles a ... and Pia Freund in their roles of the Finnish premi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaija Saariaho
Kaija Anneli Saariaho (; ; born 14 October 1952) is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer. Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg, and Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Her research at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) marked a turning point in her music away from strict serialism towards spectralism. Her characteristically rich, polyphonic textures are often created by combining live music and electronics. Life and work Saariaho was born in Helsinki, Finland. She studied at the Sibelius Academy under Paavo Hein ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Mirror Of Soul
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The uppercase version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar. The lowercase version can be written in two forms: the double-storey a and single-storey ɑ. The latter is commonly used in handwriting and fonts based on it, especially fonts intended to be read by children, and is also found in italic type. In English grammar, " a", and its variant " an", are indefinite articles. History The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also written 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet, which consisted entirely of consonants (for that reason, it is also called an abjad to distinguish it f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tan Dun
Tan Dun (, ; born 18 August 1957) is a Chinese-born American composer and conductor. A leading figure of contemporary classical music, he draws from a variety of Western and Chinese influences, a dichotomy which has shaped much of his life and music. Having collaborated with leading orchestras around the world, Tan is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Grawemeyer Award for his opera ''Marco Polo'' (1996) and both an Academy Award and Grammy Award for his film score in Ang Lee's ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'' (2000). His ''oeuvre'' as a whole includes operas, orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo and film scores, as well as genres that Tan terms "organic music" and "music ritual." Born in Hunan, China, Tan grew up during the Cultural Revolution and received musical education from the Central Conservatory of Music. His early influences included both Chinese music and 20th-century classical music. Since receiving a DMA from Columbia University in 1993, Tan has be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tempest (opera)
''The Tempest'' is an opera by English composer Thomas Adès with a libretto in English by Meredith Oakes based on the play '' The Tempest'' by William Shakespeare. Background and premiere performances Following the success of '' Powder Her Face'', The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, commissioned a new opera from Adès in the late 1990s. Working with a librettist, a poetic version of the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 was prepared, but the composer found it impossible to set it to music. Finally, the libretto he needed emerged from a collaboration with Meredith Oakes. The new opera became a co-production with the Copenhagen Opera House and the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg. ''The Tempest'' received its world premiere to critical acclaim at the Royal Opera House in London on 10 February 2004. Other productions followed in Strasbourg and Copenhagen later in 2005 and the opera was given its US premiere staging by the Santa Fe Opera on 29 July 2006. Performance history Covent Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Adès
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès (born 1 March 1971) is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: '' The Tempest'' (2004), ''Violin Concerto'' (2005), ''Tevot'' (2007), ''In Seven Days'' (2008), and ''Polaris'' (2010). Biography Adès was born in London to art historian Dawn Adès and poet Timothy Adès. His surname is of Syrian Jewish origin. Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. After attending University College School, he achieved a double starred first in 1992 at King's College, Cambridge, studying with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. He was made Britten Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, and in 2004 was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex. In 2006, Adès entered a civil partnership, later terminated, with Israeli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daphne (opera)
''Daphne'', Op. 82, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, subtitled "Bucolic Tragedy in One Act". The German libretto was by Joseph Gregor. The opera is based loosely on the mythological figure Daphne from Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' and includes elements taken from ''The Bacchae'' by Euripides. Performance history The first performance of the opera took place at the Semperoper in Dresden on 15 October 1938. It was originally intended as a double bill with Strauss' ''Friedenstag'', but as the scale of ''Daphne'' grew, that idea was abandoned. The conductor of the first performance was Karl Böhm, to whom the opera was dedicated. The United States premiere of the opera was performed on October 10, 1960 in a concert version at Town Hall in Manhattan with Gloria Davy in the title role, Florence Kopleff as Gaea, Robert Nagy as Leukippos, Jon Crain as Apollo, Lawrence Davidson as Peneios, and The Little Orchestra Society under conductor Thomas Scherman. Roles Synopsis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. Strauss's compositional output began in 1870 when he was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. While his output of works encompasses nearly every type of classical compositional form, Strauss achieved his greatest success with tone poems and operas. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was '' Don Juan'', and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including '' Death and Transfiguration'', '' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks'', '' Also sprach Zarathustra'', '' Don Quixote'', ''Ein Heldenl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera (, ) is the primary opera and ballet company of France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the , and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and officially renamed the , but continued to be known more simply as the . Classical ballet as it is known today arose within the Paris Opera as the Paris Opera Ballet and has remained an integral and important part of the company. Currently called the , it mainly produces operas at its modern 2,723-seat theatre Opéra Bastille which opened in 1989, and ballets and some classical operas at the older 1,979-seat Palais Garnier which opened in 1875. Small scale and contemporary works are also staged in the 500-seat Amphitheatre under the Opéra Bastille. The company's annual budget is in the order of 200 million euros, of which €100M come from the French state and €70M from box office receipts. With this money, the company runs the two houses and supports a large permanent st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
