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Violeta Urmana
Violeta Urmanavičiūtė-Urmana (born 19 August 1961) is a Lithuanian opera singer who has sung leading mezzo-soprano and soprano roles in the opera houses of Europe and North America. Life and career Urmana was born in Kazlų Rūda, a small town in Lithuania's Marijampolė County. She studied piano and singing at the Lithuania Academy of Music and Theater in Vilnius and continued her vocal studies in Munich at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Josef Loibl. Between 1991 and 1993, she was a member the Bavarian State Opera's Opera Studio program for young singers where she studied under Astrid Varnay and would begin her stage career at the opera house. Urmana originally sang mezzo-soprano roles but from 2001 began singing dramatic soprano roles. She sang Madeleine di Coigny in '' Andrea Chénier'' at the Vienna State Opera in 2003, Isolde in ''Tristan und Isolde'' in Rome in 2004 and Leonora in ''La forza del destino'' in London that same year. She is married to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iphigénie En Aulide
''Iphigénie en Aulide'' (''Iphigeneia in Aulis'') is an opera in three acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck, the first work he wrote for the Paris stage. The libretto was written by François-Louis Gand Le Bland Du Roullet and was based on Jean Racine's tragedy ''Iphigénie'', itself based on the play ''Iphigenia in Aulis'' by Euripides. It was premiered on 19 April 1774 by the Paris Opéra in the second Salle du Palais-Royal and revived in a slightly revised version the following year. A German version was made in 1847 by Richard Wagner, with significant alterations. Performance history At first, ''Iphigénie'' was not popular, except for its overture which was applauded generously.Pitou, p. 288 After the premiere, it was billed for three days in April 1774, but its first run was interrupted by the theatre's six-week closure due to the dying of Louis XV. ''Iphigénie en Aulide'' returned to the theatre on 10 January 1775, and was revived annually from 1776 to 1824 with a few e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Carlos
''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Friedrich Schiller. In addition, several incidents, of which the Forest of Fontainebleau scene and ''auto-da-fé'' were the most substantial, were borrowed from Eugène Cormon's 1846 play ''Philippe II, Roi d'Espagne''. The opera is most often performed in Italian translation, usually under the title ''Don Carlo''. The opera's story is based on conflicts in the life of Carlos, Prince of Asturias (1545–1568). Though he was betrothed to Elisabeth of Valois, part of the peace treaty ending the Italian War of 1551–59 between the Houses of Habsburg and Valois demanded that she be married instead to his father Philip II of Spain. It was commissioned and produced by the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra ( Paris Opera) and given its premiere at the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siegfried (opera)
''Siegfried'' (), WWV 86C, is the third of the four music dramas that constitute ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' (''The Ring of the Nibelung''), by Richard Wagner. It premiered at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of ''The Ring'' cycle. Background and context The libretto of ''Siegfried'' was drafted by Wagner in November–December 1852, based on an earlier version he had prepared in May–June 1851 and originally entitled ''Jung-Siegfried'' (''Young Siegfried''), later changed to ''Der junge Siegfried''. The musical composition was commenced in 1856, but not finally completed until 1871.Millington, (n.d.) The libretto arose from Wagner's gradual reconception of the project he had initiated with his libretto ''Siegfrieds Tod'' (''Siegfried's Death'') which was eventually to be incarnated as ''Götterdämmerung'', the final section of the Ring cycle. Having grappled with his text for ''Siegfrieds Tod'', and indeed having under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariadne Auf Naxos
(''Ariadne on Naxos''), Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work's principal themes: the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. First version (1912) The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.'' Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. It was first performed at the Hoftheater Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Un Ballo In Maschera
''Un ballo in maschera'' ''(A Masked Ball)'' is an 1859 opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The text, by Antonio Somma, was based on Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's 1833 five act opera, '' Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué''. The plot concerns the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden who was shot, as the result of a political conspiracy, while attending a masked ball, dying of his wounds thirteen days later. It was to take over two years between the commission from Naples, planned for a production there, and its premiere performance at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 17 February 1859. In becoming the ''Un ballo in maschera'' which we know today, Verdi's opera (and his libretto) underwent a significant series of transformations and title changes, caused by a combination of censorship regulations in both Naples and Rome, as well as by the political situation in France in January 1858. Based on the Scribe libretto and begun as ''Gustavo III'' set in Stockho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Il Trovatore
''Il trovatore'' ('The Troubadour') is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto largely written by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play ''El trovador'' (1836) by Antonio García Gutiérrez. It was García Gutiérrez's most successful play, one which Verdi scholar Julian Budden describes as "a high flown, sprawling melodrama flamboyantly defiant of the Aristotelian unities, packed with all manner of fantastic and bizarre incident." The premiere took place at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 19 January 1853, where it "began a victorious march throughout the operatic world," a success due to Verdi's work over the previous three years. It began with his January 1850 approach to Cammarano with the idea of ''Il trovatore''. There followed, slowly and with interruptions, the preparation of the libretto, first by Cammarano until his death in mid-1852 and then with the young librettist Leone Emanuele Bardare, which gave the composer the opportunity to propose signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aida
''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, ''Aida'' has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera. Elements of the opera's genesis and sources Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write an opera to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but Verdi declined. However, Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, proposed to Khedive Pasha a plot for a celebratory ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gurre-Lieder
' is a large cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen (translated from Danish to German by ). The title means "songs of Gurre", referring to Gurre Castle in Denmark, scene of the medieval love-tragedy (related in Jacobsen's poems) revolving around the Danish national legend of the love of the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag (Valdemar IV, 1320–1375, spelled Waldemar by Schoenberg) for his mistress Tove, and her subsequent murder by Valdemar's jealous wife Queen Helvig (a legend which is historically more likely connected with his ancestor Valdemar I). Composition In 1900, Schoenberg began composing the work as a song cycle for soprano, tenor and piano for a competition run by the ''Wiener Tonkünstler-Verein'' (Vienna Composers' Association). It was written in a lush, late-romantic style heavily influenced by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. According to Schoenberg, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Médée (Cherubini)
''Médée'' is a French language opéra-comique by Luigi Cherubini. The libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman (Nicolas Étienne Framéry) was based on Euripides' tragedy of Medea and Pierre Corneille's play ''Médée''. It is set in the ancient city of Corinth. The opera was premiered on 13 March 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau, Paris. It met with a lukewarm reception and was not immediately revived. During the twentieth century, it was usually performed in Italian translation as ''Medea'', with the spoken dialogue replaced by recitatives not authorized by the composer. More recently, opera companies have returned to Cherubini's original version. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have elided from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing x-ray techniques to reveal the blackened out areas of Cherubini's manuscript. Performances and versions Several versions of the opera were p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Großes Sängerlexikon
''Großes Sängerlexikon'' (''Biographical Dictionary of Singers'', literally: Large singers' lexicon) is a single-field dictionary of singers in classical music, edited by Karl-Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens and first published in 1987. The first edition was in two volumes and contained the biographies of nearly 7000 singers from the 1590s through the 1980s. It grew out of ''Unvergängliche Stimmen. Kleines Sängerlexikon'' (Immortal voices. Small singers' lexicon), published in 1962, which covered only singers who had made recordings. A 1992 review in ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'' described the ''Großes Sängerlexikon'' as "indispensable in the search for concise background information about those persons who are undoubtedly the most important to the performance of opera."Arndt, Michael (1992) "Reviewed Work: ''Großes Sängerlexikon Ergänzungsband'' by Karl-Josef Kutsch, Leo Riemens" ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'', Vol. 153, No. 9, p. 50. Retrieved via JSTOR 26 March 2019 . ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leo Riemens
Leonardus Antony Marinus Riemens (3 December 1910 – 3 April 1985) was a Dutch musicologist and cultural journalist. He wrote a book about Maria Callas, and together with Karl-Josef Kutsch began a reference book about opera singers in 1962, which grew to ''Großes Sängerlexikon'', the standard reference in the field. Background and career Born in Zevenbergen, Riemens grew up in a family of physicians in Amsterdam. He studied musicology in Amsterdam and worked from 1931 as a feature editor for the newspaper '. Later he was a member of the extreme-right NSB. During the Second World War he worked for the nazified ''Nederlandsche Omroep''. From 1954 to 1976 he was an opera and television critic for the newspaper ''De Telegraaf''. Riemens published numerous articles in the professional journals ''Opera'', ', '' Gramophone'' and '' Opera News''. He wrote an opera guide and a biography about Maria Callas. At Radio Hilversum he designed the series ''Uren der Zangkunst''. Riemens ow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
