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War And Peace (opera)
''War and Peace'' (Op. 91) (russian: Война и мир, ''Voyna i mir'') is a 1946 230-minute opera in 13 scenes, plus an overture and an epigraph, by Sergei Prokofiev. Based on the 1869 novel ''War and Peace'' by Leo Tolstoy, its Russian libretto was prepared by the composer and Mira Mendelson. The first seven scenes are devoted to peace, the latter six, after the epigraph, to war. Although Tolstoy's work is classified as a novel, the 1812 invasion of Russia by the French was a historical event, and some real-life people appear as characters in both the novel and the opera, e.g. Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, Mikhail Kutuzov and Napoleon I of France, Napoleon Bonaparte. Composition history Mendelson and Prokofiev's original scheme for the libretto of the opera envisaged 11 scenes, and Prokofiev began composing the music in the summer of 1942, spurred on by the Operation Barbarossa, German invasion of the Soviet Union which began on June 22, 1941. The description "lyric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor who later worked in the Soviet Union. As the creator of acknowledged masterpieces across numerous music genres, he is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. His works include such widely heard pieces as the March from ''The Love for Three Oranges,'' the suite ''Lieutenant Kijé'', the ballet ''Romeo and Juliet''—from which "Dance of the Knights" is taken—and ''Peter and the Wolf.'' Of the established forms and genres in which he worked, he created—excluding juvenilia—seven completed operas, seven symphonies, eight ballets, five piano concertos, two violin concertos, a cello concerto, a symphony-concerto for cello and orchestra, and nine completed piano sonatas. A graduate of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenwriter, film editor and film theorist. He was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. He is noted in particular for his silent films ''Strike'' (1925), ''Battleship Potemkin'' (1925) and ''October'' (1928), as well as the historical epics ''Alexander Nevsky'' (1938) and ''Ivan the Terrible'' (1944, 1958). In its 2012 decennial poll, the magazine ''Sight & Sound'' named his ''Battleship Potemkin'' the 11th greatest film of all time. Early life Sergei Eisenstein was born on 22 January 1898 in Riga, Latvia (then part of the Russian Empire in the Governorate of Livonia), to a middle-class family. His family moved frequently in his early years, as Eisenstein continued to do throughout his life. His father, the architect Mikhail Osipov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leeds Festival (classical Music)
The Leeds Festival, officially known as the ''Leeds Triennial Musical Festival'', was a classical music festival which took place between 1858 and 1985 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. History The first festival celebrated the opening of Leeds Town Hall by Queen Victoria on 7 September 1858. A second festival was held in 1874, then it was held every three years until 1970. For the two festivals in the 1870s, Sir Michael Costa was principal conductor. For the next seven festivals, until 1898, the principal conductor was Sir Arthur Sullivan. King George V was the festival's patron in 1922; his daughter, The Princess Royal, sister of King George VI, and her husband also became patrons in anticipation of their wedding in 1922. From the 1920s, Princess Mary had attended the opening nights and many of the festival's performances, and later, with her son, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, and his wife, the Countess of Harewood, née Marion Stein, a former concert pianist. L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Herman Adler
Peter Herman Adler (2 December 1899, Gablonz an der Neiße, Bohemia – 2 October 1990, Ridgefield, Connecticut) was an American conductor born in Austria-Hungary in Gablonz an der Neiße, which is now in the Czech Republic. Career While at the Prague Conservatory, Adler studied with Vítězslav Novák, Fidelio Finke, and Alexander von Zemlinsky. He was the music and artistic director of the NBC Opera Theatre (1950–64) and the National Educational Television Opera. He was a pioneer of televised broadcast of opera, commissioning such works as Gian Carlo Menotti's '' Amahl and the Night Visitors'' and ''Maria Golovin'', Norman Dello Joio's '' The Trial at Rouen'', and Bohuslav Martinů's '' The Marriage''; Jack Beeson's '' My Heart's in the Highlands'', Thomas Pasatieri's ''The Trial of Mary Lincoln'' and Hans Werner Henze's ''La Cubana''. Adler was also involved in the early career development of such singers as Leontyne Price, George London and Mario Lanza. He later condu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Melik-Pashayev
Alexander Shamil'evich Melik-Pashayev (russian: Александр Шамильевич Мелик-Пашаев; hy, Ալեքսանդր Մելիք-Փաշայան, Alek’sandr Melik’-P’ashayan; 23 October 1905, in Tbilisi – 18 June 1964), PAU, was a Soviet-Armenian conductor. He made numerous highly regarded recordings with Melodiya from the 1940s to the 1960s, including memorable versions of '' Boris Godunov'', ''War and Peace ''War and Peace'' (russian: Война и мир, translit=Voyna i mir; pre-reform Russian: ; ) is a literary work by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy that mixes fictional narrative with chapters on history and philosophy. It was first published ...'' and '' The Queen of Spades''. External links Biography [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Shaverdov
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Aleksander and Aleksandr. Related names and diminutives include Iskandar, Alec, Alek, Alex, Alexandre, Aleks, Aleksa and Sander; feminine forms include Alexandra, Alexandria, and Sasha. Etymology The name ''Alexander'' originates from the (; 'defending men' or 'protector of men'). It is a compound of the verb (; 'to ward off, avert, defend') and the noun (, genitive: , ; meaning 'man'). It is an example of the widespread motif of Greek names expressing "battle-prowess", in this case the ability to withstand or push back an enemy battle line. The earliest attested form of the name, is the Mycenaean Greek feminine anthroponym , , (/Alexandra/), written in the Linear B syllabic script. Alaksandu, alternatively called ''Alakasandu'' or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanislavski-Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre
The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre (russian: Московский академический Музыкальный театр имени народных артистов К. С. Станиславского и Вл. И. Немировича-Данченко), also known as the Moscow Drama Theatre K. S. Stanislavsky is a music theatre in Moscow. The Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre was founded in 1941 when two companies directed by the legendary reformers of 20th-century theatre — Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko — merged: the Stanislavsky Opera Theatre (established at the end of 1918 as an Opera Studio of the Bolshoi Theatre) and the Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre (set up in 1919 as a Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre). The ballet company entered the theatre as a part of Nemirovich-Danchenko's troupe. It was the former company of the Moscow Art Ballet, established in 1929 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eduard Grikurov
Edouard Grikurov (29 March 1907, Tbilisi - 13 December 1982, Leningrad) was a Soviet conducting, conductor and People's Artist of the USSR. Grikurov studied at the Conservatory in Tbilisi with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, and worked regularly with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theatre, Kirov Opera (today Mariinsky Theatre), and the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1944 until 1969 Grikurov served as Music Director of the Mikhailovsky Theatre, Leningrad State Academic Maly Opera Theatre (today Mikhailovsky Theater). He was awarded the State Stalin Prize, Stalin Prize in 1951, and was named People's Artist of Russia in 1957. Until his death he served as professor of conducting at the Leningrad Conservatory. His most notable students are Alexander Alexeev (conductor), Alexander Alexeev, Vakhtang Jordania, and Dmitri Kitayenko. References 1907 births 1982 deaths Academic staff of Saint Petersburg Conservatory People's Artists of Russia Stalin Prize ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artur Rodziński
Artur Rodziński (2 January 1892 – 27 November 1958) was a Polish-American conductor of orchestral music and opera. He began his career after World War I in Poland, where he was discovered by Leopold Stokowski, who invited him to be his assistant with the Philadelphia Orchestra. This engagement led to Rodziński becoming music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also prepared the NBC Symphony Orchestra for Arturo Toscanini before the Italian conductor's debut with them. A dispute in Chicago led to Rodziński's dismissal in 1948, whereupon he shifted his career to Europe, eventually settling in Italy, although continuing to maintain a home in Lake Placid, New York. In November 1958, beset by heart disease, he made his professional return to the United States for the first time in a decade, conducting acclaimed performances of Richard Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde'' with the Lyric Opera of Chic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teatro Comunale Florence
The is an opera house in Florence, Italy. It was originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' and which seated 6,000 people. It became the focus on cultural life in the city. After closure caused by fire, it reopened in April 1864 and acquired a roof in 1882. By 1911 it had both electricity and heating. In 1930 the building was taken over by the city authorities who renamed it the ''Teatro Comunale''. Bombing during the Second World War damaged the building once again, and other problems closed it for three years in 1958. Finally, in May 1961, the then-modernized theatre reopened with Verdi's ''Don Carlo''. It had become a 2,000 seat elliptically shaped auditorium consisting of a large orchestra section, one tier of boxes, and two wide semicircular galleries, which betray the building's amphitheatre origins. As the theatre became more clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zhdanov Decree
The Zhdanov Doctrine (also called Zhdanovism or Zhdanovshchina; russian: доктрина Жданова, ждановизм, ждановщина) was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. It proposed that the world was divided into two camps: the "imperialistic", headed by the United States; and " democratic", headed by the Soviet Union. The main principle of the Zhdanov Doctrine was often summarized by the phrase "The only conflict that is possible in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and best". Zhdanovism soon became a Soviet cultural policy, meaning that Soviet artists, writers and intelligentsia in general had to conform to the party line in their creative works. Under this policy, artists who failed to comply with the government's wishes risked persecution. The policy remained in effect until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. History The 1946 resolution of the Central Committee was directed against two lite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
