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Washington National Opera (1919–1936)
The Washington National Opera Association,Phillips-Matz, pp. 13/15 founded in 1919 as Washington Community Opera, was a low-budget opera company, comprising professional principals supported by amateurs, active in Washington, D.C., until 1936. It was in no way related to the company of the same name. By 1921 it had changed its name to the "Washington National Opera Association". History Its founder and moving force was a minor baritone who was born in Canada as Thomas Harold Meek but who adopted the name Edouard Albion upon settling in Washington and establishing a voice studio. Meek recruited soprano Enrica Clay Dillon to serve as the company's first Artistic Director, a role she held from 1919-1927.McPherson, Jim, "Mr. Meek Goes to Washington: The Story of the Small-Potatoes Canadian Baritone Who Founded America’s 'National' Opera," ''The Opera Quarterly'', volume 20, no. 2, Spring 2004 The company offered a wide range of works during its first year, beginning with a January 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington, D
Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States Washington may also refer to: Places England * Washington, Tyne and Wear, a town in the City of Sunderland metropolitan borough ** Washington Old Hall, ancestral home of the family of George Washington * Washington, West Sussex, a village and civil parish Greenland * Cape Washington, Greenland * Washington Land Philippines *New Washington, Aklan, a municipality *Washington, a barangay in Catarman, Northern Samar *Washington, a barangay in Escalante, Negros Occidental *Washington, a barangay in San Jacinto, Masbate *Washington, a barangay in Surigao City United States * Washington, Wisconsin (other) * Fort Washington (other) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louise Homer
Louise Beatty Homer (April 30, 1871May 6, 1947) was an American operatic contralto who had an active international career in concert halls and opera houses from 1895 until her retirement in 1932. After a brief stint as a vaudeville entertainer in New England, she made her professional opera debut in France in 1898. She then became a member of the Metropolitan Opera from 1900 to 1919 and again from 1927 to 1929. She was also active as an opera singer in Boston, Chicago, and California. She recorded extensively for Victor Records and Columbia Records in the early decades of the 20th century. She was married to composer Sidney Homer for 52 years. The composer Samuel Barber was her nephew. Homer sang a broad repertoire which encompassed works from the French, German, and Italian repertoires. She enjoyed particular success in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. She often stated in interviews that her favorite role to perform was Amneris in Verdi's ''Aida''. At the Met sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques Alexandria Samossoud
Jacques Alexandria Samossoud (September 8, 1894 – June 14, 1966) was a Russian composer and conductor. Biography He was born on September 8, 1894. In 1924 he married the Crimean-born Greek soprano Thalia Sabanieva; they divorced in 1926. He conducted the orchestra of the Washington National Opera from 1919 to 1936. He left during a contract dispute.McPherson, Jim, "Mr. Meek Goes to Washington: The Story of the Small-Potatoes Canadian Baritone Who Founded America's 'National' Opera," ''The Opera Quarterly,'' volume 20, no. 2, Spring 2004 He married Mark Twain's daughter, Clara Langdon Clemens (1874–1962) in 1944 at Clara's Hollywood, California Hollywood is a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California. Its name has come to be a shorthand reference for the U.S. film industry and the people associated with it. Many notable film studios, such as Columbia Pictures, ... home. He died on June 14, 1966. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Samossoud, Jacq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Georgescu
George Georgescu (September 12, 1887 – September 1, 1964) was a Romanian conductor. The moving force behind the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for decades beginning shortly after World War I, a protégé of Artur Nikisch and a close associate of George Enescu, he received honors from the French and communist Romanian governments and lived to make recordings in the stereo era. Education and career as soloist Georgescu was born in the river port of Sulina,Biographical sketch published for Concursul George Georgescu 2008 International Contest for Performing Artists, Tulcea, Romania |
Dmitri Alexeievich Smirnov
Dmitri Alexeyevich Smirnov (russian: Дмитрий Алексеевич Смирнов (also seen as Smirnoff), April 27, 1944) was a Russian operatic tenor with a lyric voice and a bravura singing technique. Biography A Muscovite, Smirnov was a student of Emiliya Pavlovskaya and Alexander Dodonov. He made his debut in St Petersburg in 1903 as Gigi in Eugenio Domenico Esposito's '' La Camorra''. The venue was the Hermitage Theatre. In 1904, Smirnov became a member of the Bolshoi company in Moscow, singing there until 1910. He then sang at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, from 1911 to 1917. (He had first appeared at the Mariinsky in 1907.) Smirnov made his French début at the Paris Opéra in 1907. His successful Parisian performances led to an invitation for him to appear at the Metropolitan Opera, where he sang in 1911–12. Competition from the celebrated international tenors Enrico Caruso and John McCormack, who were also singing at the Met at that time, resulted in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager. As of 2018, the company's current music director is Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Performances are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Queen Of Spades (opera)
''The Queen of Spades'' or ''Pique Dame'', Op. 68 (russian: Пиковая дама, ''Pikovaya dama'' , french: La Dame de Pique) is an opera in three acts (seven scenes) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to a Russian libretto by the composer's brother Modest Tchaikovsky, based on the 1834 novella of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, but with a dramatically altered plot. The premiere took place in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Composition history The Imperial Theatre offered Tchaikovsky a commission to write an opera based on the plot sketch by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1887/88. After first turning it down, Tchaikovsky accepted it in 1889. Toward the end of that year, he met with the theatre's managers to discuss the material and sketch out some of the scenes. He completed the full score in Florence in only 44 days. Later, working with the tenor who was to perform the lead character, he created two versions of Herman's aria in the seventh scene, using diff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets '' Swan Lake'' and ''The Nutcracker'', the ''1812 Overture'', his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the ''Romeo and Juliet'' Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''. Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
E Street (Washington, D
E Street is the fifth of a sequence of alphabetical streets in many cities. It may refer to: * ''E Street'' (TV series), an Australian television soap opera *Washington DC: **E Street Expressway *The E Street Band, known for their long association with Bruce Springsteen, named after E St, Belmar, New Jersey Belmar is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated on the Jersey Shore. As of the 2010 United States census, the borough's population was 5,794,Bayfront/E Street station, known also as ''E Street'', trolley station in San Diego, California {{Disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Charles Thomas
John Charles Thomas (September 6, 1891December 13, 1960) was an American opera, operetta and concert baritone. Biography John Charles Thomas was born on September 6, 1891 in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. He was the son of a Methodist minister of Welsh descent while his mother, of German immigrant stock, had been an amateur singer. After studying initially for a medical career, Thomas won a scholarship to the Peabody Institute in Baltimore in 1910. He remained there for two years, receiving vocal tuition from Adelin Fermin. In 1912, Thomas left the Peabody and toured briefly with a musical troupe. He then went to live in Manhattan, New York City, where he performed with a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta company before being contracted by the Shubert brothers to perform in the show ''The Peasant Girl'', which opened in March 1913. For the next nine years, he starred in a series of hit Broadway musicals including ''Her Soldier Boy'', '' Maytime'', '' Naughty Marietta'', and ''Apple B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; April 12, 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form. During the first phase of his career, Chaliapin endured direct competition from three other great basses: the powerful (1869–1942), the more lyrical (1871–1948), and Dmitri Buchtoyarov (1866–1918), whose voice was intermediate between those of Sibiriakov and Kastorsky. The fact that Chaliapin is far and away the best remembered of this magnificent quartet of rival basses is a testament to the power of his personality, the acuteness of his musical interpretations, and the vividness of his performances. Spelling note He himself spelled his surname, French-style ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Titta Ruffo
Titta Ruffo (9 June 1877 – 5 July 1953), born as Ruffo Cafiero (double forename) Titta, was an Italian operatic baritone who had a major international singing career. Known as the "Voce del leone" ("voice of the lion"), he was greatly admired, even by rival baritones, such as Giuseppe De Luca, who said of Ruffo: "His was not a voice, it was a miracle" (although not often published is the second part of De Luca's conclusion "which he uffobawled away..."), and Victor Maurel, the creator of Verdi's Iago and Falstaff. Maurel said that the notes of Ruffo's upper register were the most glorious baritone sounds he had ever heard (see Pleasants, cited below). Indeed Walter Legge, the prominent classical record producer, went so far as to call Ruffo "a genius". Biography Born Ruffo Titta in Pisa (he reversed his forename and surname for the stage), Ruffo was the son of an engineer. He studied voice with several teachers. In Musical America, December 27, 1913, Ruffo wrote the foll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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