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Wellington City Opera
Wellington City Opera was a professional opera company based in Wellington, New Zealand. It originated in 1982 as the De La Tour Regional Opera Trust, and in 1999, 18 months after rebranding as The National Opera of Wellington, merged with Auckland-based Opera New Zealand to form New Zealand Opera. Origin After the demise of the New Zealand Opera Company in 1971, several organisations arose to fill the gap. The De La Tour Opera Group was founded in Wellington in 1975 to present chamber opera in a variety of venues, with minimal costuming and sets, often with piano accompaniment. The artistic director was Geoffrey De Lautour, an opera professional who had returned to New Zealand in the 1950s. In 1982 with the help of lawyer Ian Cochrane the group incorporated and became the De La Tour Regional Opera Trust, with Cochrane as chairman and De Lautour as deputy chair and artistic director. The group's aim was to promote and present professional opera in Wellington and nearby. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Opera
New Zealand Opera is New Zealand's only full-time professional opera company, formed in 2000 from the merger of companies in Auckland and Wellington (and later Christchurch). New Zealand Opera is headquartered in Parnell, Auckland, stages several productions a year, runs educational programmes, and supports early-career opera singers with the Dame Malvina Major Foundation. History The company was formed in 2000 when Opera New Zealand (the name adopted by Auckland Opera in 1995) and The National Opera of Wellington (formerly Wellington City Opera) decided to merge into one organisation for financial reasons. It launched on 15 October 1999 as ''The National Business Review'' New Zealand Opera (the ''National Business Review'' had paid $1,000,000 for naming rights for the next three years); the NBR sponsorship ceased in 2014 and its name became NZ Opera. A further merger with Southern Opera in Christchurch in 2012 allowed the company to maintain a nation-wide presence and stage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turandot
''Turandot'' (; see below) is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, posthumously completed by Franco Alfano in 1926, and set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni. ''Turandot'' best-known aria is "Nessun dorma", which became globally popular in the 1990s following Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Though Puccini first became interested in the subject matter when reading Friedrich Schiller's 1801 adaptation,. ''Freely translated from Schiller by Sabilla Novello:'' . he based his work more closely on the earlier play ''Turandot'' (1762) by Count Carlo Gozzi. The original story is one of the seven stories in the epic ''Haft Peykar''—a work by twelfth-century Persian poet Nizami ( 1141–1209). Nizami aligned his seven stories with the seven days of the week, the seven colors, and the seven planets known in his era. This particular narrative is the story of Tuesday, as told to the king of Iran, Bahram V (), by his c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on 30 September 1791 at Schikaneder's theatre, the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, just two months before the composer's premature death. Still a staple of the opera repertory, its popularity was reflected by two immediate sequels, Peter Winter's ''Das Labyrinth oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil'' (1798) and a fragmentary libretto by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe titled ''The Magic Flute Part Two''. The allegorical plot was influenced by Schikaneder and Mozart's interest in Freemasonry and concerns the initiation of Prince Tamino. Enlisted by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina from the high priest Sarastro, Tamino comes to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is widely regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with his music admired for its "melodic beauty, its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". Born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire, Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. His father took him on a grand tour of Europe and then three trips to Italy. At 17, he was a musician at the Salzburg court b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Doig (opera Singer)
Christopher Keith Doig (4 April 1948 – 13 October 2011) was a New Zealand opera singer and sports administrator. In 1972 he won New Zealand's Mobil Song Quest and studied at the Vienna Music Academy before becoming principal tenor at the Vienna State Opera. After ten years in Austria, Doig returned to New Zealand, where he was appointed chief executive of New Zealand Cricket and was a member of the New Zealand Rugby Union board. In 1990, Doig was the artistic director of the New Zealand Festival of the Arts. He staged Wagner's ''Die meistersinger von Nürnberg'', starring Donald McIntyre. Awards In 1990, Doig was awarded the New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the arts, in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours, and in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to the arts and sport. Family Christopher Doig had four children: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otello
''Otello'' () is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play ''Othello''. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on 5 February 1887. The composer was reluctant to write anything new after the success of ''Aida'' in 1871, and he retreated into retirement. It took his Milan publisher Giulio Ricordi the next ten years, first to encourage the revision of Verdi's 1857 ''Simon Boccanegra'' by introducing Boito as librettist and then to begin the arduous process of persuading and cajoling Verdi to see Boito's completed libretto for ''Otello'' in July/August 1881. However, the process of writing the first drafts of the libretto and the years of their revision, with Verdi all along not promising anything, dragged on. It wasn't until 1884, five years after the first drafts of the libretto, that composition began, with most of the work finishing in late 1885. When it finally premiere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trainspotting (film)
''Trainspotting'' is a 1996 British black comedy film directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, and Kelly Macdonald in her debut. Based on the 1993 Trainspotting (novel), novel of the same title by Irvine Welsh, the film was released in the United Kingdom on 23 February 1996. The Academy Award-nominated screenplay by John Hodge (screenwriter), John Hodge follows a group of heroin Substance dependence, addicts in an Poverty in the United Kingdom, economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. Beyond drug addiction, other themes in the film include an exploration of the urban poverty and squalor in Edinburgh. ''Trainspotting'' was released to critical acclaim, and is regarded by many critics as one of the best films of the 1990s. The film was ranked tenth by the British Film Institute (BFI) in its list of BFI Top 100 British films, Top 100 British films of the 20th century. In 2004, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin McColl (director)
Colin William McColl is a New Zealand director in theatre, opera and television. He is a leading figure in the world of professional theatre in the country, winning numerous awards as well as working internationally with major national companies. McColl's career spans more than 30 years in the performing arts where he has also been an actor and a producer. He has won Best Director at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards three times, received the prestigious Arts Laureate Award in 2007 and was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2010. McColl was born in Lower Hutt in Wellington, the country's capital. Since 2003, he has been the artistic director of Auckland Theatre Company, this tenure ends after 18 years in 2021. Career As a theatre director, McColl has directed more than 50 plays. He is the only New Zealand director who has been invited to showcase a production at the official Edinburgh Festival. Award winning productions include ''A Doll’s House'' (1993), ''R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Lemalu
Jonathan Fa'afetai Lemalu (born 1976) is a New Zealand bass baritone opera singer. Born to Samoan parents who had emigrated to New Zealand, he was educated in Dunedin. His first singing teacher was Honor McKellar, who began teaching him while he attended Otago Boys' High School. He studied both Law and Music at the University of Otago, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws in 1999. Lemalu studied at the Royal College of Music (RCM), where he won the college's gold medal award in 2002. He won the prestigious London-based Kathleen Ferrier Award (previously won by Malvina Major in 1966) that same year. He was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2002 to 2004. He was the 2004 winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society's award for Young Artist of the Year. At the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards Lemalu was a co-recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording for his work on Benjamin Britten's ''Billy Budd''. He returned to New Zealand to perform in the 2012 New Zealand Festival o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Bohème
''La bohème'' (; ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions ''quadri'', ''tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on ''Scènes de la vie de bohème'' (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830 and shows the Bohemian lifestyle (known in French as "") of a poor seamstress and her artist friends. The world premiere of ''La bohème'' was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini. Since then, ''La bohème'' has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide. In 1946, fifty years after the opera's premiere, Toscanini conducted a commemorative performance of it on radio with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. A recording of the performance was later released by RCA Victor on vinyl record, tape and compact disc. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auckland Opera
New Zealand Opera is New Zealand's only full-time professional opera company, formed in 2000 from the merger of companies in Auckland and Wellington (and later Christchurch). New Zealand Opera is headquartered in Parnell, Auckland, stages several productions a year, runs educational programmes, and supports early-career opera singers with the Dame Malvina Major Foundation. History The company was formed in 2000 when Opera New Zealand (the name adopted by Auckland Opera in 1995) and The National Opera of Wellington (formerly Wellington City Opera) decided to merge into one organisation for financial reasons. It launched on 15 October 1999 as ''The National Business Review'' New Zealand Opera (the ''National Business Review'' had paid $1,000,000 for naming rights for the next three years); the NBR sponsorship ceased in 2014 and its name became NZ Opera. A further merger with Southern Opera in Christchurch in 2012 allowed the company to maintain a nation-wide presence and stage ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative New Zealand
The Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa (Creative New Zealand) is the national arts development agency of the New Zealand government, investing in artists and arts organisations, offering capability building programmes and developing markets and audiences for New Zealand arts domestically and internationally. Its funding consists of approximately 30% central government funding and the remaining amount from the Lotteries Commission. In 2014/15, the Arts Council invested a record $43.6 million in New Zealand arts and arts organisations. Funding is available for artists, community groups and arts organisations. Creative New Zealand funds projects and organisations across many art-forms, including theatre, dance, music, literature, visual art, craft object art, Māori arts, Pacific arts, Inter-arts and Multi-disciplinary. Funding Creative New Zealand funding is distributed under four broad funding programmes: * Investment programmes * Grants and special opportunities * Creati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
