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Enid Szánthó
Enid Szánthó (15 March 1907 – 1997, buried 21 April 1997) was a Hungarian operatic contralto. From 1928, she belonged to the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera and appeared at the Bayreuth Festival from 1930, first as Erda in ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. She gave guest performances in opera and concert in Florence, London, Berlin, Paris, and New York at the Metropolitan Opera, where she made her debut as Fricka in 1938. Her career was de facto ended later that year when Austria came under the Nazi regime. Life and career Born in Budapest on 15 March 1907, Szánthó was the daughter of a Hungarian ministerial councillor and an Irish mother. She studied singing at the Königlich-Ungarische Musikakademie in Budapest and graduated with a diploma. One of her teachers was Laura Hilgermann. At the age of 21, she was engaged as a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera, where she first appeared as Muschel in the Vienna premiere of ''Die ägyptische Helena'' by Richard S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival () is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of stage works by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle and '' Parsifal''. Performances take place in a specially designed theatre, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Wagner personally supervised the design and construction of the theatre, which contained many architectural innovations to accommodate the huge orchestras for which Wagner wrote as well as the composer's particular vision about the staging of his works. The Festival has become a pilgrimage destination for Wagnerians and classical-music enthusiasts. Origins The origins of the Festival itself lie rooted in Richard Wagner's interest in establishing his financial independence. A souring of the relationship with his patron, Ludwig II of Bavaria, led to his expulsion f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Kautsky
Robert Kautsky (26 October 1895 – 18 June 1963) was an Austrian theatre painter, stage and costume designer, who worked for many years at the Vienna State Opera and at the Salzburg Festival. Life and work Born in Vienna, Kautsky came from a family of theatre painters and actors. His grandfather Johann Kautsky (1827–1896) was a painter and stage designer in Prague, his grandmother was the actress and writer Minna Kautsky (1837–1912). His father, Hans Joseph Wilhelm Kautsky (1864–1937), was a royal Austrian and royal Prussian court theatre painter in Vienna and Berlin. His eldest brother (1891–1966) became a famous chemist, and his second brother Fritz worked as a geologist in Sweden. His uncle was the social democratic theorist Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), married to Luise Kautsky. Kautsky graduated from the Gymnasium in Vienna and then went to the academy in Berlin-Charlottenburg. After the end of the First World War, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House (now known collectively as the Royal Ballet and Opera). The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (literal English translation: 'Florence Musical May') is an annual Italian arts festival in Florence, including a notable opera festival, under the auspices of the Opera di Firenze. The festival occurs between late April into June annually, typically with four operas. History In April 1933, on Luigi Ridolfi Vay da Verrazzano's idea, Vittorio Gui founded the festival, with the aim of presenting contemporary and forgotten operas in visually dramatic productions. It was the first music festival in Italy and the oldest in Europe after the Salzburg Festival. The first opera presented was Verdi's early ''Nabucco'', his early operas then being rarely staged. The first festival's success, which included two performances of Spontini's '' La Vestale'' with Rosa Ponselle, led to it becoming a biennial event in 1937 with the presentation of nine operas. After 1937, it became an annual festival, except during World War II. Performances took place in the Teatr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Mayr
Richard Mayr (18 November 1877, in Henndorf – 1 December 1935, in Vienna) was an Austrian operatic bass-baritone who was particularly admired for his performances in works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. He notably created the role of Barak, the Dyer in the world premiere of Strauss's ''Die Frau ohne Schatten''. History Mayr studied medicine in Vienna before being persuaded by Gustav Mahler to pursue a career as a singer. After studying at the Vienna Music Academy for several years, he made his professional opera début to critical acclaim at the Bayreuth Festival in 1902 as Hagen in Wagner's ''Götterdämmerung''. This led to his being engaged as a principal singer at the Vienna Hofoper by Mahler where he enjoyed a highly successful career that lasted for three decades. His first role in Vienna was Silva in Giuseppe Verdi's ''Ernani''. Mayr also sang at the Royal Opera, London from 1911-1913 and again from 1924 (when he made his second d� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julius Bittner
Julius Bittner (born Vienna, 9 April 1874; died Vienna, 9 January 1939) was an Austrian composer. Life The son of a judge, Bittner also initially pursued a career in law. Until 1920 he was a judge in Wolkersdorf im Weinviertel, in Lower Austria. From 1920 to 1922Bittner, Julius in ''Österreich-Lexikon'' at AEIOU or 1923"Bittner Julius" in '''' volume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigoletto
''Rigoletto'' is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play '' Le roi s'amuse'' by Victor Hugo. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. The work, Verdi's sixteenth in the genre, is widely considered to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. The opera's original title, ''La maledizione'' (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by the Count Monterone, whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto's encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance ''Parzival'' of the '' Minnesänger'' Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance ''Perceval ou le Conte du Graal'' by the 12th-century ''trouvère'' Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail. Wagner conceived the work in April 1857, but did not finish it until 25 years later. In composing it he took advantage of the particular acoustics of his newly built Bayreuth Festspielhaus. ''Parsifal'' was first produced at the second Bayreuth Festival in 1882. The Bayreuth Festival maintained a monopoly on ''Parsifal'' productions until 1914, however the opera was performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1903 after a US court ruled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Schalk
Franz Schalk (27 May 18633 September 1931) was an Austrian conductor. From 1918 to 1929 he was director of the Vienna State Opera, a post he held jointly with Richard Strauss from 1919 to 1924. He was later involved in the establishment of the Salzburg Festival. Life and career Born in Vienna, he studied under composer Anton Bruckner. From 1900, he was first kapellmeister of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). Between 1904 and 1921, he was head of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. In 1918 he became director of the Vienna State Opera (Staatsoper, successor to the Hofoper), but from 1919 shared the directorship with Richard Strauss, with the well-known composer considered "blatantly (though unofficially) the 'greater equal' of the pair" (despite Schalk's recorded renditions of the Beethoven and Schubert 8th Symphonies virtually as distinguished as Strauss' versions of the last three Mozart symphonies, Beethoven's 5th & 7th, and some of the best-known German overtures ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Zauberflöte
''The Magic Flute'' (, ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. It is a ''Singspiel'', a popular form 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 Mozart's death. It was Mozart's last opera. It was an outstanding success from its first performances, and remains a staple of the opera repertory. In the opera the Queen of the Night persuades Prince Tamino to rescue her daughter Pamina from captivity under the high priest Sarastro; instead, he learns the high ideals of Sarastro's community and seeks to join it. Separately, then together, Tamino and Pamina undergo severe trials of initiation, which end in triumph, with the Queen and her cohorts vanquished. The earthy Papageno, who accompanies Tamino on his quest, fails the trials completely but is rewarded anyway with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
