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Helge Rosvaenge
Helge Rosvaenge (born Helge Anton Rosenvinge Hansen, August 29, 1897June 17, 1972) was a Danish-born operatic tenor whose career was centred on Germany and Austria, before, during and after World War II. His last name is sometimes spelled Roswaenge or Rosvænge. Rosvaenge was born in Copenhagen. However, his life was spent in Germany, and he made his debut at Neustrelitz as Don Jose in ''Carmen'' in 1921. Engagements followed at Altenburg, Basel, Cologne (1927–30) and the Berlin State Opera, where he was leading tenor from 1930 to 1944, being especially distinguished in the Italian repertory. He also sang regularly at the Vienna State Opera from 1936, and in Munich. Rosvaenge also appeared at the Salzburg Festival, making his debut there in ''Der Rosenkavalier''. Other roles which he performed at Salzburg between 1933 and 1939 were Tamino in ''The Magic Flute'', Huon in ''Oberon'' and Florestan in ''Fidelio''. His London debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, occurred in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor. Although musical theatre is closely related to opera, the two are considered to be distinct from one another. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition. Originally understood as an entirely sung piece, in contrast to a play with songs, opera has come to include numerous genres, including some that include spoken dialogue such as '' Singspiel'' and '' Opéra comique''. In traditional number opera, singers employ two styles of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera ''Nabucco'' (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements. As he became professionally successful, he was able ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Maria Von Weber
Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (18 or 19 November 17865 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and critic who was one of the first significant composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas, he was a crucial figure in the development of German ''Romantische Oper'' (German Romantic opera). Throughout his youth, his father, , relentlessly moved the family between Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg and Vienna. Consequently he studied with many teachers – his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher and Georg Joseph Vogler – under whose supervision he composed four operas, none of which survive complete. He had a modest output of non-operatic music, which includes two symphonies; a viola concerto; bassoon concerti; piano pieces such as Konzertstück in F minor and '' Invitation to the Dance''; and many pieces that featured the clarinet, usually written for the virtuoso c ... [...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] |
Adolphe Adam
Adolphe Charles Adam (; 24 July 1803 – 3 May 1856) was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets ''Giselle'' (1841) and '' Le corsaire'' (1856), his operas ''Le postillon de Lonjumeau'' (1836) and ''Si j'étais roi'' (1852) and his Christmas carol "Minuit, chrétiens!" (Midnight, Christians, 1844, known in English as "O Holy Night"). Adam was the son of a well-known composer and pianist, but his father did not wish him to pursue a musical career. Adam defied his father, and his many operas and ballets earned him a good living until he lost all his money in 1848 in a disastrous bid to open a new opera house in Paris in competition with the Opéra and Opéra-Comique. He recovered, and extended his activities to journalism and teaching. He was appointed as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, France's principal music academy. Together with his older contemporary Daniel Auber and his teacher Adrien ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Postillon De Lonjumeau
''Le postillon de Lonjumeau'' (''The Postillion of Lonjumeau'') is an opéra-comique in three acts by Adolphe Adam to a French libretto by Adolphe de Leuven and Léon Lévy Brunswick. The opera has become the most successful of Adam's works, and the one by which (apart from his ballet ''Giselle'' and his Christmas carol ''Cantique de Noël'') he is best known outside his native France. The opera is known for the difficult aria "Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire" which has been called a test for tenors because of the demanding high D, or D5, at the end of the aria. Performance history The opera was premiered by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris on 13 October 1836. Performances followed at the St James's Theatre, London on 13 March 1837, and in New Orleans at the Théâtre d'Orléans on 19 April 1838. Recent productions have been mounted in the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden (from 4 August 2000) and at the Grand Théâtre, Dijon, (from 30 March 2004 under ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mes Amis, écoutez L'histoire
"Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire", is a tenor aria in Adolphe Adam's 1836 opera ''Le postillon de Lonjumeau''. The D5 in the final verse is the highest commonly sung note for tenors in opera. Donizetti wrote an E5 for Edgardo in the first act of his opera ''Lucia di Lammermoor'', though it is very seldom sung. Higher notes are occasionally sung in interpolations and ornaments in other bel canto operas, and exceptionally the written F5 at the end of "Credeasi, misera" in Bellini's ''I puritani''. Famous performers of this aria are Nicolai Gedda, Helge Rosvaenge and Joseph Schmidt Joseph Schmidt (4 March 1904 – 16 November 1942) was an Austro-Hungarian and Romanian Jewish tenor and actor. Life and career Schmidt was born in Davideny (Ukrainian: '' Davydivka'') village in the Storozhynets district of the Bukovina ..., often performing the German version, "Freunde, vernehmet die Geschichte". Lyrics References External links * * *, third verse * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mes ... [...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] |
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] |
Musikvereinssaal, Vienna
The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Great Hall' () have earned it recognition alongside other prominent concert halls, such as the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Symphony Hall in Boston. With the exception of Boston's Symphony Hall, none of these halls was built in the modern era with the application of architectural acoustics, and all share a long, tall and narrow shoebox shape. Building The 's main entrance is situated on Musikvereinsplatz, between Karlsplatz and . The building is located behind the Hotel Imperial that fronts on Kärntner Ring, which is part of the Vienna Ring Road (Ringstraße). It was erected as the new concert hall run by the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna, on a piece of land provided by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Aus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
