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Shirley Verrett
Shirley Verrett (May 31, 1931 – November 5, 2010) was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who successfully transitioned into soprano roles making her a Soprano sfogato. Verrett enjoyed great fame from the late 1960s through the 1990s; she was particularly known for performing works by Giuseppe Verdi and Gaetano Donizetti. Life and career Early life and education Born into an African-American family of devout Catholics in New Orleans, Verrett was raised in Los Angeles. She recalled in her memoir that her mother went from being a strict Catholic to an even stricter Seventh-Day Adventist, and she and her siblings were educated in a Seventh Day Adventist school system. She sang in church and showed early musical abilities, but initially a singing career was frowned upon by her family. Verrett attended Oakwood University, a private historically black Seventh-Day Adventist university in Huntsville, Alabama, for a semester in 1949, but then returned to southern California and co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milan
Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nearly 1.4 million, while its Metropolitan City of Milan, metropolitan city has 3.2 million residents. Within Europe, Milan is the fourth-most-populous List of urban areas in the European Union, urban area of the EU with 6.17 million inhabitants. According to national sources, the population within the wider Milan metropolitan area (also known as Greater Milan) is estimated between 7.5 million and 8.2 million, making it by far the List of metropolitan areas of Italy, largest metropolitan area in Italy and List of metropolitan areas in Europe, one of the largest in the EU.* * * * Milan is the economic capital of Italy, one of the economic capitals of Europe and a global centre for business, fashion and finance. Milan is reco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city limits , it is the List of United States cities by population, second-most populous in the United States, behind only New York City. Los Angeles has an Ethnic groups in Los Angeles, ethnically and culturally diverse population, and is the principal city of a Metropolitan statistical areas, metropolitan area of 12.9 million people (2024). Greater Los Angeles, a combined statistical area that includes the Los Angeles and Riverside–San Bernardino metropolitan areas, is a sprawling metropolis of over 18.5 million residents. The majority of the city proper lies in Los Angeles Basin, a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost In The Stars
''Lost in the Stars'' is a musical theatre, musical with book and lyrics by Maxwell Anderson and music by Kurt Weill, based on the novel ''Cry, the Beloved Country'' (1948) by Alan Paton. The musical premiered on Broadway theatre, Broadway in 1949; it was the composer's last work for the stage before he died the following year. Productions ''Lost in the Stars'' opened on Broadway at the Music Box Theatre on October 30, 1949, and closed on July 1, 1950, after 281 performances. The production was supervised and directed by Rouben Mamoulian and choreographed by La Verne French. Mamoulian was such a strong influence on the production that Foster Hirsch calls him "the show's third author." Todd Duncan took the role of Stephen; Inez Matthews sang Irina. New York City Opera presented the musical in April 1958. Directed by José Quintero, Jose Quintero, the cast featured Lawrence Winters (Stephen Kumalo) and Lee Charles (Leader). (The conductor of those performances, Julius Rudel, led a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (; ; March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, ''The Threepenny Opera'', which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose,Kurt Weill Cjschuler.net. Retrieved on August 22, 2011. '' Gebrauchsmusik''. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen in 1943. Family and childhood W ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through its 2013 bankruptcy, and again since 2016 when it was revived. The opera company, dubbed "the people's opera" by New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943. The company's stated purpose was to make opera accessible to a wide audience at a reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, and provide a home for American singers and composers. The company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street in Manhattan. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010. During this time it produced autumn and spring seasons of opera in repertory, and maintained extensive education and outreach programs, offering arts-in-education programs to 4,000 students in over 30 schools. In 2011, the company lef ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rape Of Lucretia
''The Rape of Lucretia'' (Op. 37) is an opera in two acts by Benjamin Britten, written for Kathleen Ferrier, who performed the title role. Ronald Duncan based his English libretto on André Obey's play '. Performance history The opera was first performed at Glyndebourne in England on 12 July 1946. It is the first work to which Britten applied his term "chamber opera." The opera debuted in the United States on Broadway at the Ziegfeld Theatre in a production staged by Agnes de Mille which opened on 29 December 1948 and closed on 15 January 1949 after 23 performances. The cast notably included Giorgio Tozzi as Tarquinius, Kitty Carlisle as Lucretia, Lidija Franklin as Bianca, Brenda Lewis Brenda Lewis (March 2, 1921 – September 16, 2017) was an American operatic soprano, musical theatre actress, opera director, and music educator. She enjoyed a 20-year-long collaboration with the New York City Opera (NYCO) with whom she notably ... as the Female Chorus, and Ade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
The Metropolitan Opera Eric and Dominique Laffont Competition (formerly the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions) is an annual singing competition sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera. Established in 1954, its purpose is to discover, assist, promote, and develop young opera singers. The competition is held in four stages: Districts, Regional, Semi-Final, and Final competitions. Each stage is judged by a panel of representatives from the Metropolitan Opera. There are a total of 14 regional competitions within the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, and 42 district competitions within each region. Winners from the district competition compete in Regionals, and then the winners of regionals are awarded a trip to New York City where they compete on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in the National Semi-Final Competition. Approximately 10 semi-finalists are chosen to compete in the final competition; the five winners are awarded a grand prize of $15,000 each, and the remainin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marion Freschl
Marion Freschl (née Szekely) (January 16, 1896, Zvolen - November 23, 1984, New York City) was an American operatic contralto and voice teacher of Hungarian descent. A member of the voice faculties at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, she taught several highly successful singers, including Marian Anderson, Joan La Barbara, Brenda Lewis, Joanna Simon, Shirley Verrett, and Camilla Williams. Both Freschl and her brother, baritone and voice teacher Rudolph Szekely, were trained at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and began their careers as resident artists at the Hungarian State Opera House. She went on to sing leading roles at opera houses in Germany, Austria and Scandinavia before immigrating to the United States in 1941. In the 1920s she was active with the Berlin State Opera. Freschl played an instrumental role in getting African-American soprano Camilla Williams an audition for the New York City Opera The New York City Opera (NYCO) is an American oper ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Fitziu
Anna Fitziu (April 1, 1887 – April 20, 1967) was an American soprano who had a prolific international opera career during the early part of the 20th century. Her signature roles included Fiora in ''L'amore dei tre re'', Mimi in ''La bohème'', Nedda in ''Pagliacci'', and the title roles in ''Isabeau'', ''Madama Butterfly'', and ''Tosca''. After her singing career ended, she embarked on a second career as a voice teacher. Among her notable pupils was opera singer Shirley Verrett. Early life and career She was born as Anna Powell in Huntington, West Virginia, on April 1, 1887. Fitziu began her career as a chorus girl and concert soloist in New York City in 1902. At this point in her career she worked under the name "Anna Fitzhugh", taking the last name from an old Virginia family (a member of which included Continental Congress delegate William Fitzhugh) that she was related to. She went to Chicago in early 1903 to portray a number of smaller roles in the musical comedy ''The Wiz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive with a respective county. The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the United States by both population and urban area. New York is a global center of finance and commerce, culture, technology, entertainment and media, academics, and scientific output, the arts and fashion, and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations, international diplomacy. With an estimated population in 2024 of 8,478,072 distributed over , the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Associate Degree
An associate degree or associate's degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of academic qualification above a high school diploma and below a bachelor's degree. The first associate degrees were awarded in the UK (where they are no longer awarded) in 1873 before spreading to the US in 1898. In the United States, the associate degree may allow transfer into the third year of a bachelor's degree. Associate degrees have since been introduced in a small number of other countries. Americas Argentina In Argentina, tertiary colleges ("institutos terciarios") offer associate degrees in a variety of areas, including elementary and high school teacher, and technical fields, upon completion of three or four years of study. Some of these degrees may be articulated with university programs, to obtain a bachelor degree after, usually, two additional years. Associate degrees are also offered by some universiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huntsville, Alabama
Huntsville is the List of municipalities in Alabama, most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the List of United States cities by population, 100th-most populous city in the U.S. The Huntsville metropolitan area had an estimated 525,465 residents and is the second-most populous metro area in the state, after Birmingham metropolitan area, Alabama, Birmingham. Huntsville is the seat of Madison County, Alabama, Madison County, with portions extending into Limestone County, Alabama, Limestone County and Morgan County, Alabama, Morgan County. Huntsville is located in the Appalachian region of North Alabama, northern Alabama, south of the state of Tennessee. It was founded within the Mississippi Territory in 1805 and became an incorporated town in 1811. When Alabama was admitted as a state in 1819, Huntsville was designated for a year as the first capital, before the state capitol was moved to more cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
