Opera
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Sir Georg Solti *X 21 1912 — The Life You Give
Georg Solti, born October 21, 1912, in Budapest, Hungary, conductor and pianist, is one of the most highly regarded conductors of the second half of the 20th century. He was especially noted for his interpretations of Romantic orchestral and operatic works. Solti studied at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Béla Bartók and…
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Luciano Pavarotti *X 12 1935 — The Life You Give
Luciano Pavarotti, born October 12, 1935, in Modena, Italy, is the operatic lyric tenor who was considered one of the finest bel canto opera singers of the 20th century. Even in the highest register, his voice was noted for its purity of tone, and his concerts, recordings, and television appearances—which provided him ample opportunity to…
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Dmitri Shostakovich *IX 25 1906 — The Life You Give
Dmitri Shostakovich, born Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, on September 12 [September 25, New Style], 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia, is the composer renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of Soviet art. Shostakovich was the son of an engineer. He entered the…
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“Das Rheingold”, by Richard Wagner, premiered on September 22 1869, at the National Theatre, Munich
Das Rheingold, WWV 86AFirst of the four epic music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner’s cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). Libretto: Richard WagnerMusic: Richard WagnerBased on Nordic and German legendsPremiered: 22 September 1869 at the National Theatre Munich In the depths of the Rhine, the three Rhinemaidens guard the Rhinegold, a…
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Francesca Caccini *IX 18 1587 — The Life You Give
Francesca Caccini, also called Francesca Signorini, Francesca Signorini-Malaspina, or Francesca Raffaelli, byname La Cecchina, born September 18, 1587, in Florence, Italy, is the composer and singer who was one of only a handful of women in 17th-century Europe whose compositions were published. The most significant of her compositions—published and unpublished—were produced during her employment at…
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Tatiana Troyanos *IX 12 1938 — The Life You Give
The dynamic mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos was born into a singing family; her Greek father was a tenor, and her German mother a soprano. Born in New York, Troyanos studied at the Juilliard School with Hans J. Heinz, while singing occasionally in the New York area (she was a member of the original chorus for the…
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Henry Purcell *IX 10 1659 / The Life You Give
Henry Purcell, born September 10 1659, London, England, is the composer of the middle Baroque period, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas; and his incidental music to a version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream called The Fairy Queen. Purcell, the most important English composer of his…
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Antonin Dvořák *IX 8 1841 / The Life You Give
Antonín Dvořák, born Antonín Leopold Dvořák, September 8, 1841, in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic], is the first Bohemian composer to have achieved worldwide recognition, noted for turning folk material into 19th-century Romantic music. Dvořák was born, the first of nine children, in Nelahozeves, a Bohemian village on the Vltava River north…
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Angela Gheorghiu *IX 7 1965 / The Life You Give
Angela Gheorghiu, born Angela Burlacu on September 7, 1965, in Adjud, Romania, is an operatic lyric soprano noted for her powerful voice and commanding stage presence. Gheorghiu early realized her love of singing, and she was supported by her family in working toward a career in opera. She left home at age 14 to study…
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Giacomo Meyerbeer *IX 5 1791 — The Life You Give
Giacomo Meyerbeer, born Jakob Liebmann Meyer Beer, September 5, 1791, in Tasdorf, near Berlin, Germany, is the opera composer who established in Paris a vogue for spectacular romantic opera. Born of a wealthy Jewish family, Meyerbeer studied composition in Berlin and later at Darmstadt, where he formed a friendship with C.M. von Weber. His early…
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Engelbert Humperdinck *IX 1 1854 — The Life You Give
Engelbert Humperdinck, born September 1, 1854, in Siegburg, Prussia [Germany], is the composer known for his opera Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck studied at Cologne and at Munich. In 1879 a Mendelssohn scholarship enabled him to go to Italy, where he met Richard Wagner, who invited him to assist in the production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.…
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Applied Opera: Einstein on the Beach (Glass, Wilson, Childs)
Applied Opera is a series of conversations on Clubhouse, to investigate or consider a number of art pieces, particularly in the opera genre which exemplify the views on what it is to be human, or the topic of humanism. The first of the series was on Iolanta, the opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, in which the…
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Lohengrin (Wagner) premiered today in 1850
Lohengrin, WWV 75Romantic opera in three acts Composition: Richard WagnerLibretto: Richard WagnerPremiere: 28 August 1850, Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, and its sequel Lohengrin, itself inspired by the epic of Garin le Loherain. It is part of the…
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Karlheinz Stockhausen *VIII 22 1928 / The Life You Give
Karlheinz Stockhausen, born Aug. 22, 1928, in Mödrath, near Cologne, Germany, is the composer, and important creator and theoretician of electronic and serial music who strongly influenced avant-garde composers from the 1950s through the ’80s. Stockhausen studied at the State Academy for Music in Cologne and the University of Cologne from 1947 to 1951. In…
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Jacopo Peri *VIII 20 1561 / The Life You Give
Jacopo Peri, byname Il Zazzerino, born August 20, 1561, in Rome or Florence, is the composer noted for his contribution to the development of dramatic vocal style in early Baroque opera. Under the early sponsorship of the Florentine Cristofano Malvezzi, Peri had published by 1583 both an instrumental work and a madrigal. After early posts…
Sila Blume 