AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

‘Ariadne on Naxos’ Strauss may not have been the out-and-out modernist many have wanted him to be, but neither was he one to sit back and reproduce carbon copies of past successes. Strauss and Hofmannsthal decided to follow up Der Rosenkavalier with an altogether different proposition. Ariadne auf Naxos, in its original version, is a curious amalgam of ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

b. 1969, German Kaufmann’s mesmerising presence, fine acting and beautiful sound have secured his place in the operatic firmament. He sings a large number of spinto tenor roles, such as the title role in Don Carlos, Don Jose in Carmen, and Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, alongside an increasing number of Wagnerian roles. His versatility in ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

‘Rise and Fall of the city of Mahagonny’ Composed: 1927–29 Premiered: 1930, Leipzig Libretto by Bertolt Brecht Act I Leokadja Begbick, Trinity Moses and Fatty, all wanted by the police, found Mahagonny. They recruit men in search of whisky, gambling and women to join them in the ‘city of gold’. Jenny’s price, thirty bucks, ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1969 German tenor Kaufmann trained in Munich and was engaged at various German opera houses before making his international debut at the Chicago Lyric (2001), followed quickly by appearances at the Paris Opéra and La Scala, Milan. He has sung not only the major Italian tenor roles – such as Verdi’s Don Carlo, Alfredo (La traviata), Cavaradossi (Puccini’s ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

‘The Woman Without a Shadow’ Like Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten had a tempestuous genesis. The idea itself stemmed from the period immediately after the premiere of Der Rosenkavalier, but Hofmannsthal’s continual flood of ideas compounded by Strauss’s curmudgeonliness ensured the project stalled regularly. The start of the First World War did nothing to help, and ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

(Ga-ôrg Ben’-da) 1722–95 Bohemian composer Born at Staré Benátky in Bohemia into a family of musicians (his brother Franz was a violinist and composer at Frederick the Great’s court in Berlin), Benda went to Germany as a young man and spent most of his working career as Kapellmeister at Gotha; he retired in 1778. He is remembered chiefly for his German operas ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1722–95, Czech Georg Benda was a Czech composer who produced several stage dramas for the ducal court at Gotha, where he was Kapellmeister. His first – and only – Italian opera was Xindo riconosciuto (‘Xindo Remembered’, 1765). Subsequent works were distinctly innovative. In this phase of his career, Benda turned first to German ‘duodramas’, also known as ‘melodramas’. ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1874–1929, Austrian Hofmannsthal was a precocious talent. His first published poem appeared when he was just 16 and he rapidly made the acquaintance of some of the leading literary figures of the day. Most important was a paternalistic relationship with the German poet Stefan George (1868–1933). Hofmannsthal’s youthful ability led to a creative crisis in his mid-twenties from which he ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

b. 1945, American Boasting one of the most magnificent voices of her generation, Norman has received praise for her operatic, concert and recital performances. A scholarship student at Howard University at the age of 16, she then studied at the Peabody Institute and received her Masters Degree at the University of Michigan. Her 1969 operatic debut as ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1888–1976, American One of modern opera’s great singers, Lehmann’s performances of Robert Schumann’s songs were renowned. She created the roles of the composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, the Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Christine in Intermezzo, all by Strauss. Although her true artistic home was Vienna, she made an auspicious debut as Sieglinde ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1887–1982, Czech-Moravian The most highly paid German-speaking soprano between the wars, Jeritza sang mainly at the Vienna State Opera between 1912 and 1935. She debuted numerous roles, including Ariadne in both versions of Ariadne auf Naxos and the empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss. She also sang Marietta in Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Re-khart Shtrous) 1864–1949 German composer During an amazingly productive career, Richard Strauss wrote 15 operas, five ballets, several orchestral masterpieces, well over 200 songs and many other works. As a conductor he contributed in countless practical ways to the musical life of Europe and the US in the flourishing period from the last two decades of the nineteenth ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1864–1949, German Often regarded as the best composer never to have achieved greatness, Strauss succeeded Wagner and Johannes Brahms (1833–97) as the most important living German composer. At his most impressive, Strauss commands complete control over the orchestra and possesses striking harmonic inventiveness. Childhood and Family Strauss was born in Munich on 11 June 1864. His father, ...

• Opera
• Modern Era

The opera house and, more specifically, opera audiences, were among the last to be receptive to the new musical language that developed during the twentieth century. Slow, as well as reluctant to vary their traditional musical tastes, perceptions and expectations, many viewed the opera house with nostalgia; as a symbol of the establishment, holding ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

Strauss’s final opera marked a belated return to form. He had suffered since the end of his collaboration with Hofmannsthal and jettisoned his original librettist, Joseph Gregor, in favour of the conductor Clemens Krauss. The conception was a simple but subtle one in which the characters in the piece decide to write an opera. Only at the end is ...