AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1907–73, English Possessing an ironic wit and a supreme lyric gift, Wystan Hugh Auden, born in York, England, in 1907, was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To him, opera was ‘the last refuge of the High Style’, since it was the sole art that could survive the pessimism of modernity. ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1959–61 Premiered: 1961, Schwetzingen Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman Act I Hilda Mack recalls how her husband set out to climb the Hammerhorn 40 years ago. Dr Reischmann and Carolina, physician and secretary to the poet Gregor Mittenhofer, agree that no one thanks ‘the Servants of the Servant of the Muse’. Reischmann’s son Toni ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1965 Premiered: 1966, Salzburg Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman after Euripides’ The Bacchae First Movement Cadmus, King of Thebes, has abdicated in favour of his grandson, Pentheus, who intends to break with the traditional religious order and establish monotheism. An offstage voice announces that ‘the God Dionysus has entered Boeotia’. If legend ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

house lights to present the story’s epilogue-cum-moral, Mozart-like devices being used to disguise more serious post-war issues of morality. Composed: 1947–51 Premiered: 1951, Venice Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman after William Hogarth’s series of paintings Act I Trulove is determined that his daughter Anne will never marry a lazy husband. Tom Rakewell scorns work and prefers ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

a BBC singer who also dabbled in composition, and together the self-declared pacifists left for the US in 1939, following in the footsteps of their friend W. H. Auden, with whom Britten collaborated on the American folk opera Paul Bunyan that same year. While in San Diego, Britten became enthralled with the poetry of George Crabbe, ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

Hirsch (1956), Elegy for Young Lovers (1961) and The Bassarids (1966). The latter two, arguably his most important works, are notable for his collaborations with librettists W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman – Elegy for Young Lovers is a chamber opera with a 12-tone score, while one-act, full-length opera The Bassarids, an adaption of Euripides’ The ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(E’-gor Strvin’-ske) 1882–1971 Russian composer Stravinsky was a Russian composer, naturalized to French citizenship, then ultimately became American. He was one of the most formative influences on twentieth-century music. He came from a musical background (his father was principal bass singer at the Imperial Opera in St Petersburg) and studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, from whom he acquired a mastery ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

Sieden (Ariel), Philip Langridge (Alonso), Donald Kaasch (Antonio), Jonathan Summers (Sebastian), David Condier (Trinculo), Stephen Richardson (Stefano), Graeme Danby (Gonzalo) Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Personalities | W.H. Auden | Modern Era | Opera Houses & Companies | The Birth of the Metropolitan Opera | Turn of the Century | Opera ...

• Classical
• Modern Era

The Modern Age was characterized by rapid and radical change and political turmoil. By 1918 the Russian tsar, the Habsburg emperor and the German kaiser had lost their thrones. The two Russian revolutions of 1917 resulted in a Communist government led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was fragmented to allow self-determination to the newly formed countries of Czechoslovakia ...

• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

European culture lay in ruins after the end of World War II. There were many who, in company with the philosopher Theodor Adorno, felt that Nazi atrocities such as Auschwitz rendered art impossible, at least temporarily. Others, though, felt that humanity could only establish itself anew by rediscovering the potency of art, including opera. On ...

• Techniques
• Modern Era
• Opera

certain images that he wanted to use them as the basis for an English-language opera. At the recommendation of his friend Aldous Huxley, Stravinsky contacted the poet W. H. Auden, and the two of them subsequently set to work on The Rake’s Progress. Hogarth’s stock in trade was that of an artist; painting, drawing and making prints of ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

The most successful librettist of the modern era was W. H. Auden, who provided texts for Britten’s first opera, Paul Bunyan and, in collaboration with Chester Kallman, for operas by Stravinsky (The Rake’s Progress), Henze (Elegy for Young Lovers, 1961; The Bassarids, 1966), and for less acclaimed works by John Gardner (1917–2011) and Nicolas Nabokov ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

1874–1954 American composer Ives was drawn to music largely by the example of his father George, who had been a bandsman in the American Civil War and who encouraged his son in such experiments as playing a tune in one key and its accompaniment in another. Ives studied with the conservative composer Horatio Parker (1863–1919), but soon turned to his ...