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‘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, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Flying Dutchman’ Initially a one-act opera, Der Fliegende Holländer was later expanded to three. Wagner was anxious to make sure it was performed in the way he wished, and wrote detailed production notes for the directors and singers. He also conducted the first performance at the Hofoper or Court Opera in Dresden on 2 January 1843. Although Wagner ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Free-shooter’ The Faustian theme, with its connotations of the black arts, was not new to opera when Weber wrote Der Freischütz. Since 1796 there had already been eight operas based on the sixteenth-century legend as composers responded to one of the most seductive themes of the early Romantic era: a pact with the devil for personal gain or ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Wagner’s Ring cycle is made up of four works – Das Rheingold (‘The Rhinegold’, 1851–54), Die Walküre (‘The Valkyrie’, 1851–56), Siegfried (1851–57; 1864–71) and Götterdämmerung (‘Twilight of the Gods’, 1848–52; 1869–74). Although there have been other, even more ambitious projects in the history of opera – Rutland Boughton’s cycle of choral dramas based on the Arthurian legends and Karlheinz Stockhausen’s ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Knight of the Rose’ For the follow-up to Elektra, Strauss declared he wanted to write a Mozart opera. Despite Hofmannsthal’s protests about a light, Renaissance subject set in the past, the librettist soon came up with a scenario that delighted Strauss. The correspondence between librettist and composer was good-natured and respectful. Each made suggestions to the other ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Composed: 1933–35 Premiered: 1938, Zürich Libretto by the composer Scene I Mathis is painting a fresco. Schwalb, a leader of the peasants’ revolt, shelters in the monastery with his daughter Regina. He reproaches Mathis for ignoring his fellow men. Mathis helps them escape. Scene II Catholics quarrel with Protestants. Riedinger, a wealthy Protestant, successfully protests to ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Vol’-ter fun dâr Fo’-gel-vi-da) fl. c. 1200 German Minnesinger Both in his time and in ours Walther von der Vogelweide has been considered the leading figure in medieval German poetry, and his music was mentioned for its excellence by his contemporaries. His poetic works are found in a large number of manuscripts – an indication of his popularity – but ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

In 1891, when the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) wrote his famous words ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’, he had somehow managed to overlook the artistic realities of the late nineteenth century. By that time, after some 50 years of the High Romantic era, music and opera had brought real life on stage and ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The political structure of Europe changed greatly during the second half of the nineteenth century. Germany and Italy became united countries under supreme rulers. The Habsburgs’ Austrian Empire, ruled from Vienna, became fragmented into Austria-Hungary. The borders of this new confederation contained the cauldron of difficulties that eventually developed into the confrontations which culminated in World War I in ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845–86), a homosexual and a strange, obsessive character, came from a royal family, the Wittelsbachs, which had a strong streak of madness in it. Ludwig virtually fell in love with Wagner and his music, calling the composer his ‘one true friend whom I shall love until death.... If only, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

This unlikely opera house was the first avant-garde public arena and was funded by the Prussian Ministry of Culture. Built in 1844 by entrepreneur Josef Kroll, the theatre, with its large stage and fine acoustics, became the centrepiece for new music and production values that embraced modernity. When Otto Klemperer was appointed musical director, he approached the ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Between 1860 and 1918 Wagner became the most influential intellectual figure in Europe. For his Gesamtkunstwerk (‘Complete Art-Work’) he drew on a wide range of inspirations, including Greek tragedy, the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his own historicist ideas of realizing the latent tendencies of all arts. This ensured that his music-dramas reached into almost every area ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The banjo is a plucked stringed instrument with a circular body and fretted neck. Its roots lie in the French and British colonies of Africa, where instruments made from a hollowed-out gourd covered with animal skin, bamboo neck and catgut strings were popular. Particularly associated with celebrations and dancing, these instruments went by various names including banza and ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

The mandolin is a small, teardrop shaped, plucked stringed instrument. Its most famous form is the Neopolitan mandolin, beloved of all romantics for its use on Venetian gondolas. It is descended from the lute and, since its rejuvenation in the nineteenth century, has remained a popular and versatile instrument. Mandola The mandolin developed from the Italian ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins

A trombone is a brass instrument sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is peculiar amongst brass instruments in using a double ‘U’-shaped slide to alter its pitch. The early history of the trombone is confused, mostly due to a lack of clarity in naming instruments. It is generally accepted that the immediate precursor to the trombone was ...

Source: The Illustrated Complete Musical Instruments Handbook, general editor Lucien Jenkins
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