AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic
• Writer

(Arnst Ta’-o-dôr A-ma-da’-oos Hof’-man) 1776–1822 German writer and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann’s wide-ranging talents were the source of great inspiration throughout the nineteenth century, and composers who drew on his stories include Schumann (Kreisleriana) and Offenbach (Les contes d’Hoffmann). He was also an astute and perceptive critic, and his review in 1810 of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is justly famous. ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1776–1822, German E.T.A. Hoffmann, the German novelist, critic, composer and conductor was among the most influential literary figures of the Romantic movement. He was the first to suggest that Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a Romantic rather than a Classical opera because of its strong associations between love and death. Hoffmann wrote several operas with dialogue ...

• Major Operas
• High Romantic
• Opera

‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ Premiered: 1881, Paris Libretto by Jules Barbier after the play by Barbier and Michel Carré Act I Hoffmann has neglected poetry in his search for love. His muse is transformed into a companion named Nicklausse in order to protect him. Hoffmann’s latest love, Stella, an opera singer, is also admired by Counsellor Lindorf. ...

• Classical
• Early Romantic

Following the social and political upheaval of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, Europe enjoyed a short period of relative stability with Napoleon’s exile, the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France and the establishment of the Vienna Peace Settlement in 1815. However, in the early 1820s a number of minor revolts broke out in Naples and ...

• Inside the Music
• Classical
• Early Romantic

Unlike the ‘New German School’ of Liszt and Wagner, Schumann did not pursue a path of radical experimentation in form and harmony; his style more aptly encapsulates German literary Romanticism in music, interpreting the rhythms and melodic shapes of German poetry and folk music through his own ardent and whimsical nature, and incorporating themes and ideas from Goethe ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Romantic

(Fa’-ne [Men’-del-son] Hen’-zel) 1805–47 German composer Fanny was the sister of Mendelssohn. They received identical musical education, but their conservative father expected Fanny to display her undoubted musical talents only within the semi-public world of the family’s renowned Sunday concerts, which she organized and performed in as pianist and conductor. Encouraged by her husband, Hensel started to publish her ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1819–80, French Jacques Offenbach had an acute sense of theatre and an incisive understanding of how to cater for French tastes. He was 14 when his father sent him to Paris, where Jews were freer than they were in Germany. Offenbach became a cellist, performing in fashionable salons, and finally, in 1855, became famous. He ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

(Zhak Of’-fen-bakh) 1819–80 French composer Offenbach’s tuneful, witty and often outrageous satires on Greek mythology and the Second Empire enthralled the French public, including the Emperor Louis-Napoleon. After only one year at the Paris Conservatoire, he joined the Opéra-Comique orchestra, studying with Halévy, and toured as a virtuoso cellist. After conducting at the Théâtre Français, he ...

• Personalities
• High Romantic
• Opera

1834–1908, French Ludovic Halévy was the nephew of the French composer Fromental Halévy (1799–1862) and first made his name as a novelist and playwright. Halévy worked as a civil servant until 1865, when he retired to write full time. By then he had already become friendly with Jacques Offenbach and in 1858, together with Hector Crémieux (1828–92), he ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1965 French soprano Dessay’s performance as Olympia (Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann) at the Opéra Bastille (subsequently repeated at the Vienna State Opera, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera) established her reputation as the world’s leading French coloratura soprano. She made frequent appearances as Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute) and as Donizetti’s Lucia, Delibes’ Lakmé, and ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

b. 1972 Mexican-French tenor After studies in Mexico City, he joined the Merola Opera Programme at San Francisco in 1998. His success at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia competition a year later was quickly followed by appearances at Genoa (his European debut), the Paris Opéra and the Berlin Staatsoper. Equally at home in French and Italian repertoire, he made his debuts ...