Eugene Onegin was written after the disaster of Tchaikovsky’s marriage in 1877, and was also influenced by his platonic relationship with his admirer and patron Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky began Eugene Onegin by writing the famous ‘letter scene’ from Act I, in which the heroine Tat’yana spends the night writing to Onegin, telling him of her love for ...
Eugène Scribe (1791–1861) began his career as a dramatist for the Parisian popular stage, writing vaudevilles and comedies. This experience was crucial to his development of the French opera libretto, as he injected a new realism, pace and drama into serious and comic opera, and brought the two genres closer together. During his lifetime he wrote librettos ...
1791–1861, French Eugène Scribe, the French librettist, scored his first success with Auber’s opéra comique La dame blanche (‘The White Lady’, 1825). However, Scribe concentrated mainly on French grand opéra, with libretti that matched the genre’s visual and musical grandeur and the dramatic on-stage action. Scribe formed a partnership with Auber, who set no less ...
1899–1985 American conductor Born in Hungary, where he later had a career as a violinist, Ormandy started conducting in the US. After five years with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, he moved to the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he was music director 1938–73. He specialized in large-scale Romantic orchestral works, but he also conducted new music. Introduction | ...
1799–1837, Russian Russian composers of the High Romantic era were able to enjoy a ready-made source of stories for operas in the works of Alexander Pushkin. His first success was the romantic poem Ruslan i Lyudmila (1820), which Glinka used for his opera of the same name, first performed in 1842. Pushkin produced not only poetry, but essays ...
b. 1971 Russian-Austrian soprano After studies at the Conservatory in St Petersburg, she made her stage debut in 1994 at the Kirov (now Mariinsky) Opera, of which she remains a company member. Her US debut a year later (San Francisco) was followed by appearances at Covent Garden, Salzburg and the Metropolitan Opera (2002). She excels in both Italian ...
1873–1938, Russian Almost entirely self-taught as a singer, Chaliapin began singing in Tbilisi and St Petersburg. He made a name for himself singing both Boris and Valaam from Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839–81) Boris Godunov (1874). Although best known for singing the Russian repertoire, Chaliapin performed in a wide range of operas, including those by Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) and ...
(Goos’-taf Ma’-ler) 1860–1911 Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler bestrode the world of music at the end of the nineteenth century. ‘My time will come’, he remarked about his often misunderstood compositions. For Mahler the conductor, due recognition did come during his lifetime, but another half-century had to pass before a fully sympathetic appreciation of his creative achievement was possible ...
1832–1906, Russian Ivan Melnikov, the Russian baritone, was best known for creating the role of Boris Godunov in Mussorgsky’s opera in 1869. Trained in Russia and Italy, Melnikov had made his debut at the Maryinsky Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg only two years earlier, as Riccardo in Bellini’s I puritani. Melnikov continued to sing at the ...
1856–1928, Italian Battistini was gifted with a beautiful baritone voice and after only a short period of study was given the opportunity to take on the leading role in Gaetano Donizetti’s (1797–1848) La favorite in 1878. Such was his success that Battistini embarked immediately on a busy schedule. His liquid, agile, high voice was ideally suited for the ...
1840–93, Russian Tchaikovsky was an intensely emotional, painfully sensitive man, much given to depression and morbid states of mind. He almost went mad with grief when his mother died of cholera in 1854, when he was 14. To compound his melancholy mindset, Tchaikovsky was tortured by his homosexuality, and saw marriage as a possible solution. ...
(Pi’-otr Il’-yech Chi’-kôf-ska) 1840–93 Russian composer Few composers from the second half of the nineteenth century have achieved as great a popularity as Tchaikovsky. For many listeners, the secret lies in his special gift for broad, arching melodies and his tendency towards agonized self-expression, rooted in a series of crises in his personal life, which fall easy prey ...
b. 1955 American baritone Regarded by many as the outstanding lyric baritone of his generation, Hampson has appeared regularly at the Vienna State Opera and the Met, and his repertoire encompasses Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Rossini’s William Tell, Verdi’s Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra, Thomas’ Hamlet and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. He is an acclaimed singer of German Lieder ...
That music has a double history – a social and a stylistic one – is amply proven by its development in the second half of the nineteenth century. Its progress was marked, though not entirely determined, by the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848. There were perceptible changes of emphasis, not only in concert and operatic life from ...
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 ...
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