AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

They ask the God of Truth to forgive them and die together. Mittenhofer gives a public reading of his poem, but no words are heard. Personalities | Hans Werner Henze | Modern Era | Opera ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

palace. He raises his mother Semele from the dead and has her transported to Olympus as the goddess Thyone. The new cult is established in Thebes. Personalities | Hans Werner Henze | Modern Era | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

employ to his own ends; but it was Stravinsky who exerted the strongest influence on works such as his first major operatic success, Boulevard Solitude (1952). From that point Henze was able to sustain himself almost entirely by writing to commission. The ballet Undine (1958, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton and danced by Margot Fonteyn) was commissioned by the ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1926–2012, German A prolific composer of many moods and changes, Henze was yet another 12-note serialist who nonetheless was influenced by neo-classicism, expressionism and jazz. His first full-length opera, Boulevard Solitude (1952), preceded his move to Italy the following year. There, having finally put distance between himself and the repressive Germany of his youth, Henze’s ...

• Instruments
• Stringed

guitar repertoire has been enlarged by works from some of the composing heavyweights of the twentieth century, including Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), Benjamin Britten (1913–76), Michael Tippett (1905–98), Hans Werner Henze (b. 1926), William Walton (1902–83) and Rodney Bennett (b. 1936). Segovia’s zeal for encouraging new work has been taken up by a number of guitarists, including Julian Bream (b. ...

• Personalities
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

1697–1763, French Prévost has a place in operatic history quite simply because two major nineteenth-century composers made lasting operas out of his work: Massenet’s Manon and Puccini’s Manon Lescaut both derive from Prévost’s most famous novel, L’histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. Its exploration of the tribulations of a passionate woman made ideal material for operatic ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

became legendary within musical circles for her superlative performances of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Agathe in Der Freischütz. Introduction | Modern Era | Opera Personalities | Hans Werner Henze | Modern Era | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical
• Instrumentalist

is based on poems dating from Hölderlin’s final years of mental instability. As an oboist Holliger has had many works composed for him by, among others, Berio, Henze, Lutosławski and Stockhausen. Recommended Recording: Scardanelli-Zyklus, Aurèle Nicolet, London Voices, Ensemble Modern (cond) Heinz Holliger (ECM) Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities | Karl Jenkins | ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical
• Singer

and the Vienna State Opera, and with leading orchestras including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic. He is noted especially for his interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Britten and Henze (who wrote for him the Six Songs from the Arabian). Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities | Montserrat Caballé | Contemporary | Classical ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

b. 1960 English composer Turnage studied with Knussen at the Royal College of Music and later at the Tanglewood Music Center with Henze, who secured for him his first operatic commission for Greek, a setting of Steven Berkoff’s modern retelling of the Oedipus myth in London’s East End. Like his first major orchestral work, Night Dances (1980–81), much ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

Recommended Recording: Jetzt immer Schnee, Perception, soloists, Netherlands Chamber Choir, Schönberg Ensemble (cond) Reinbert de Leeuw (Philips/Decca) Introduction | Contemporary | Classical Personalities | Hans Werner Henze | Contemporary | Classical ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

in Hunan province during the Cultural Revolution, encountering Western classical music only on entering the Beijing Central Conservatory at 19. Encouraged there by visiting teachers such as Goehr, Henze and Takemitsu, he moved to New York in 1986 to continue his studies at Columbia University. His early works integrated elements of Western atonality with instruments and ritual elements ...

• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

lyricism provided inspiration for younger composers. Its depiction of a prisoner tortured by hope that is eventually betrayed, also demonstrated that modern opera could accommodate left-wing politics. Hans Werner Henze The lessons were not lost on Henze who, after serving in the German army during the war, worked on the music staff at several opera houses. That experience ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

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 (1903–78). Few opera librettists in recent history have ...