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• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

‘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, ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1928 Premiered: 1928, Berlin Book by Bertolt Brecht, from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann after John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera Prologue The Ballad Singer sings the ‘Ballad of Mack the Knife’. Act I Peachum controls the begging business in London. His wife’s description of their daughter Polly’s lover, ‘the Captain’, fits the notorious gang leader Macheath (Mack ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(Koort Vil) 1900–50 German/American composer Weill was influenced by his teacher Busoni, by Stravinsky and by the ideal of Zeitoper (opera on contemporary subjects and themes). In his early, successful stage pieces, including Der Protagonist (‘The Protagonist’, 1926) and Royal Palace (1927), he soon moved towards a style, related to jazz and cabaret, that made him ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1900–50, German A precocious compositional talent, Weill’s early operatic works Der Protagonist (‘The Protagonist’, 1926) and Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (‘The Tsar has his Photograph Taken’, 1928) strengthened his resolve to invent a style of music theatre that used the finest playwrights and dancers. In 1927, he collaborated with writer Bertolt Brecht on Mahagonny Songspiel, and ...

• Personalities
• Alternative/Indie Rock
• Grunge
• Guitar Heroes

Arguably the most important alternative guitarist of the 1990s, Kurt Cobain (1967–94) was born in Aberdeen, Washington. His parents divorced when he was seven, which had a traumatic effect on Cobain, tainting the remainder of his life. From an early age, he showed a keen interest in music, singing along to Beatles’ songs on the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

(Jörd’-ji Koor-tag) b. 1926 Hungarian composer Kurtág’s music is unusual for the depth and intensity with which it addresses human concerns. He has never been interested in forging new musical paths and often revisits familiar territory. The one abiding concern of his work is to strip away everything that is inessential structurally or emotionally (Messages of the Late R.V. Troussova ...

• Instruments
• Stringed

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 ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

First performed as an incomplete work on 2 June 1937 in Zurich, this opera boasts a Berg libretto that is based on two Frank Wedekind tragedies: Erdgeist (‘Earth Spirit’, 1895) and Die Büchse der Pandora (‘Pandora’s Box’, 1904). Following the composer’s death, controversy arose as to the fate of the incomplete third act. Berg’s widow asked Schoenberg, Webern ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(An’-ton Va’-bern) 1883–1945 Austrian composer Webern was the most orthodox of Schoenberg’s pupils – more rigorous in his exclusive use of serialism than Schoenberg himself – and, after his sudden death (he was accidentally shot by an American soldier), the most influential upon the post-war avant-garde. Even before Schoenberg developed the 12-note system, his pieces tended towards crystalline formal ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1898–1956, German A poet and playwright, Brecht was best known for his departure from the conventions of theatrical illusion to create ‘epic theatre’ as a tool for social commentary. At its least nuanced and most dogmatic, this amounted to a didactic forum for his communist cause. Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht was born and raised in Bavaria, where ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1911–60, American Possessing a voice of exceptional ability, Warren was one of America’s greatest opera stars. His voice eclipsed his contemporaries; he was the only dramatic baritone able to sing an open high C. Among his best performances were those in Verdi’s Il trovatore, Rigoletto, La traviata, Un ballo in maschera and Macbeth. He collapsed onstage ...

• 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 ...

• Opera
• Modern Era

The opera house and, more specifically, opera audiences, were among the last to be receptive to the new musical language that developed during the twentieth century. Slow, as well as reluctant to vary their traditional musical tastes, perceptions and expectations, many viewed the opera house with nostalgia; as a symbol of the establishment, holding ...

• 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 ...

• Houses & Companies
• Modern Era
• Opera

In 1937, Arnold Schoenberg said, ‘I have at last learned the lesson that has been forced upon me during this year, and I shall not ever forget it. It is that I am not a German, not a European, indeed perhaps scarcely a human being – at least the Europeans prefer the worst of their race ...