in love with the beautiful Ormoena. Before he can marry her, however, Nero must first rid himself of his own virtuous wife, Octavia. Act II Nero orders Octavia to commit suicide, either by poison or with a dagger. Ever obedient, Octavia prepares to stab herself but is stopped at the last minute by the patrician Piso ...
Poppea and Nero take leave of each other, and Poppea confides in her nurse, Arnalta, her desire to be crowned empress. Meanwhile, Nero’s wife, Empress Octavia, laments her husband’s infidelity and is comforted by Seneca, a statesman and philospher. Returning home to his palace, Nero declares his intention to divorce Octavia and marry ...
1678–1721, German In 1705, Barthold Feind – whose real name was Aristobulos Eutropius or Aristobulos Wahrmund – was practising law in his home city, Hamburg, when he wrote his first libretto for Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739), Octavia. Keiser needed a replacement at this time, after the death of Christian Heinrich Postel, who had been his librettist ...
(Klou’-dyo Mon-ta-ver’-de) 1567–1643 Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi stands as one of the last great composers of the Renaissance and one of the first of the Baroque. He studied composition with the madrigalist Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1547–92) in his home town of Cremona. When he took his first professional post in his mid-twenties, he had already published six books of music and ...
Handel, among others. Afterwards, as sole director, Keiser made Hamburg the premier operatic centre in Germany. His own music contributed much to this reputation. Keiser’s Claudius (1703), Octavia (1705) and Croesus (1710) demonstrated a lyricism and emotional power that was said to match the best of the Italian and French operas. The exact number of operas written by ...
What distinguishes Peri’s Euridice from other musical dramas staged at the time, and allows it to claim the status of the first opera, is the composer’s use of a new style of singing, intended to imitate speech in song. It was partly the outcome of attempts to recreate the direct and expressive declamation of ancient Greek and Roman ...
‘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 ...
b. 1939 German mezzo-soprano After her Munich debut in 1961, Brigitte Fassbaender took on a variety of operatic personae, from trouser roles, such as Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (sung also for her Covent Garden and Metropolitan Opera debuts), to Fricka in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Countess Geschwitz in the first complete production of Berg’s Lulu (Paris, 1979). She ...
b. 1928 German mezzo-soprano Ludwig made her debut at Frankfurt in 1946, and from 1955 was based at the Vienna State Opera. She appeared all over the world in Wagner and Strauss mezzo roles, and occasionally sang soprano parts. Her many recordings include Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) under Karajan and the Marschallin (the same opera) under Bernstein. Introduction | Contemporary ...
1895–1936, Spanish This Spanish contralto made her debut just before her 16th birthday at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The following year she sang Octavian in the Rome premiere of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. She soon became associated with Rossini’s heroines, Angelina, Rosina and Isabella, all of which she sang with irresistible charm and charisma. ...
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