SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Tannhäuser
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The full title of this opera in three acts is Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg (‘Tannhäuser and the Song Contest on the Wartburg’). Wagner, who took nearly three years to write the opera, conducted the first performance at the Dresden Hofoper on 19 October 1845. This was the first of two Wagner operas in which a song contest ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

‘The Mastersingers of Nuremberg’ Die Meistersinger has often been described as a comedy. This, though, is not ‘comedy’ as found in the operas of Rossini or in Verdi’s Falstaff: what ‘comedy’ means in this context is the bitter ‘human comedy’. The premiere of Die Meistersinger took place in Munich on 21 June 1868. Wagner based his opera on the real-life ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Franz Liszt, the great Hungarian composer whose daughter Cosima married Wagner in 1870, conducted the first performance of the three-act opera Lohengrin at the Court Theatre, Weimar on 28 August 1850. Wagner provided a blueprint for productions of Lohengrin, just as he did for Tannhäuser, and emphasized the duty of the stage manager not to leave ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(An’-ton Brook’-ner) 1824–96 Austrian composer Bruckner’s Masses and symphonies, alongside those of Mahler, brought the Romantic symphonic tradition to its zenith. In contrast to Mahler’s angst and irony, Bruckner’s symphonies express triumphant faith, their almost cathedral-like proportions infused with exciting orchestral power and poetry. Born in the small town of Ansfelden near Linz, where his father was ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1888–1952, German Soprano Schumann made her debut in the Neues Stadt-Theater in Hamburg in 1909 and stayed there until 1919. Richard Strauss persuaded her to join the Vienna Staatsoper where she remained until 1938. She made her Covent Garden debut in 1924 as Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. From 1938 she took up residence in New York where she had already ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

b. 1945 American soprano Norman made her operatic debut in 1969 in Berlin as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, followed by Mozart’s Countess (The Marriage of Figaro), which she recorded under Colin Davis. Debuts followed in 1972 at La Scala (Aida) and Covent Garden (Berlioz’s Cassandra in The Trojans), and in 1983 she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera (Cassandra, then Dido). ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1807–86, Bohemian The Bohemian tenor Joseph Tichatschek made his debut at the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna in 1833, as the farmer, Raimbaut, in Meyerbeer’s Robert le diable. After a year, 1837, at Graz, Tichatschek found a regular berth at Dresden, where he sang between 1838 and 1870. He also performed at the Drury ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1864–1949, German Often regarded as the best composer never to have achieved greatness, Strauss succeeded Wagner and Johannes Brahms (1833–97) as the most important living German composer. At his most impressive, Strauss commands complete control over the orchestra and possesses striking harmonic inventiveness. Childhood and Family Strauss was born in Munich on 11 June 1864. His father, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1813–83, German If – to quote Mark Twain – Wagner’s music ‘is not as bad as it sounds’, then the composer’s life was by no means as turpitudinous as it is generally claimed to be. Idolized by his friends and supporters as a family man who was kind to animals and plagued by self-doubts, he was demonized by his ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Rich’-ärd Varg’-na) 1813–83 German composer Wagner is one of the most influential and controversial composers in the history of classical music. He was born in Leipzig and educated there and in Dresden. His later years were spent in Bayreuth, the home of the festival theatre and the yearly summer festival he founded, which still flourish today. The idea of Bayreuth ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The first half of the nineteenth century was essentially a period of insurgence in Europe, from the French Revolution in 1789 to the series of uprisings that rocked the continent around 1848. Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was also underway, beginning in Britain, then spreading south through the rest of Europe. With these two strands of revolution came ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The early nineteenth century was a period of insurgence in Europe, beginning with the French Revolution in 1789 to the uprisings in 1848. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain before spreading south to the rest of Europe, was also making its mark. These two strands of revolution caused transformations in society: growing awareness of national identity, ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

Between 1860 and 1918 Wagner became the most influential intellectual figure in Europe. For his Gesamtkunstwerk (‘Complete Art-Work’) he drew on a wide range of inspirations, including Greek tragedy, the symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and his own historicist ideas of realizing the latent tendencies of all arts. This ensured that his music-dramas reached into almost every area ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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