AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1907–73, English Possessing an ironic wit and a supreme lyric gift, Wystan Hugh Auden, born in York, England, in 1907, was one of the great writers of the twentieth century. To him, opera was ‘the last refuge of the High Style’, since it was the sole art that could survive the pessimism of modernity. ...

• 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 ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

b. 1971, British A celebrated composer, conductor, pianist and curator, Thomas Adès has already inspired retrospectives of his work. His operas, Powder Her Face (1995) and The Tempest (2004) received critical and audience acclaim and both have entered the contemporary repertoire. Performances of The Tempest include the 2004 production at the Metropolitan Opera, directed by ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Contemporary Classical

The most successful librettist of the modern era 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 ...

• 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 ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1959–61 Premiered: 1961, Schwetzingen Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman Act I Hilda Mack recalls how her husband set out to climb the Hammerhorn 40 years ago. Dr Reischmann and Carolina, physician and secretary to the poet Gregor Mittenhofer, agree that no one thanks ‘the Servants of the Servant of the Muse’. Reischmann’s son Toni ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Composed: 1965 Premiered: 1966, Salzburg Libretto by W. H. Auden and Chester Kallman after Euripides’ The Bacchae First Movement Cadmus, King of Thebes, has abdicated in favour of his grandson, Pentheus, who intends to break with the traditional religious order and establish monotheism. An offstage voice announces that ‘the God Dionysus has entered Boeotia’. If legend ...

• Major Operas
• Modern Era
• Opera

Based on a series of eight Hogarth paintings, this opera was first performed on 11 September 1951 at Il Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In The Rake’s Progress, Stravinsky’s neo-classical style maintains a clear delineation of musical numbers separated by recitatives (accompanied by harpsichord), and as such it has often been considered a stylistic companion to the works of ...

• 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 ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1913–76, English Lord Edward Benjamin Britten was one of England’s most important composers. Britten was a musical ambassador who, working with a close-knit group of collaborators, helped develop a thriving and vital British opera scene. Indeed, Peter Grimes (1945) heralded a new era for British music and for the post-war performing arts in general. A Musical Start ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Modern Era

(E’-gor Strvin’-ske) 1882–1971 Russian composer Stravinsky was a Russian composer, naturalized to French citizenship, then ultimately became American. He was one of the most formative influences on twentieth-century music. He came from a musical background (his father was principal bass singer at the Imperial Opera in St Petersburg) and studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, from whom he acquired a mastery ...

• Techniques
• Modern Era
• Opera

When Stravinsky attended a Hogarth exhibition at the Art Institute in Chicago, he was so captivated by the natural narrative of certain images that he wanted to use them as the basis for an English-language opera. At the recommendation of his friend Aldous Huxley, Stravinsky contacted the poet W. H. Auden, and the two of them subsequently set ...