Opera

six years gained practical experience conducting in provincial theaters. He married the actress Minna Planer when he was twenty-three and produced his rst operas at this time. He wrote the librettos himself, as he did for all his later works. In this way, he was able to unify music and drama more than anyone had before. Wagner’s early opera, Rienzi, won a huge success in Dresden. With his next three works, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin, Wagner took an important step by shifting…

Known as the “father of Italian opera,” Claudio Monteverdi found a way to bridge the gap between the renaissance and the baroque era. As a composer of the renaissance period, Monteverdi was most popular for his colorful madrigals and motets. Marc Antonio Ingegneri was his teacher growing up in Cremona, Italy. Monteverdi started working for the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua in 1591 as a composer and an instrumentalist. He was obligated by his profession to write sacred music but also…

I enjoyed many experiences on our study tour to Salzburg and Vienna, but my favorite experiences were the guided visit of the Mozart House in the Vienna City Center, the tour and concert of the Mozarteum and Mozart’s opera “La Clemenza di Tito”. I really loved the guided visit of the third Mozart house we went to, the one in Vienna. Not only did it have some really interesting Mozart stuff, but I also loved the exhibition on “Rock Me Amadeus” in the basement of the house. I loved the tour guide…

"Ombra mai fu" is the opening aria from the 1738 opera Serse by George Frideric Handel. It has often been arranged for other voice types and instruments, including solo organ, solo piano, violin and piano, and string ensembles, often under the title "Largo from Xerxes", although the original tempo is marked larghetto. For most of the piece the vocalist is in piano (soft) and only forte (loud) one time close to the end of the piece. Even though many composers write on the music sheet how the…

as a whole. Other notable composers of zarzuela music include Felipe Pedrell, Francisco Alonso, Amadeo vives, and Rafael Millan. In 1873 Felipe Pedrell went to Barcelona where he co-directed a zarzuela troupe. Shortly after, in 1875, he composed an opera piece for Quasimodo which contained four acts. The piece features expressive instrumentals that intensely accompany the libretto recited by a male tenor. It is personally one of my favorite pieces to listen…

The concert attended was An Evening of Opera Arias and Scenes, at Nightingale Concert Hall, on October 10, 2016. The environment of the concert was informal for most of the audience dress wise, but the performers were fairly formal with their attire. The stage was very simplistic. It was just a plain white background with large white squares and a dark grand piano. The performers were Jamie Flora, Olga Perez Flora, Chris Langton, Albert R. Lee, Helen Lee, and Suzette Thoeni as the…

The Reich Chamber of Culture used the “German national opera” heavily in their propaganda. Music from the opera was used in the “inaugural celebrations of the Third Reich in 1993” and in propaganda films by Leni Riefenstahl. Wilhelm Furtwängler also conducted Die Meistersinger on film “to symbolize the greatness of Germany’s war effort”, and it was the only opera played at Wagner’s theatre in Bayreuth during World War II (Service). The opera’s widespread use by the Reich Chamber of Culture to…

The opera Moby Dick occurred on November 6, 2016, from 2 PM to 5 PM, at the Winspear Opera House in Downtown Dallas. The Dallas Opera performed the event, and famous performers included the following: Jay Hunter Morris as Captain Ahab, Stephen Costello as Greenhorn, Morgan Smith as Starbuck, Musa Ngqungwana as Queequeg, Jacqueline Echols as Pip, and Peter McGillivray as Stubb. The opera performance was completely backed by a professional orchestra, featuring every instrument one would expect in…

None of the other major 18th Century composers worked for as long at a single noble court. In 1766, Haydn was named head Kapellmeister and governed a 12 piece orchestra and a assembly of singers. He had the obligation to provide a Sunday Mass, two operas and two concerts per week and other music as required by the Prince. Haydn was extremely productive and innovative during this time. As he described it in a famous statement: "As head of an orchestra I could experiment, observe what heightened…

was a writer from Ireland, who is also known as one of the most influential and important authors of his time. Joyce was a part of a musical family. At a young age Joyce learned to play piano and he also took voice lessons. Joyce would perform in opera arias in public. Joyce was an outstanding performance that his wife told him that he should pursue a career singing…