|
W. A. MOZART
The Magic Flute
Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart demonstrated extraordinary musical abilities at
a very young age. His father, Leopold, himself a musician, quickly
recognized the boy's talent and genius and tutored his son meticulously
in the fundamentals of music. With his father's guidance, the
youngster was playing concerts for the royal heads of Europe and
composing music by the age of six.
The controversial child-prodigy, rapidly
becoming famous from his tours of Europe, revealed the measure
of his talent by writing his first full-length operas, Bastien
und Bastienne, a German singspiel with spoken dialogue and
La finta semplice, an Italian opera buffo or comedy, at
the age of 12. Two years later after a trip to Italy, the teen-ager
turned out a full-length Italian opera seria or serious drama,
Mitridate, King of Ponto, which received twenty
performances during the opera season in Milan and was given rave
reviews by both audiences and critics.
The lad's first operas are indeed remarkable
works, charming and polished, fully realized dramas with an outpouring
of music that is astonishingly mature, well-crafted, and unbelievably
complex for the work of a fourteen year old. Yet this was no ordinary
teen. Accepting the post of concertmaster for the Archbishop of
Salzburg, Mozart composed sacred works for every occasion. In
addition to composing operas, the prolific young man was busily
turning out volumes of music for voice, choir, keyboard, violin,
and orchestra. Score after score of new works: oratorios, symphonies,
sonatas, concertos, chamber works flowed from his pen and his
fertile mind. However, he was bored by the lack of opportunity
Salzburg offered and soon left his post to travel and seek a post
as a court composer.
His interest in a certain family and their
two lovely daughters, drew him to Vienna, where he courted both
daughters and eventually married the younger one, Constanze Weber.
They took a modest apartment in Vienna where Wolfgang set up his
studio and continued to compose and perform concerts of his music.
Although the commissions were plentiful, the fees were often small,
and soon an overworked Mozart found himself overextended and in
debt with a child on the way. During the Vienna years he composed
his greatest operas: Abduction from the Seraglio, Idomeneo,
The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi
fan tutte.
While Mozart's operas were hailed by the
public and achieved successful premieres, the financial success
that the young composer sought continued to elude him. Court appointments
passed him by and wealthy positions went to others of rank and
position. The young composer continued to work feverishly at his
craft, but only succeeded in ruining his health. In the summer
and fall of 1791 Mozart, in poor health, struggled to complete
his final operas, La Clemenza di Tito, which premiered
in Prague, and The Magic Flute, premiering at the public
theatre in Vienna. Although well-received by the populace and
financially successful, the operas took a heavy toll on the young
composer's health. Exhausted, he succumbed to renal poisoning
and died before he could finish his final composition, a Requiem
mass. He was buried in an unmarked pauper's grave at the age
of 33. After his death, his wife collected his music and had it
published. Today, he is renowned as one of the world's greatest
composers.
Back to top
GILBERT and SULLIVAN
The Mikado
Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan were a British team
who wrote popular operettas during the late 19th century in London.
Gilbert, the librettist, wrote the words or text called the libretto.
Sullivan wrote the music and is known as the composer.
The pair first met in 1869 during a performance of a musical that
Sullivan had written entitled Cox and Box. Gilbert, a well-known
dramatist and comedy writer, admired Sullivan’s music and
proposed collaboration. Two years later, they produced their first
stage work, Thespis, which, although fairly successful
at the time, was never revived and is today lost to obscurity.
However, they caught the eye of actor and producer Richard d’Oyly
Carte, who would later become their manager. D’Oyly Carte
gave them their first commission for the Royalty Theatre, and
their second effort, Trial By Jury, was a popular triumph.
Gilbert and Sullivan, often called simply G & S by their fans,
wrote 12 more operettas, which were hugely successful. So successful,
in fact, that in 1881, Richard d’Oyly Carte built the famous
Savoy Theatre in London just to house and perform their works.
The G & S operettas became known as the Savoy Operas.
After their tremendous successes, Gilbert and Sullivan had a financial
dispute, which led to their break-up as a writing team. Neither
man enjoyed as much successor notoriety on his own as they had
as partners. They finally reunited in the 1890s, but their new
works did not match their previous successes. The Savoy Operas,
however, were to be revived over and over, and most have played
around the world to even great popularity than the original productions
achieved.
Queen Victoria knighted Arthur Sullivan in 1883 at the height
of his musical powers and worldwide fame. After Sullivan’s
death in 1900, Gilbert became involved in politics and was knighted
in 1907 by King Edward VII.
Gilbert and Sullivan came to America in 1879 at the pinnacle of
their popularity, to supervise an official New York production
of their fourth operetta, HMS Pinafore. Pinafore had firmly
established them as the most famous writers of the era. During
the same trip to America, they opened their newest operetta, The
Pirates of Penzance, at New York’s Fifth Avenue Theatre.
Pirates took the country by storm following its premiere during
the Christmas season of 1879. Most critics and followers agree,
however, that Gilbert and Sullivan’s greatest work was their
1884 smash hit, The Mikado. The idea for an operetta set
in Japan was developed from the popular craze in London at the
time for all things Japanese. An overnight sensation, The Mikado
provided Gilbert and Sullivan with the biggest success of their
careers.
Back to top
GAETANO DONIZETTI
The Daughter of the Regiment
Born in Bergamo, Italy, November 29, 1797, as the fifth child
of a poor peasant family, little Gaetano demonstrated early that
he was gifted with musical abilities. At the age of 9 he gained
free admission to the local church school, where he was trained
in voice, keyboard, theory, and composition by the church music
director, Simone Mayr, whom was himself a composer of opera. Recognizing
Donizetti’s gift for composition, his teacher soon sent
him to Bologna for advanced studies with the teacher of Rossini.
The young man was encouraged to compose at every opportunity.
In addition to opera, he wrote salon music, church music, and
chamber music, but his heart belonged to the theatre and his greatest
love was music for the stage.
Donizetti’s first complete opera to have a successful premiere
was Enrico di Borgogna, in 1818. This, like many of his
early works is now lost in obscurity. At the time, however, his
first outing was successful enough to warrant other commissions,
and to gradually bring the young composer into the public eye,
especially near his hometown. Soon his efforts were noticed by
one of Italy’s leading impresarios, Domenico Barbaia of
Naples, who awarded Donizetti a contract.
Donizetti arrived in Naples in 1822 where he was given the post
of music director for the Teatro Nuovo, following in the footsteps
of Rossini. It was here that he began to compose in earnest and
for the next 16 years, wrote numerous new works for theatres in
Naples, Milan, Rome, Palermo, and other cities throughout Italy,
while also supervising revivals of many of his previous works.
Although he had composed some 32 operas, he had yet to achieve
any great fame or fortune, outside of his home region. This was
about to change.
In 1830, he was invited to compose for the carnival in Milan
and his opera, Anna Bolena, finally earned him an international
reputation as Italy’s leading composer of opera. Shortly
after this enormous success, he penned The Elixir of Love,
which premiered in Milan in 1832. The Elixir of Love proved
to be a comic masterpiece and quickly insured his popularity throughout
Europe.
Donizetti continued to compose with characteristic quickness
and seemingly boundless creativity. Over a span of some 25 years,
he created around 70 works for the stage. Of these, only a few
remain in the standard modern repertoire. His greatest works,
however, are timeless and are performed season after season to
delighted audiences worldwide. His most beloved works include:
Lucrezia Borgia (1833, Milan); Maria Stuarda (1835,
Milan); Lucia di Lammermoor (1835, Naples); Roberto
Deveraux (1837, Naples); The Daughter of the Regiment
(1840, Paris); La Favorite (1840, Paris); Linda di Chamounix
(1842, Vienna); and the immortal Don Pasquale (1843, Paris).
In 1838, Donizetti moved to Paris to write for the French Opera-Comique.
Some four years later, he was named to the post of music director
at the principal Vienese opera house. The exhausting schedule
began to take its toll, however, and Donizetti began to experience
severe health problems. He was diagnosed with a debilitating illness
and over the next several years, began to rapidly decline. His
family finally arranged to bring him back home to Bergamo, where
he died in the spring of 1848, a mere shadow of his former self.
Back to top
ROBERT WARD
Roman Fever
Born in 1917 in Cleveland, OH, Robert Ward exhibited musical talent
at an early age. He studied with well-known composer Howard Hanson
and later with Bernard Rogers at the esteemed Eastman School of
Music in Rochester, NY. After receiving his degree, he attended
graduate school at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York
City where he studied with such luminaries as Bernard Wagenaar,
Albert Stoessel, and Edgar Schenkman. At the Berkshire Music Center
in Tanglewood, MA, he studied and worked with beloved American
composer, Aaron Copland.
Mr. Ward has served on the faculties of Queens College, Columbia
University, and The Juilliard School of Music where he was also
Asst. to the President from 1952-1956. He was the Director of
the Third Street Music School Settlement from 1952-1955, and was
Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation
and Highgate Press until 1967 when he became President of the
North Carolina School of the Arts. Until his retirement in 1987,
he was the Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music at Duke University,
in Durham, NC.
Mr. Ward’s large and distinguished musical output has,
in large measure, been commissioned by New York City Opera, Broadcast
Music, Inc., The New York Philharmonic, the Friends of Dumbarton
Oaks, the Juilliard Music Foundation, and many others. His famous
opera, The Crucible, based on the play by Arthur Miller,
won both the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the New York Music
Critics Circle Citation for the same year.
His works include six symphonies, seven operas, three concertos,
two cantatas, plus numerous shorter orchestral pieces, chamber
music, choral works and song literature. Most of Mr. Ward’s
compositions are published and frequently performed by musicians
and musical organizations around the globe.
Roman Fever, based on a short story by American writer,
Edith Wharton, was composed in 1993 with librettist, Roger Brunyate,
chairman of the opera department at Peabody Conservatory. The
hour-long one-act opera boasts a predominately female cast of
four women and one man and was originally commissioned for use
in a conservatory or university music program. However, Roman
Fever proved to be so popular among audiences that the opera
has found a niche among contemporary professional opera repertoire.
Currently, Mr. Ward makes his home in Durham, NC, near Duke University,
where he continues to compose and publish his music.
Back to top
GIACOMO PUCCINI
Turandot
Born in the Italian town of Lucca in 1858, Giacomo Puccini, was
from a long line of organists and composers. His father died when
he was five, so he was taught the fundamentals of music by his
uncle. He was a boy soprano as a youngster and at 14 was guest
organist for several local churches. Being able to see plays and
operas at the theatres, provided him with a rich cultural life,
and his schooling at the Institute of Music was thorough in composition
and history. However, it was a performance of Verdi's Aida at
the nearby town of Pisa in 1876 that changed his life, and set
his course as an operatic composer.
While a student, he began to compose small works for orchestra and voice that received several performances and enabled him to receive a grant to enter the Milan Conservatory when he was 22. His teachers, especially Ponchielli, guided him in the direction of opera, and in 1883, Puccini entered a composition with a one-act piece titled La Villi. He did not win the prize, but his music came to the attention of critics, publishers, and even Verdi himself.
The famous Italian music publisher, Ricordi, persuaded the composer and librettist to turn La Villi into a two-act opera, which they did and achieved a modest success. Ricordi became Puccini's lifelong friend and patron, commissioning a second opera from the young composer. However, Puccini's completed opera, Edgar, did not provide him with the success he had hoped.
When, his mother died in 1884, Puccini moved in with Elvira Geminiani, the wife of a grocer with whom he carried on a love affair. He always had an eye for the ladies and had many female admirers. Ricordi was under pressure from the critics to withdraw Puccini's support, but he refused, believing in the young composer's talent. His faith in Puccini was soon rewarded. Manon Lescaut, Puccini's third opera, became a worldwide success following its premiere in 1893, and at last secured Puccini's fame and fortune at age 35.
From 1894 to 1904, Puccini's fame increased dramatically with the creation of his most famous works. Teaming up with the talented librettists, Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, Puccini wrote his masterwork, La Boheme, in 1896. Boheme was slow to be accepted by the Italian public who preferred Manon Lescaut, but repeated performances soon earned Boheme a permanent place in the Italian canon of opera, and today Boheme remains Puccini's most beloved work. After Boheme 's success, Puccini adapted Sardou's famous play of Tosca, which premiered in 1900 to a thunderous ovation at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. The critics were mixed in their reviews, but the audiences declared Tosca a resounding success.
Madama Butterfly, thought by many to be Puccini's greatest work, had an unsuccessful premiere in Milan in 1904. Faced with very unfavorable reviews, Puccini and his librettists made cuts, reworked the opening Act, and resubmitted the piece for performance. The revised opera was an instant hit with audiences, and is one of the most popular and often performed operas in the modern repertoire.
In his later years, Puccini enjoyed his fame and fortune, travelling far and wide to supervise revivals of his operatic hits. He also enjoyed hunting in the woods and marshes near his grand villa at Torre del Lago and buying expensive cars and clothes. Although his output of operatic gems was somewhat reduced due to injuries suffered in a car accident, he still continued to compose.
Fascinated by the American west, Puccini's horse opera, The Girl of the Golden West, opened at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1910, and seven years later, La Rondine, a work resembling German operetta, were seeming successes, but never achieved the popularity of his earlier works. A year later, Puccini's trio of one-act operas, Il Trittico, opened at the Metropolitan Opera. Il Trittico was well received by critics, especially Gianni Schicchi, the comedy masterpiece which closes the trio. Strangely enough, Puccini's favorite was the melodrama, Suor Angelica, which never seemed to acquire the popularity of Gianni Schicchi or the dramatic Il Tabarro which opens the trio.
Puccini's final opera was probably his most ambitious undertaking. Set in imperial China, the piece called for large chorus and orchestra and was based on the fairy-tale legend of the Princess Turandot. Sadly, Puccini was never able to finish Turandot. Having smoked for most of his life, he died of heart failure while in surgery for throat cancer in 1924 at age 66. He remains today as one of history's greatest composers for the theatre. His enduring legacy is the extraordinary music that is as popular among audiences today as it was a century ago.
In order that Puccini's world can be placed in a historical context, some of the things that were happening around 1926 when Turandot premiered are as follows:
The United States is 150 years old; Calvin Coolidge is President
Transatlantic radio-telephone established on 50th anniversary of Bell's telephone patent
Gertrude Ederle is first woman to swim the English Channel
Annie Oakley, famed crack shot of fact and fiction, dies
Romantic silent film star Rudolph Valentino dies in New York
Black bottom, a new dance craze, rivals the Charleston in popularity
536 licensed radio stations in U.S.
National Broadcasting Co. (NBC) is inaugurated
Gene Tunney wins the heavyweight boxing title from Jack Dempsey
Aimee Semple McPherson holds religious crusades throughout America
Airship Norge flies over North Pole
Theory of quantum mechanics advanced
Germany admitted to League of Nations
Hirohito becomes Japanese Emperor
Ibn Saud is new King of Saudi Arabia
In the Arts:
Arturo Toscanni guest conducts New York Philharmonic
Comedian Will Rogers delights audiences with wit and folksy humor
1st talking motion picture, Don Juan, with John Barrymore, publicly exhibited in NY
Silent film of Puccini's La Bohème opens starring Lillian Gish and John Gilbert
Romberg's operetta, The Desert Song, plays Broadway
George White's Scandals the hot Broadway ticket along with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Books of the year include: The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), Show Boat (Ferber), and Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln
The music of George and Ira Gershwin is the rage as are the songs of Rodgers & Hart and Irving Berlin
Charlie Chaplin America's favorite silent film star
Back to top
JOHANN STRAUSS
Die Fledermaus
Johann Strauss, the younger, was born into a family of distinguished Viennese musicians on October 25, 1825. His father was famous for his popular dance orchestras, which toured throughout Europe in the mid-1800s. Although Johann's father intended for his son to be a banker instead of a musician, the younger Strauss took violin lessons and studied music with his mother's blessing.
Young Johann formed his own small orchestra at the age of 19 and quickly became his father's chief competition as a writer and director of popular dance music. After his father died in 1849, Johann became known far and wide as the master of the Viennese style and especially the waltz. He inherited his father's title as The Waltz King and his fame and reputation as a composer and conductor of Viennese music was unequaled in the latter part of the 19th century.
Strauss was named music director for the Austrian court parties and balls in 1863 and as his popularity increased, he offered his brothers, Josef and Eduard, conducting positions and formed several orchestras which toured and performed under the Strauss family name.
In his middle years, weary of concert tours and busy performance schedules, Johann turned his dance orchestra over to Eduard and began to concentrate on producing works for the Viennese stage.
His first operetta was premiered in 1871, when Strauss was 45. His second followed shortly thereafter, in 1873, and, like the first, was modestly successful. However, it was his third premiere the following season, which brought him lasting financial security and made him an international celebrity - the 1874 premiere of Die Fledermaus (The Bat).
Although Strauss wrote many other successful works for the Viennese stage, none became as popular with audiences and critics alike as Die Fledermaus, in which his music and libretto found the perfect blend of charm, sophistication, and wit. Die Fledermaus, a true classic, has been acclaimed by generations of audiences as it has been performed by opera and theatre companies throughout the world and translated into many languages. It remains today a staple in the comic opera and operetta repertoire, and some 130 years after its premiere, is still being performed with regularity year after year.
Strauss continued to write for the stage until his death in 1899 at the age of 74. His great strengths continued to be his gift for melody and his command of the Viennese waltz and the dance music of his era. Although he aspired to write serious dramatic opera, he could never change his public persona of the young Waltz King who had taken Europe by storm. The waltz became his lasting legacy.
To place Die Fledermaus in a historical setting, here are some of the events taking place as Strauss composed and premiered his biggest success:
U.S. Grant was in his 2nd term as president of the United States
King of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) first visits Washington
Tennis becomes a popular sport among the well-to-do
Two National Assn. Baseball clubs tour England and Ireland
Thomas Nast's popular political cartoons depict Rupublicans and
Democrats as Elephants and Donkeys
The Women's Christian Temperance Union founded to protest the evils
of alcohol.
1st typewriter is patented for printing only capital letters
1st cable car system in operation in San Francisco
P.T. Barnum opens The Hippodrome in NY to house his circus; later
became Madison Square Garden
Indoor walking marathons popular among sportsmen
Home Companion magazine for women, later the Ladies' Home
Companion, begins monthly publication
Color photographs first developed
Disraeli becomes British prime minister under Queen Victoria
Early moving picture of a horse running astounds public
Civil war ends in Spain; Republic proclaimed
Emperors of Austria, Germany, and Russia form alliance
Most ex-Confederates pardoned by Amnesty Act in U.S.
In the Arts:
The Fisk University Jubilee Singers at the height of their popularity,
touring with African spirituals
NY Oratorio Society founded under famous conductor Leopold
Damrosch
Verdi's Aida receives its American premiere at New York's Academy of
Music as the composer premieres his famous Requiem Mass
Annual May Music Festivals begin in Cincinnati with a thousand singers
and an orchestra of 108 players directed by Theodore Thomas
Writings of Mark Train are all the rage as are works of Bret Harte;
Twain finishes work on "Tom Sawyer"
Mussorgski composes and premieres his opera Boris Godonov in Russia
and follows with his famous composition, "Pictures at an Exhibition"
Monet paints "Impression Sunrise" in Paris giving the name
Impressionism to his style of painting
Johannes Brahms composes his famous "Hungarian Dances"
Tolstoy writes "Anna Karenina"
Bizet composing his opera Carmen
Jules Verne's "Around the World in 80 Days" delights readers
Thomas Hardy writes "Far from the Madding Crowd"
Wagner makes plans for premiere of The Ring Cycle at Bayreuth
Back to top
GIOACHINO ROSSINI
The Daughter of the Regiment, The Barber of Seville
Born in the Italian town of Pesaro into a family of working musicians, Rossini began musical studies at an early age. As a youngster, he appeared onstage as a boy soprano with his mother, an opera singer, and at age 14 began his studies at Bologna's prestigious Academia Filarmonica. He began composing around the age of 10 and was exceptionally well versed in the works of Haydn and Mozart whom he admired greatly. He was an excellent pianist and soon became an accompanist for several local theatres.
After his departure from the Academia, Rossini began to compose in earnest. Known for his wit and comedy, his works were usually bright and sparkling with a marked rhythmic vitality.
His first successful opera, The Unparalled Gem, which has vanished into obscurity, was premiered in Milan when Rossini was only 20 years old. A year later, the great success of his opera Tancredi, which premiered at the famous La Fenice theatre in Venice, made him a celebrity throughout Italy. Soon followed the charming operas, The Italian Girl in Algiers and The Turk in Italy, which further increased his fame and fortune.
Building on his name and success, the most lavishly financed theatre in all of Italy, the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, offered Rossini a contract to compose opera. During his tenure there from 1815 to 1822, Rossini composed 18 operas, among them The Italian Girl in Algiers, The Barber of Seville and his setting of the Cinderella story, all of which received overnight success. Rossini soon married and began to travel widely throughout Europe. He finally settled in Paris in 1824, where he produced several important works for the French theatre which include, The Journey to Reims, Count Ory, and William Tell with its world-famous overture.
Rossini's output of 39 operas in 19 years, made him the toast of Europe and one of its most popular composers. While most of Rossini's works have now become obscure and are rarely performed today, a few of his operas are considered true masterpieces and are as popular today as they were during his lifetime.
Rossini retired from operatic composition in the 1830s and, although he continued to compose smaller works, mainly worked to advance the careers of young singers and occasionally supervise a revival of one of his operas. He was wealthy and famous from his prior success and led a life of pleasure until his health began to fail in his later years.
Rossini never embraced the 'new' dramatic musical styles of Verdi
or Wagner who followed him, but instead remained a champion for
the Italian bel canto style of 'beautiful singing' which achieved
its pinnacle in his delightful comedies for the stage.
Back to top
Opera for Beginners - expanded content
What is Opera?
What's it all about?
- The stories behind the Opera
Opera Terms
Common Questions
Discussion Topics
The Composer - A Historical Context |
