Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer and conductor with citizenship in France and the United States. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music.
The Rite of Spring is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a "riot" or "near-riot", though this wording did not come about until reviews of later performances in 1924, over a decade later. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved equal if not greater recognition as a concert piece and is widely considered to be one of the most influential musical works of the 20th century.
The 4th Annual Grammy Awards were held on May 29, 1962, at Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1961. Henry Mancini won 5 awards.
The Firebird is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois and others on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. The Firebird was first performed at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 and was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame, and leading to future Diaghilev-Stravinsky collaborations like Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).
Petrushka is a ballet by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1911 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Michel Fokine and stage designs and costumes by Alexandre Benois, who assisted Stravinsky with the libretto. The ballet premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 13 June 1911 with Vaslav Nijinsky as Petrushka, Tamara Karsavina as the lead ballerina, Alexander Orlov as the Moor, and Enrico Cecchetti the charlatan.
Histoire du soldat, or Tale of the Soldier, as it was first published, is an hour-long 1918 theatrical work to be "read, played and danced (lue, jouée et dansée)" by three actors, one or more dancers, and a septet of instruments. Its music is by Igor Stravinsky, its libretto, in French, by Swiss writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz; the two men conceived it together, their basis being the Russian tale The Runaway Soldier and the Devil in the collection of Alexander Afanasyev.
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action. He has been described as a key figure of theatre and opera from the last 50 years.
The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées is an entertainment venue standing at 15 avenue Montaigne in Paris. It is situated near Avenue des Champs-Élysées, from which it takes its name. Its eponymous main hall may seat up to 1,905 people, while the smaller Comédie and Studio des Champs-Élysées above the latter may seat 601 and 230 people respectively.
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Michail Jurowski, and grandson of Soviet film music composer Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski.
The Nightingale is a short opera in three acts by Igor Stravinsky to a Russian-language libretto by him and Stepan Mitusov, based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen: a nasty Chinese Emperor is reduced to tears and made kind by a small grey bird. It was completed on 28 March 1914 and premiered a few weeks later, on 26 May, by the Ballets Russes conducted by Pierre Monteux at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Publication, by the then Paris-based Éditions Russes de Musique, followed only in 1923 and caused the opera to become known by its French title of Le Rossignol and French descriptor of conte lyrique, or lyric tale, despite its being wholly Russian.
Punch and Judy is a chamber opera with music by Harrison Birtwistle and a libretto by Stephen Pruslin, based on the puppet figures of the same names. Birtwistle wrote the score from 1966 to 1967. The opera was first performed at the Aldeburgh Festival, which had commissioned the work, on 8 June 1968, with David Atherton conducting the English Opera Group. The premiere cast included John Cameron as Mr Punch.
Fine Arts Films was a production studio based in Northern England and Hollywood. It was founded in 1955 by the animator John David Wilson as a means to preserve the notion of animation as an art form. It shut down in 1996.
Nijinsky is a 1980 American biographical film directed by Herbert Ross. Hugh Wheeler wrote a screenplay that explores the later life and career of Vaslav Nijinsky; it was based largely on the premier danseur's personal diaries, and her 1934 biography of Nijinsky, largely ghostwritten by Lincoln Kirstein, who later co-founded the New York City Ballet.
Clifton Taylor is a theatrical Designer who is based in New York.
This is a listing of all of Igor Stravinsky's commercially released studio recordings as a conductor or as a pianist; it also includes recordings conducted by Robert Craft "under the supervision of the composer." Works are arranged in chronological order by date of composition.
Doug Fitch is a polymath American visual artist and director. He is most well known for his opera productions, but his body of work spans multiple media, from drawing and sculpture to theater, architecture, and food.
Špalíček is a 1932 three-act folk ballet composed by Bohuslav Martinů. It premiered in 1933 in Prague with the subtitle "Ballet from folk games, customs, and fairytales - Ballet-revue". The title is taken from the folk-song collections hawked at fairs around Bohemia in the 1700s.
Anthony Roth Costanzo is an American countertenor, actor, and producer who has led performances at opera companies around the world. Beginning his career in musical theatre at the age of 11, he has since been featured at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, English National Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Glyndebourne Opera Festival, as well as in concert with the New York Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and National Symphony Orchestra. In 2012, he won first place at Plácido Domingo's international opera competition Operalia and, in 2009, was a Grand Finals Winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. As an actor, he has performed in several films, including the Merchant Ivory film A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, for which he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. As a producer and curator, he has created shows for National Sawdust, Opera Philadelphia, the Philharmonia Baroque, Princeton University, WQXR, The State Theater in Salzburg, MasterVoices, and Kabuki-za Tokyo. Costanzo is a graduate of Princeton University, where he has returned to teach, and he received his master's degree from the Manhattan School of Music.
