Raymond John Leppard was a British-American conductor, harpsichordist, composer and editor. In the 1960s, he played a prime role in the rebirth of interest in Baroque music; in particular, he was one of the first major conductors to perform Baroque opera, reviving works by Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Cavalli. He conducted operas at major international opera houses and festivals, including the Glyndebourne Festival where he led the world premiere of Nicholas Maw's The Rising of the Moon, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House. He composed film scores such as Lord of the Flies and Alfred the Great.
Frederica von Stade is a semi-retired American classical singer. Best known for her work in opera, she was also a recitalist and concert artist, and she recorded more than a hundred albums and videos. She is especially associated with operas by Mozart and Rossini, and also with music by French and American composers, most notably Jake Heggie. A Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, twice the winner of a Grand Prix du Disque and nominated nine times for a Grammy award, she is widely regarded as the pre-eminent lyric mezzo-soprano of her generation.
Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is an opera consisting of a prologue and five acts, set by Claudio Monteverdi to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro. The opera was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1639–1640 carnival season. The story, taken from the second half of Homer's Odyssey, tells how constancy and virtue are ultimately rewarded, treachery and deception overcome. After his long journey home from the Trojan Wars Ulisse, king of Ithaca, finally returns to his kingdom where he finds that a trio of villainous suitors are importuning his faithful queen, Penelope. With the assistance of the gods, his son Telemaco and a staunch friend Eumete, Ulisse vanquishes the suitors and recovers his kingdom.
L'incoronazione di Poppea is an Italian opera by Claudio Monteverdi. It was Monteverdi's last opera, with a libretto by Giovanni Francesco Busenello, and was first performed at the Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice during the 1643 carnival season. One of the first operas to use historical events and people, it describes how Poppaea, mistress of the Roman emperor Nero, is able to achieve her ambition and be crowned empress. The opera was revived in Naples in 1651, but was then neglected until the rediscovery of the score in 1888, after which it became the subject of scholarly attention in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the 1960s, the opera has been performed and recorded many times.
Richard Lewis CBE was an English tenor of Welsh parentage.
Richard Stilwell III is an operatic and concert baritone.
Janet Perry is an American operatic soprano. In 1959, aged 11, she was seen in a stage-version of The Wizard of Oz at the St Paul Civic Opera. Following high school, she matriculated at the Curtis Institute of Music, under the tutelage of Mme Eufemia Giannini-Gregory.
Ulisse is an opera in a prologue and two acts composed by Luigi Dallapiccola to his own libretto based on the legend of Ulysses. It premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 29 September 1968 conducted by Lorin Maazel with Erik Saedén in the title role. Ulisse was Dallapiccola's last opera and took eight years to compose. As in his previous operas, Volo di notte and Il prigioniero, his declared theme was "the struggle of man against some force much stronger than he".
These lists show the audio and visual recordings of Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria by Claudio Monteverdi. The opera was premièred in Venice in 1640, initially in five acts, and was then performed in Bologna before returning to Venice for the 1641–42 season. The music was subsequently lost; modern opera productions have been based on editions derived from the sole manuscript score, a three-act version discovered in Vienna in the 19th century. Performances were rare until the 1970s when the work entered the operatic mainstream after stagings in Vienna and at Glyndebourne, both of which were recorded. Since that date recordings have been issued regularly, in five-act, three-act, and two-act versions.
Diana Montague is an English mezzo-soprano, known for her performances in opera and as a concert singer. She is Married to the English Tenor David Rendall
John James Fryatt was an English actor and opera singer best known for his performance in comic character roles.
Christine Imogen Rice is an English operatic mezzo-soprano. She has performed across Europe at venues including the Royal Opera House, the Bavarian State Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, the Teatro Real and the English National Opera. From 2004 to 2006 she was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
Zheng Cao was a Chinese-born, American operatic mezzo-soprano known for her signature role of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly. She performed this role with opera companies such as San Francisco Opera, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Pittsburgh Opera, Vancouver Opera, Washington National Opera and San Diego Opera, and under the baton of Seiji Ozawa with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Her portrayal of the role of Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro also earned her recognition at several American opera companies, including San Francisco Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, and Houston Grand Opera. She died from lung cancer in San Francisco, California in 2013.
Wilke te Brummelstroete is a Dutch mezzo-soprano. She has recorded Bach cantatas with John Eliot Gardiner and appeared as the valkyrie Siegrune in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival.
Mechthild Georg is a German operatic mezzo-soprano, and a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Köln.
Italian Opera Arias is a studio album of music by Frederica von Stade, Janice Taylor and the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the direction of Mario Bernardi. It was released in 1979.
Frederica von Stade chante Monteverdi & Cavalli is a 48-minute studio album of arias by Francesco Cavalli and songs and arias by Claudio Monteverdi, performed by von Stade with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Raymond Leppard. It was released in 1985. A second, 54-minute version of the album, released in 1995 as Recital: Frederica von Stade: Cavalli, Monteverdi & Mozart Arias, added two bonus arias taken from Erato's 1978 recording of Mozart's Così fan tutte, on which von Stade sang Dorabella with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg under Alain Lombard.
Glyndebourne Festival Opera: A Gala Evening was a 111-minute concert staged by Glyndebourne Festival Opera on 24 July 1992, performed by Kim Begley, Montserrat Caballé, Cynthia Haymon, Felicity Lott, Benjamin Luxon, Ruggero Raimondi and Frederica von Stade with the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Sir Andrew Davis and Sir Bernard Haitink. It was televised in the United Kingdom by the BBC and released on VHS Videocassette by Kultur Video and on DVD by Image Entertainment, Arthaus Musik and Geneon.
Katie Emily Bray is an English coloratura mezzo-soprano and is best known as the winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2019. She is particularly noted for her baroque repertoire.
Rihab Chaieb is a Tunisian-Canadian mezzo-soprano.
