Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer best known for his operas, such as his 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria Rusticana which caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music. While it was often held that Mascagni, like Ruggiero Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, L'amico Fritz and Iris have remained in the repertoire in Europe since their premieres. Mascagni said that at one point, Iris was performed in Italy more often than Cavalleria.
An oratorio is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is musical theatre, while oratorio is strictly a concert piece – though oratorios are sometimes staged as operas, and operas are sometimes presented in concert form. In an oratorio the choir often plays a central role, and there is generally little or no interaction between the characters, and no props or elaborate costumes. A particularly important difference is in the typical subject matter of the text. Opera tends to deal with history and mythology, including age-old devices of romance, deception, and murder, whereas the plot of an oratorio often deals with sacred topics, making it appropriate for performance in the church. Protestant composers took their stories from the Bible, while Catholic composers looked to the lives of saints, as well as to Biblical topics. Oratorios became extremely popular in early 17th-century Italy partly because of the success of opera and the Catholic Church's prohibition of spectacles during Lent. Oratorios became the main choice of music during that period for opera audiences.
Robert Eugene Ward was an American composer.
William Grant Still was an American composer of more than 150 works, including five symphonies and eight operas.
Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions. He was born in Ivančice, Moravia and moved to the United States at the age of eight.
Jonathan Dove is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera, including in 1990 an 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for CBTO. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001 to 2006.
Thomas Pasatieri is an American opera composer.
A Bayou Legend is an American opera composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto by his wife and frequent collaborator, Verna Arvey.
Troubled Island is an American opera in three acts composed by William Grant Still, with a libretto begun by poet Langston Hughes and completed by Verna Arvey. She married the composer following their collaboration.
Family Opera Initiative (FOI) is an American opera company based in New York City that commissions, develops, and premieres original works for cross-generational audiences. It was founded in 1995 by Grethe Barrett Holby, originally as part of American Opera Projects. Its mission was and remains to create new repertory for family audiences, to bring the experience of opera to a diverse audience, and to engage the community in the process and performance of their works.
The Portrait is an opera in eight scenes composed by Mieczysław Weinberg to a libretto by Alexander Medvedev based on Nikolai Gogol's short story The Portrait.
The Lodger is an opera in two acts composed by Phyllis Tate. The libretto is by David Franklin, after the 1913 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. The opera was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Music, with a grant from the William Manson Fund, and the premiere took place there on 16 July 1960.
The Creation, the oratorio by Joseph Haydn, is structured in three parts. He composed it in 1796–1798 on German text as Die Schöpfung. The work is set for soloists, chorus and orchestra. Its movements are listed in tables for their form, voice, key, tempo marking, time signature and source.
Luca Antonio Predieri was an Italian composer and violinist. A member of a prominent family of musicians, Predieri was born in Bologna and was active there from 1704. In 1737 he moved to Vienna, eventually becoming Kapellmeister to the imperial Habsburg court in 1741, a post he held for ten years. In 1765 he returned to his native city where he died two years later at the age of 78. A prolific opera composer, he was also known for his sacred music and oratorios. Although his operas were largely forgotten by the end of his own lifetime and most of their scores lost, individual arias as well some of his sacred music are still performed and recorded.
William Brown was an African-American operatic tenor.
Yvonne, Prinzessin von Burgund is an opera in four acts composed by Boris Blacher to a German-language libretto by the composer based on Witold Gombrowicz's 1935 Polish play Iwona, księżniczka Burgunda. Composed in 1972, it was Blacher's last opera. It premiered on 15 September 1973 at the Opernhaus Wuppertal, directed by Kurt Horres.
Die Hamletmaschine is an opera composed by Wolfgang Rihm to a German-language libretto based on Heiner Müller's 1977 play of the same name. The libretto, subtitled Musiktheater in 5 Teilen, was written by the composer. The opera was composed between 1983 and 1986 and premiered on 30 March 1987 at the Nationaltheater Mannheim.
