The Scarf is a chamber opera in one act by composer Lee Hoiby. The work uses an English libretto by Harry Duncan that is based on the short story The Witch by Anton Chekhov. Composed in 1955, the opera premiered on June 20, 1958 at the very first Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy in a production by Gian Carlo Menotti and conducted by Reinhard Peters. The cast included Patricia Neway as Miriam, John McCollum as Reuel, and Richard Cross as the Postman. The work received its American premiere the following year at the New York City Opera. [1] [2]
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the King of Ragtime. During his brief career, he wrote over 100 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first and most popular pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.
William Grant Still, Jr. was an American composer of nearly 200 works, including five symphonies, four ballets, nine operas, over thirty choral works, plus art songs, chamber music and works for solo instruments.
Treemonisha (1911) is an opera by American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes referred to as a "ragtime opera". The music of Treemonisha includes an overture and prelude, along with various recitatives, choruses, small ensemble pieces, a ballet, and a few arias.
Harry Lawrence Freeman was a United States opera composer, conductor, impresario and teacher. He was the first African-American to write an opera that was successfully produced. Freeman founded the Freeman School of Music and the Freeman School of Grand Opera, as well as several short-lived opera companies which gave first performances of his own compositions. During his life, he was known as "the black Wagner."
Stella Prince Stocker was an American composer and choral conductor.
The Scarlet Letter is an opera by Walter Damrosch, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel of the same name. The libretto was by George Parsons Lathrop, son-in-law of the author. The work is Wagnerian in style, Damrosch being a great enthusiast and champion of the composer. Excerpts from the opera first premiered at Carnegie Hall on January 4 and 5, 1895; the first fully staged performance was February 10, 1896, in Boston. Among those present at the premiere were Charles Eliot Norton, Prince Serge Wolkonsky, Julia Ward Howe, and Nellie Melba.
The Legend is a one-act tragic opera composed by Joseph Carl Breil to an English libretto by Jacques Byrne. It premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City on March 12, 1919 in a triple bill with two other one-act operas, John Hugo's The Temple Dancer and Charles Cadman's Shanewis. Its melodramatic story is set in Muscovadia, a mythical country in the Balkans, and involves an impoverished nobleman turned bandit, his daughter Carmelita, and her lover Stephen, a captain in the hussars. The action unfolds over a single night at the end of which both lovers are dead—Stephen stabbed to death by Carmelita and Carmelita shot by Stephen's fellow hussars. The only one of Breil's six operas to be performed by a major opera company, The Legend received scathing press reviews and after its three performances at the Met disappeared from the repertory.
Abbie Gerrish-Jones was an American composer, librettist and music writer.
The King's Henchman is an opera in three acts composed by Deems Taylor to an English language libretto by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The libretto is based on both legend and historical figures documented in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle including Edgar the Peaceful, Elfrida of Devon, and Dunstan. It tells the story of a love triangle between King Eadgar, his henchman Aethelwold, and Aelfrida, daughter of the Thane of Devon. It premiered on 17 February 1927 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in a performance conducted by Tullio Serafin.
The Emperor Jones is an opera in two acts with a prologue and interlude composed by Louis Gruenberg to an English-language libretto adapted by the composer from Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play, The Emperor Jones. It premiered on January 7, 1933, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City with Lawrence Tibbett in the title role. Set on an unnamed island in the West Indies, the opera tells the story of African American Brutus Jones, a former Pullman porter and ex-convict who escaped to the island, set himself up as its tyrannical "Emperor", and became rich by exploiting the natives. The natives start a revolt against him, and as he tries to escape through the jungle, he is haunted by visions of his past life and the man he had murdered. As the natives close in, he commits suicide using the silver bullet which he had worn around his neck as a good-luck charm. With a score that incorporates elements of jazz and negro spirituals, The Emperor Jones was the eleventh American opera to premiere at the Met, and has continued to be performed into the 21st century, albeit rarely.
Edith Borroff was an American musicologist and composer. Her compositions, including over 60 commissioned works, include pieces for the stage, for her primary instrument—the organ, choral, vocal, and orchestral music, and several critical editions of works by previous composers such as Jubilate by J.-J. Cassanéa de Mondonville. She also wrote at least 7 books, including the textbook Music in Europe and the United States: a History, as well as various peer-reviewed articles and publications.
The Saint of Bleecker Street is an opera in three acts by Gian Carlo Menotti to an original English libretto by the composer. It was first performed at the Broadway Theatre in New York City on December 27, 1954. David Poleri and Davis Cunningham alternated in the role of Michele, and Thomas Schippers conducted. It ran for 92 consecutive performances.
Dead Man's Plack is a Grade-II listed 19th-century monument to Æthelwald, Ealdorman of East Anglia, who, according to legend, was killed in 963 near the site where it stands by his rival in love, King Edgar I. The name is more probably derived from a corruption of "Dudman's Platt", from Dudman — who is recorded as a resident in 1735 — and platt, meaning a plot of land. The monument was erected in 1825 at Harewood Forest, between the villages of Picket Twenty and Longparish, Hampshire, by Lt. Col. William Iremonger.
Orlando furioso RV 819 is a three-act opera surviving in manuscript in Antonio Vivaldi's personal library, only partly related to his better known Orlando furioso of 1727. It is a recomposition of an Orlando furioso written by Giovanni Alberto Ristori which had been very successfully staged by Vivaldi and his father's impresa in 1713, and whose music survives in a few fragments retained in the score of RV 819. Therefore, Vivaldi's first cataloguer Peter Ryom did not assign the opera a RV number, but catalogued it as RV Anh. 84. The libretto was by Grazio Braccioli.
Louisa Melvin Delos Mars was a late 19th-century African-American singer and composer who was active in Providence, Rhode Island, and Boston, Massachusetts. She was one of the first black women to achieve recognition as a composer, and was one of the first black students to graduate from the New England Conservatory. She is best known for composing five full length operettas.
The Tempest is an opera in three acts by the American composer Lee Hoiby to a libretto by Mark Shulgasser adapted from Shakespeare's The Tempest. It was first performed in 1986 by the Des Moines Metro Opera.
Eliza Mazzucato Young was an Italian-born American composer, musician, and educator. She wrote Mr. Sampson of Omaha (1888), one of the first operas by a woman to be produced in the United States.
Addie Anderson Wilson was an American composer, organist and carillonist who was born in Lawrenceville, Alabama, and lived in Alabama for most of her life. She studied music with Mary Carr Moore and M. Wilson. She married William Sidney Wilson on November 9, 1892, and they had one son.
Bessie Marshall Whitely or Whiteley (December 25, 1871 - November 7, 1944 was an American composer, pianist, and teacher. She attended the Oakland Conservatory of Music in Oakland, California, and studied with H. G. Pasmore, J. P. Morgan, and Louis Lesser. Whitely was a piano teacher and music supervisor in Kansas City, Missouri, for 32 years.
Elise Kuhl Kirk American Opera.
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