Thomas Fulton (September 18, 1949 - August 4, 1994), was an American conductor.
Noted primarily for his work in opera, among other schools, Fulton studied conducting under Max Rudolf at Curtis Institute of Music and served as an assistant to him and to his successor, David Effron, coaching for the Opera Department, preparing productions and sometimes playing for the studio productions.
He debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1979 and remained with the company until his death. He conducted 192 performances at the Met of over 20 operas in the Italian, French and German repertoires. A 1982 performance he conducted of Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel was telecast on PBS and remains available on video as a DVD.
Fulton was also associated with Orchestre National de France, and the Paris Opera among other companies in France and Germany. He was on staff as a conductor with the Ravinia Festival, the Opera Company of Boston, and the San Francisco Opera.
According to his obituary, Fulton died from kidney failure while vacationing in Milan. He was 44 years old.
Pierre Benjamin Monteux was a French conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, The Nightingale, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century.
Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor, known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt, and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner, and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics, and being of Jewish background, he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House, he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist.
The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as the general manager. The company's music director has been Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2018.
Claudio Abbado was an Italian conductor who was one of the leading conductors of his generation. He served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera, founder and director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, founder and director of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founding Artistic Director of the Orchestra Mozart and music director of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor. From the age of five, when he began to play the violin, Giulini's musical education was expanded when he began to study at Italy's foremost conservatory, the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome at the age of 16. Initially, he studied the viola and conducting; then, following an audition, he won a place in the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
Georges Prêtre was a French orchestral and opera conductor.
Kathleen Deanna Battle is an American operatic soprano known for her distinctive vocal range and tone. Born in Portsmouth, Ohio, Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid-1970s. She made her opera debut in 1975. Battle expanded her repertoire into lyric soprano and coloratura soprano roles during the 1980s and early 1990s, until her eventual dismissal from the Metropolitan Opera in 1994. She later has focused on recording and the concert stage. After a 22-year absence from the Met, Battle performed a concert of spirituals at the Metropolitan Opera House in November 2016.
James Conlon is an American conductor. He is currently the music director of Los Angeles Opera and principal conductor of the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.
Seattle Opera is an opera company based in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as its first general director until 1983. The company's season runs from August through late May, comprising five or six operas of eight to ten performances each, often featuring double casts in major roles to allow for successive evening presentations.
Thomas Walter Hampson is an American lyric baritone, a classical singer who has appeared world-wide in major opera houses and concert halls and made over 170 musical recordings.
Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60, is a 1912 opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera's unusual combination of elements of low commedia dell'arte with those of high opera seria points up one of the work's principal themes: the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.
June Anderson is a Grammy Award-winning American coloratura soprano. She is known for bel canto performances of Rossini, Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini.
Hildegard Behrens was a German operatic soprano with a wide repertoire including Wagner, Weber, Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Alban Berg roles. She performed at major opera houses around the world, and received several Grammy Awards for performances with the Metropolitan Opera.
Sir Jeffrey Philip Tate was an English conductor of classical music. Tate was born with spina bifida and had an associated spinal curvature. After studying medicine at the University of Cambridge and beginning a medical career in London, he switched to music and worked under Georg Solti at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, before making his conducting debut in 1979 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. He held conducting appointments with the English Chamber Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, among others, and was the first person to be appointed principal conductor of the Royal Opera House. He was knighted for his services to music in 2017.
James Lawrence Levine was an American conductor and pianist. He was music director of the Metropolitan Opera from 1976 to 2016. He was terminated from all his positions and affiliations with the Met on March 12, 2018, over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denied.
Nicola Rescigno was an Italian-American conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory. Opera News said that "Rescigno was a seminal figure in the history of opera in America, a maestro and mentor who shaped the destiny and reputation of two major U.S. companies — Lyric Opera of Chicago and Dallas Opera — as well as countless singing and conducting careers. Vigorous musical integrity, idiomatic style and unfailing support of his singers were the hallmarks of his performances throughout his distinguished career, which lasted more than fifty years."
Marcello Giordani was an Italian operatic tenor who sang leading roles of the Italian and French repertoire in opera houses throughout Europe and the United States. He had a distinguished association with the New York Metropolitan Opera, where he sang in over 240 performances from the time of his debut there in 1993. He founded the Marcello Giordani Foundation to help young opera singers.
Raymond Hughes is an American conductor and choral director.
Samuel Krachmalnick was an American conductor and music educator. He first came to prominence as a conductor on Broadway during the 1950s, notably earning a Tony Award nomination for his work as the music director of the original production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. He went on to work as a busy conductor of operas and symphony orchestras internationally during the 1960s and 1970s. He was particularly active in New York City, where he held conducting posts with the American Ballet Theatre, the Harkness Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Opera. His later career was primarily devoted to teaching on the music faculties of the University of Washington and the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala was a televised concert, lasting more than eight hours, that New York City's Metropolitan Opera staged on 22 October 1983 to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of its first performance. A 230-minute selection of excerpts from the concert was first released in 1985 on a pair of Pioneer Artists Laserdiscs, subsequently appearing on a pair of Bel Canto Paramount Home Video VHS videocassettes in 1989 and on a Pioneer Classics DVD in 1998. A remastered double DVD of the film was issued by Deutsche Grammophon in 2009.