Julie Dorus-Gras News
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2024-04-21
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2020-04-06 08:33:05
The most successful opera composer of the 19th century? A look at Meyerbeer and his operas
Meyerbeer: Le prophète - Deutsche Oper, Berlin 2017 (Photo Bettina Stöß) Giacomo Meyerbeer was one of the most successful, perhaps the most successful, opera composers of the 19th century. With the decline of Meyerbeer’s reputation during the 20th century, we have lost sight of the significant influence that his operas had on his contemporaries, including Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. In a series of articles, I will be looking at the intriguing relationships between the 19th century’s two greatest opera composers (Wagner and Verdi) and the most performed opera composer of the century (Meyerbeer). But before we look at his influence, I first wanted to explore a little more about Meyerbeer and his music. Giacomo Meyerbeer, engraving from a photograph by Pierre Petit (1865) Giacomo Meyerbeer was born in Prussia, near Berlin, and his studies included periods under Antonio Salieri, and as a fellow student of […]
2019-07-23 10:33:36
Rare opera in Cardiff, London, Milan, Pesaro & more: Carlo Rizzi, the new artistic director of Opera Rara
Carlo Rizzi The conductor Carlo Rizzi was announced as the new artistic director of Opera Rara last month, taking over from Sir Mark Elder who has been in the post since 2011. Rizzi will be recording Donizetti's Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo for Opera Rara with the Britten Sinfonia next year, including a performance at the BarbicanRizzi is no stranger to 'opera rara' and in fact his conducting career began with Donizetti’s L'ajo nell'imbarazzo, and he made his international debut at the Buxton Festival in 1988 with Donizetti's Torquato Tasso. He will be conducting Rossini's L’equivoco stravagante in a new production at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in August. The work was controversial enough at its premiere in 1811 to be closed down by the police after only three performances!Further ahead, Rizzi will be conducting Verdi's Les Vêpres siciliennes in David Pountney's new production for Welsh National […]
2015-11-10 15:00:45
Martin Luther In 1483 Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, Germany. A former German monk who sparked the Protestant Reformation in Germany, he was also a prolific hymn writer and influenced many later composers. He authored hymns such as “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”), based on Psalm 46, and “Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her” (“From Heaven Above to Earth I Come”), based on Luke 2:11–12. Luther connected high art and folk music, also all classes, clergy and laity, men, women and children. His tool of choice for this connection was the singing of German hymns in connection with worship, school, home, and the public arena. He often accompanied the sung hymns with a lute, later recreated as the waldzither that became a national instrument of Germany in the 20th century. Luther’s hymns were frequently evoked by particular events in his […]
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Royal Opera House
2015-04-30 16:07:01
Grand opera: A challenge for tenors and an opportunity for the chorus
Nicolas Levasseur as Bertram, Adolphe Nourrit as Robert, and Julie Dorus-Gras as Alice in the Act V trio of Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Robert le diable by François-Gabriel Lépaulle In 1837, the young tenor Gilbert-Louis Duprez burst onto the stage of the Paris Opéra as Arnold in Guillaume Tell . To the alarm of many, he sang a high C with the full weight of his chest voice (ut de poitrine) in the Act IV cabaletta ‘Amis, amis’ (6 minutes into the extract below). Adolphe Nourrit had created the role in 1829, singing the upper register in the conventional way, with a much lighter head voice, or voix mixte. Critics contrasted Nourrit’s gentle, aristocratic manner and his clear, pure, ‘French’ sound with the more realistic, earthy ‘Italian’ performance of Duprez (he had trained for nine years in Italy) – though not everyone was convinced on first hearing. Rossini famously declared […]
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