In the restaurant, Le Boeuf sur le toit / Raoul Dufy 1919 [?]
Anyone good at taking multiple choice tests can figure out the answer to that one easily. If “all of the above” is one of the choices, it is nearly always the expected answer. But how do all these bits of fact fit together? Continue reading →
L’ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeo / Francesco Hayek (1823)
William Shakespeare has been regarded as England’s leading poet and dramatist since the latter part of the 17th century, first in England, and by the end of the 18th century all over Europe.
No single work has inspired as many adaptations as Romeo and Juliet, including parodies, prose and verse adaptations, films, television shows, paintings, and music.
In classical music alone, Romeo and Juliet has inspired a couple of dozen operas, some ballets, and considerable orchestral and choral music.
This post will examine four acknowledged masterpieces, but first, let’s look at some of the earliest of the Romeo and Juliet operas. Continue reading →
Rendering of Firebird costume by Léon Bakst, 1910
In 1909, Serge Diaghilev, director of the Ballet Russe, had a ballet based on two Russian legends in mind. Neither his resident composer Nikolai Tcherepnin nor Anatoly Lyadov accepted his request to compose the music. Therefore he turned to the virtually unknown Igor Stravinsky.
The resulting ballet, Firebird, turned out to be a turning point in the careers of both men and one of the most successful pieces of twentieth-century music.
Diaghilev had encountered Stravinsky’s music before, having asked him to orchestrate some Chopin pieces for an earlier ballet.
But Stravinsky’s teacher and mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who had only recently died, detested ballet. Nothing in Stravinsky’s lessons prepared him to compose one, but he shared a love of ballet with another of his idols, Peter Tchaikovsky. Stravinsky cheerfully accepted the commission and went to Paris for the premiere, which took place on June 25, 1910. Continue reading →
Rodeo: The Courting at Burnt Ranch launched the ballet career of Agnes de Mille in 1942. It remains one of only three of de Mille’s ballets that remain in the repertoire. The greatness and popularity of Aaron Copland’s score for the ballet deserve at least some of the credit, but it almost didn’t get written at all.
When de Mille spoke to Copland about the basic theme of the ballet, he responded that he had already written a western ballet (Billy the Kid, 1938). Why should he write another one? Why couldn’t she provide him with something about Ellis Island?
Of course, de Mille did persuade this Jewish composer from New York to write yet another western ballet. And when people asked Copland about his background for writing them, he reminded them that his grandfather had been a shop keeper in Dallas–who at one time employed Frank James. (You may have heard of his brother, Jesse James). Continue reading →
articgoneape via Pixabay
For some reason, Americans turn to Tchaikovsky for special holiday celebrations: 1812 Overture for the Fourth of July and The Nutcracker at Christmas. The story of The Nutcracker, based very loosely on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann, takes place during and after a Christmas Eve party. Continue reading →
By the time Stravinsky mounted Rite of Spring in 1913, history had already seen many premieres of operas and other theatrical works where audiences loudly disliked what they saw. In some cases, such as the premiere of Rossini’s Barber of Seville, the noise came from a paid claque. In Rossini’s case, he dared to use the same story as an already successful opera by Giovanni Paisiello, who sent his friends to shout it down. But what happened to Rite of Spring (original title Sacre du Printemps) topped anything that had happened before. Continue reading →