Ernest Reyer News
French opera composer and music critic
- opera
- France
- composer, music critic
Last update
2024-03-19
Refresh
2023-03-20 05:12:26
On this day in 1901 the Metropolitan Opera presented the company premiere of Reyer’s Salammbô.
2019-03-22 07:56:59
Man, myth and magic: how story telling has come back into opera
[…] opera.In the 19th century, folk tale, fairy tale and myth were common currency of the opera libretto, Composers such as Weber and Marschner established the new German romantic opera based very much on German folk tales and fairy tales, and Wagner developed this, creating his own very personal mythology based on folk tale and myth.Wagner's success gave rise to generations of emulators, all by and large failed to achieve what he did. Few now remember Reyer's Sigurd though Chausson's Le roi Arthus gets an occasional outing, but Albeniz's Merlin remained buried for decades. One composer stands out from this post-Wagner crowd, Engelbert Humperdinck whose fairy tale opera Hansel and Gretel manages to be Wagnerian in construction, yet delightful and light in touch. Fairy-tale opera developed into quite a late 19th and early 20th century genre, Humperdinck would write a number and his pupil, Siegfried Wagner (Richard's son) did too.Over in […]
2017-04-01 18:10:12
Clash of symbols
[…] Norse mythology intellectually respectable, and after the triumph of Wagner’s operas, every hotshot young composer was eager to try his hand at resurrecting Teutonic folklore or (if not a Teuton) the local traditional product, whatever it might be. Fairy tales and mythic cycles were suddenly the hot thing. Of all these works—they include Strauss’s debut, Guntram, and Puccini’s, Le Villi, and Janacek’s, Sarka, not to mention the Irish operatic mythos of Rutland Boughton, Dvorak’s Russalka, Reyer’s Sigurd, Ethel Smythe’s Der Wald, the Russian epics of Rimsky-Korsakov and the entire oeuvre of henpecked Siegfried Wagner—just one piece entered the international operatic repertory and stayed there: Hansel und Gretel. But a number of playwrights were inspired by this vein, among them Ibsen, Gerhardt Hauptmann and Maurice Maeterlinck. Ibsen’s most obviously mythic drama is Peer Gynt, but he played with many a legend-like theme, such as the creative genius who destroys everyone about […]
2016-12-01 13:40:11
Impressed seaman
On this day in 1951 Benjamin Britten‘s Billy Budd premiered in London. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJGz09z1biI Born on this day in 1823 composer Ernest Reyer who wrote the “other” Ring opera. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYFfsSjmsi0 Born on this day in 1877 composer Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych (who wrote something other than a familiar Ukrainian Christmas carol.) //www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQyRRcBDX0 Born on this day in 1932 mezzo-soprano Heather Begg. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8gRVRWsixM On this day in 1956 Leonard Bernstein’s Candide opened on Broadway. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXMxhMhYm4 On this day in 1958 Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song opened on Broadway. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p5MRGQP5e4 Happy 56th birthday soprano Leontina Vaduva. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_jwv8c4nfA On this day in 1968 Burt Bacharach-Hal David’s Promises Promises opened on Broadway. //www.youtube.com/watch?v=15S4M5EAG8Y
or
- timeline: Composers (Europe).
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): R...