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As an American woman who attained the highest rank in her chosen field, she is an example of what can be accomplished through a combination of natural talent and the will to succeed. Rise's career is unique in that it encompassed opera, recordings, radio, films, television, academic, and arts administration. She was a mainstay at the Metropolitan Opera for twenty-three seasons. In the 1940s she had her own radio show, she appeared in a classic film. In the 1950s she was a popular guest on television, her recordings sold in the thousands. The complete Carmen has been in print for over fifty years, the Mannes School of Music survived a bleak period in the 1960s because of her, the Metropolitan...
American baritone Lawrence Tibbett created an overnight sensation at the Metropolitan Opera in 1925 when the audience stopped the performance of Falstaff to honor their compatriot for his exceptional talent. Tibbett's now legendary curtain call foreshadowed a startling new era for classically trained native singers who rarely received the public recognition or respect given to their European colleagues. In this absorbing work, Victoria Etnier Villamil chronicles the extraordinary time from 1935 to 1950 when American artists, who felt intensely inferior to foreign performers, journeyed from being unappreciated in their own country to standing without apology on stages at home and abroad. Draw...
A music historian uncovers Nazi Germany’s use of Mozart as a WWII propaganda tool in this “intriguing study [that] comprehends a range of vital topics” (Choice). As the Nazi war machine expanded its bloody ambitions across Europe, the Third Reich sought to promote a sophisticated and even humanitarian image of German culture through the tireless promotion of Mozart’s music. In this revelatory book, Erik Levi draws on World War II era articles, diaries, speeches, and other archival materials to provide a new understanding of how the Nazis shamelessly manipulated Mozart for their own political advantage. Mozart and the Nazis also explores the continued Jewish veneration of the composer during this period while also highlighting some of the disturbing legacies that resulted from the Nazi appropriation of his work. Enhanced by rare contemporary illustrations, Mozart and the Nazis is a fascinating addition to the study of music history, World War II propaganda, and twentieth century politics.
A history -- the first ever -- of the abundant traditions of German-American musical theater in New York, and a treasure trove of songs and information.
Thomas Beecham was one of Britain's greatest conductors of orchestral music and opera as well as an entrepreneur and impresario of exceptional energy and brilliant wit. This new life places him - musically, politically and socially - in the troubled times in which he lived and corrects the stories and myths, many of them Beecham's own making, that have grown up around this uniquely gifted and controversial figure.Drawing upon extensive research, Lucas presents new material on his early years, his complicated private life, his father's catastrophic attempt to buy a large part of Covent Garden - which brought the family to its knees financially - and the orchestras and opera companies that Bee...
With its first public live performance in Paris on 11 February 1896, Oscar Wilde's Salomé took on female embodied form that signalled the start of 'her' phenomenal journey through the history of the arts in the twentieth century. This volume explores Salome's appropriation and reincarnation across the arts - not just Wilde's heroine, nor Richard Strauss's - but Salome as a cultural icon in fin-de-siècle society, whose appeal for ever new interpretations of the biblical story still endures today. Using Salome as a common starting point, each chapter suggests new ways in which performing bodies reveal alternative stories, narratives and perspectives and offer a range and breadth of source ma...
Composer, critic, author, and radio personality, (Joseph) Deems Taylor (1885-1966) was one of the most influential figures in American culture from the 1920s through the 1940s. A self-taught composer, the New York City native wrote such pieces as the orchestral suite Through the Looking Glass and the acclaimed operas The King's Henchman and Peter Ibbetson, the first commissions ever offered by the Metropolitan Opera. Taylor's operatic works were among the most popular and widely performed of his day, yet he achieved greatest fame and recognition as the golden-voiced intermission commentator for the New York Philharmonic radio broadcasts and as the on-screen host of Walt Disney's classic film...
"Kenneth Morgan, who began collecting Reiner's recordings while still a schoolboy, has consulted printed and archival resources and undertaken new interviews with Reiner's associates, critics, and family. Fritz Reiner, Maestro and Martinet also offers the first close and systematic look at Reiner's recordings, interpretations, and musicality, vividly characterizing Reiner's distinctive qualities as a conductor."--Jacket.
A super-star of 20th-century music, Leonard Bernstein is famous for his multi-faceted artistic brilliance. Best-known on Broadway for "West Side Story," a tale of immigrant struggles and urban gang warfare, Bernstein thrived within the theater's collaborative artistic environments, and he forged a life-long commitment to advancing social justice. In 'Bernstein meets Broadway: collaborative art in a time of war', award-winning author Carol J. Oja explores a youthful Bernstein-a twenty-something composer who was emerging in New York City during World War II. Devising an innovative framework, Oja constructs a wide-ranging cultural history that illuminates how Bernstein and his friends violated ...