(Se’-mon Mi’-er) 1763–1845 German composer Mayr grew up in Bavaria and taught himself to play most string and wind instruments, before moving to Venice, where he studied composition with Ferdinando Bertoni. Mayr composed numerous operas, many for La Scala, Milan. Although his works exhibit diverse stylistic elements, his melodic and harmonic expression was rooted in late Neapolitan ...
1763–1845, German The German-born composer Simon Mayr was studying in Italy when the patron who supported him died and he faced an uncertain future. Piccinni encouraged him to write opera and Mayr took his advice. Mayr’s first opera, Saffo (1794), attracted several commissions, but his great breakthrough came when Ginevra di Scozia (‘Ginevra of Scotland’, 1801) was performed ...
1663–1745, French Simon-Joseph Pellegrin was a monk who sailed twice with the French fleet to the Orient, and who put into verse Biblical texts that were sung to music by Lully and Campra at the royal convent at St Cyr. Pellegrin provided libretti for many composers, including Campra and Desmarets, but his best-known works are Jephté, set ...
1710–92, French Charles Favart became director of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris in 1758. His 11-year term as director was evidently important in the theatre’s history, for in 1871 it was renamed Salle Favart. As a librettist, Favart’s output was prodigious: he wrote 150 libretti for composers such as Gluck, Philidor and Grétry. Favart’s forte was the comic ...
Verdi’s dark, brooding opera Simon Boccanegra had a tortuous history before 24 March 1881, when its final version premiered at La Scala, Milan. Verdi composed Boccanegra in 1857, but the Venetian audience reacted coolly; an anti-Verdi claque sabotaged the performance and a false rumour spread, claiming that Verdi had written the libretto and made a mess of ...
1877–1935, Austrian Mayr was persuaded to consider singing by Mahler. He studied in Vienna before making his debut in Bayreuth. Immediately afterwards, Mahler engaged him to sing at the Vienna Hofoper, where he worked for over 30 years. He was admired by Strauss, who wanted him to take on the creation of Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier. ...
1916–2006, Canadian One of the great Mozartian tenors of his age, Simoneau married French-Canadian soprano Pierrette Alarie. They went to Europe, where he sang at the Paris Opéra, Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne and London’s Covent Garden. In 1952, Simoneau sang in a historic recording of Oedipus Rex, with Stravinsky conducting and librettist Jean Cocteau as narrator. ...
b. 1955 English conductor Rattle won the John Player International Conductors’ Competition in 1974. After posts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, he was principal conductor and music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, 1980–97. In 1999 he was appointed Abbado’s successor, from 2002, at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. ...
b. 1959 English baritone Following a period with Scottish Opera (1988–94), he made his debuts at Glyndebourne and La Scala in 1995, and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1996. Much in demand in for the Mozart baritone roles (recording Don Giovanni for Abbado), he was also praised as Britten’s Billy Budd at Covent Garden (in 2000) and on record (under ...
(Vocal duo, 1957–71, 1981–83, 2003–04, 2009–10) As ‘Tom and Jerry’, Paul Simon (vocals, guitar) and Art Garfunkel (vocals) had a minor US Hot 100 success as teenagers in 1957 with ‘Hey Schoolgirl’. Both attempted to forge solo careers, which took Simon to the UK where he became a reliable draw in the country’s folk clubs. ...
(Guitar, vocals, b. 1941) Paul Simon (1972) was an eclectic affair followed a year later by the more straightforward There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. His third solo album Still Crazy After All These Years (1975) featured a reunion with Art Garfunkel on the duet ‘My Little Town’. The singer’s most popular and influential work was Graceland (1986), which utilized African ...
1790–1864, Italian The tenor Giovanni Davide, son of another Italian tenor, Giacomo Davide (1750–1830), made his debut at 18 in Milan, in Simon Mayr’s (1763–1845) Adelaide di Guesclino (1799) and 15 years later created the role of Narciso in Rossini’s Il turco in Italia. Rossini was impressed enough to write other parts for Davide in Otello and ...
(Hin’-rikh Marsh’-ner) 1795–1861 German composer Marschner was the most important composer of German operas during the period between Weber and Wagner. Marschner grew up in Zittau and in 1815 met Beethoven in Vienna. In 1821 he moved to Dresden before settling in Hanover in 1830 as the conductor of the Hoftheater, where many of his operas were first performed. Marschner believed ...
1768–1837, French The French baritone Jean-Blaise Martin gave his name to the voice type termed baryton-Martin, through his ability to extend his voice range into falsetto mode by an extra octave. This sort of voice, in which the baritone’s normal top notes shade into the falsetto, is classed as a ‘high baritone’ and enables singers to take ...
The early Romantic era was a period that saw a move in all the arts towards greater expression and a loosening of structures and forms. In music this meant an expanding and freeing up of existing classical forms such as the symphony, and the development of newly expressive genres such as the symphonic poem. Opera took on bigger, more ...
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