WThe Adler Fellowship is a program to support young singers managed by the San Francisco Opera, started under the leadership of General Director Terence A. McEwen. The fellowship is named after Kurt Herbert Adler who managed the opera from 1953 until 1981. The fellowship comes with training and performance opportunities.
WLos amores de la Inés is a zarzuela in one act, two scenes, composed by Manuel de Falla in collaboration with Amadeu Vives. The work uses a Spanish language libretto by Emilio Dugi and the music is organized into a prelude and five musical sections.
WAranyvirág is an operetta in three acts by Jenő Huszka. It was premiered on 6 November 1903 and was the first opening performance at the Király Színház in Budapest, Hungary. The libretto is by Ferenc Martos and Károly von Bakonyi.
WArif'in Hilesi is an 1874 Turkish-language opera by the Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian. It is based on Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector. Although the first Turkish-language opera is often regarded as the same composer's Leblebici Horhor of 1875, since this latter opera became wildly popular, Arif'in Hilesi is earlier. It was performed in Gedikpaşa Theatre by Çuhaciyan's Operet Kumpanyası.
WArshak II is the first Armenian classical opera, written by Tigran Chukhajian and Tovmas Terzian in 1868. Its libretto is based on historical reports about King Arsaces II, written by Movses Khorenatsi and Pavstos Buzand.
WAshig Garib – is the first opera written by Azerbaijani composer Zulfugar Hajibeyov, in 1916, based on motifs of a dastan of the same name. The opera was staged in Baku, in the theater of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, for the first time.
WBaroness Lili is an operetta by Jenő Huszka in three acts. It was premiered in Budapest on 7 March 1919 in the Erkel Theatre. The libretto was by Ferenc Martos. It was popular in Hungary, especially in the 1980s.
WThe Beginning of a Novel is an opera by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by Jaroslav Tichý after a short story by Gabriela Preissová, itself suggested by a painting by Jaroslav Věšín. Composed in 1891, it was first produced on 2 October 1894 in Brno.
WBoyarina Morozova is a 2006 choral opera by Rodion Shchedrin based on his own libretto on the story of Boyarina Morozova (d.1675), from the account of archbishop Avvakum and inspired by the painting Boyarina Morozova by Vasily Surikov.
WThe Ballad of [the] Canal or The Canal Ballad is a 2012 opera by composer Yin Qing based on Chinese folk music. The libretto was supplied by playwrights Huang Weiruo and Dong Ni and celebrates the story of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the longest canal in the world. The opera premiered at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (China) in 2012. The use of Chinese folk music was a departure from the NCPA's previous western-influenced Chinese-language operas. NCPA's in house audio visual company released a making of documentary including footage of rehearsals in July 2017.
WCavatina is a musical term, originally meaning a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air. It is now frequently applied to any simple, melodious air, as distinguished from brilliant arias or recitatives, many of which are part of a larger movement or scena in oratorio or opera.
WThe Chinese Orphan is a 2011 Chinese-language western-style opera by woman composer Lei Lei to a libretto by Zou Jingzhi. The plot is based on the story The Orphan of Zhao. The premiere was at Beijing's NCPA in 2011. The international premiere was at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre in March 2012. A documentary relating to the commissioning of the opera and with excerpts from rehearsals was one of the first releases of the NCPA's own in house audio and video company in 2017.
WLa Dolores is a Spanish opera in 3 acts by Tomás Bretón. The libretto was arranged by composer himself from a same-name drama by Josep Feliu i Codina (1892). The opera was first performed at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid on 16 March 1895 and was an immediate success. The most famous piece from the opera is the grandiose jota from the finale of the first act.
WEithne, also known as Éan an Cheoil Bhinn, is considered by many critics to be the first full-scale opera written and performed in the Irish language. It was written by English/Irish composer Robert O'Dwyer.
WEncanto del Mar is a 2014 album of Mediterranean songs by Plácido Domingo. Singing in the baritone range, Domingo performs songs from diverse countries and regions around the Mediterranean Sea in eleven different languages, typically with simple accompaniments.
WFang Zhimin is a Western-style Chinese opera by composer Meng Weidong to a libretto by Feng Baiming and Feng Bilie based on the life of communist martyr Fang Zhimin. It was premiered on 28 September 2015. The opera was the ninth opera commission for the Chinese National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). The NCPA released a making-of DVD featuring the dress rehearsal to the production in 2017. A concert performance at the NCPA in Beijing in December 2015 was conducted by Lü Jia.
WFarewell My Concubine is a Chinese-language western-style opera composed by choral conductor and composer Xiao Bai (萧白), to a libretto by Wang Jian (王健) for China National Opera House which toured America with the opera in 2008.
WThe Hegemon-King Bids His Lady Farewell, also known as Farewell My Concubine, is a traditional Chinese opera. It was initially performed by Yang Xiaolou and Shang Xiaoyun in 1918 in Beijing. Though usually associated with Peking opera, it is also performed in other genres such as Cantonese opera.
WHui opera, or Huiju, is a regional genre of Chinese opera originally from southern Anhui. It is popular in the area around Huangshan City and Chizhou, as well as Wuyuan County, Jiangxi, and was formerly also popular in neighboring Zhejiang. It has existed for over 300 years.
WJaakko Ilkka is a folk opera by Finnish composer Jorma Panula composed in 1977-1978 which deals with the eponymous peasant leader of the Cudgel War of 1596. The opera uses material from Finnish folk and fiddle music and premiered at the Ilmajoki Music Festival in 1978.
WKarlštejn (1916) is an opera by Czech composer Vítězslav Novák, a pupil of Dvořák. It was the composer's second opera and written with nationalist intentions during World War I. The plot is based on Jaroslav Vrchlický's drama of the same name. It was moderately successful and performed over 70 times in Prague.
WDen Kongelige Gæst is an opera in one act by Hakon Børresen; the libretto is by Svend Leopold, and is based on a story by Henrik Pontoppidan. The opera was first given on 15 November 1919, at the Royal Danish Theatre, and has since proven to be among the most popular of Danish operas.
WLeblebici hor-hor agha (The Chickpea Seller) is an 1875 Turkish-language operetta by the Ottoman-Armenian composer Tigran Chukhajian. It has been claimed as the first original Turkish operetta, though Chukhajian's Arif'in Hilesi (Arif's Trick) was earlier.
WMaiden of the North is an opera by Oskar Merikanto. Composed in 1898, it was the first opera composed in the Finnish language; while other Finnish operas had been written previously, they had been composed in the Swedish language instead of the native Finnish. Maiden was written to a libretto by Antti Rytkönen. The opera was not premiered until 1908; at the first performances, in Wiborg, the title role was taken by Mally Burjam-Bergaas, while that of Väinämöinen was sung by Abraham Ojanperä.
WMitridate is an opera by Nicola Antonio Porpora to a libretto by Filippo Vanstriper premiered in Rome in 1730. Porpora and revived and revised the work for London (1736) with actor-manager and librettist Colley Cibber in direct competition with Handel's opera house. The London version of the opera was performed for the 250th anniversary of Porpora's death at the Festival "Winter in Schwetzingen" Directed by Jacopo Spirei, conducted by Felice Venanzoni.
WNikola Šubić Zrinski is an opera written and composed by Ivan Zajc in 1876. It is a retelling of the Battle of Szigetvár of 1566, in which Nikola IV Zrinski, Ban of Croatia and captain of the assembled Croatian and Hungarian forces, took a heroic last stand against overwhelming Ottoman forces, led personally by Suleiman the Magnificent. Though the fortress fell, the defenders inflicted grievous injuries on the assaulting forces, all but crippling the victors' ability to progress past the Croatian-Hungarian border, and causing the death of the sultan himself.
WOpera glasses, also known as theater binoculars or Galilean binoculars, are compact, low-power optical magnification devices, usually used at performance events, whose name is derived from traditional use of binoculars at opera performances. Magnification power below 5× is usually desired in these circumstances in order to minimize image shake and maintain a large enough field of view. A magnification of 3× is normally recommended. The design of many modern opera glasses of the ornamental variety is based on the popular lorgnettes of the 19th century.
WThe University College of Opera is a Swedish institution in Stockholm offering higher education in the field of opera music and related arts. It is tasked with educating singers, répétiteurs, and opera directors and has an enrollment of approximately 40 students, including 36 singers. Since 1 January 2014, it has been a part of the Stockholm University of the Arts.
WThis album is a 1950 recording of selections from George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, sung by the noted opera stars Robert Merrill and Risë Stevens. The album featured no black singers at all, even though the opera was written for a mostly African-American cast. It was recorded by RCA Victor on September 12 and September 13, 1950. The album was originally released on one twelve-inch 331⁄3 rpm LP with the catalog number LM 1124.
WThis 1951 recording of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess was the first "complete" recording of the work from beginning to end, not a series of selections of popular songs from the work.
WPorgy and Bess is a recording of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera version of the George Gershwin opera of the same name. The cast were accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Simon Rattle. The recording took place in February 1988 in No.1 Studio of Abbey Road in London. It was released in 1989.
WPrince Bob is an operetta in three acts by Jenő Huszka. The libretto was written by Ferenc Martos and Károly Bakonyi.
WThe Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire is a 1993 book by Wayne Koestenbaum.
WRickshaw Boy or Camel Xiangzi is a 2014 Chinese contemporary classical opera by Guo Wenjing to a libretto by Xu Ying after Lao She's Rickshaw Boy. It was premiered at the NCPA, China in June 2014. NCPA Classics released both a DVD recording of the opera, and also a separate making-of documentary entitled Xiángzi de yǒngtàn in 2017.
WRío de Sangre is a Spanish-language opera in 3 acts and 14 scenes by the film score composer of the Matrix trilogy, Don Davis. Kate Gale wrote the original English prose libretto which was translated into Spanish by Alicia Partnoy. Commissioned by the Florentine Opera Company, the work premiered in October 22, 2010 in a production starring soprano Kerry Walsh and tenor John Duykers. The original cast recorded the opera for Albany Records in 2010. The opera is set in an unnamed South American country with a story centering on political intrigue and family tragedy. The role of its main character, Christian Delacruz, the country's newly elected president, was sung by Guido LeBron.
WSatyricon is a chamber opera by Bruno Maderna with a libretto adapted by Ian Strasfogel and the composer from Petronius's Satyricon. It was written during Maderna's last illness in 1973 and premièred as part of the Holland Festival on 16 March 1973, in Scheveningen, Netherlands.
WThe Savage Land is a 1987 Chinese-language western-style opera by composer Jin Xiang to a libretto by Wan Fang after her own father Cao Yu's 1937 play The Wilderness. It was performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington in 1992, in 1997 at the Saarländisches Staatstheater in Saarbrücken under the baton of You-Sheng Lin, then again in Vancouver in 1998. Shenzhen Youth Opera presented Jin Xiang's work in 2016.
WSingoalla is a 1940 opera in four acts by Gunnar de Frumerie to a libretto by Ella Byström (1889–1969) based on the novel with the English title The Wind Is My Lover by Swedish author Viktor Rydberg. The opera premiered on 16 March at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm.
WSongs is a 2012 popular song album by Plácido Domingo for Sony Classical. Guests on the album include Katherine Jenkins singing "Come What May", Josh Groban in "Sous le ciel de Paris", Susan Boyle, and Harry Connick Jr. in "Time After Time" as well as a duet with his son Plácido Domingo Jr. The orchestra is conducted by Eugene Kohn and Nazareno Andorno
WSongs from the Trilogy is a 1989 compilation album of songs from Philip Glass’ operas Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten. Many of the songs on the album have been altered or shortened from their original composition.
WSunrise (日出) is a 2015 Chinese contemporary classical opera by Jin Xiang to a libretto by Wan Fang after her father Cao Yu's 1936 play of the same name. Jin Xiang had previously cooperated with Wan Fang to set another of her father's plays as the opera The Savage Land.
WKukuschka (1896), better known in a revised version as Tatjana (1905), is the earliest opera of Franz Lehár. The plot for the opera was drawn by librettist Felix Falzari from American journalist and explorer George Kennan's writings about his six years in Siberia, including Siberia and the Exile System (1891). Kukuška is the Russian word for cuckoo.
WLeiyu is a 2001 Chinese-language western-style opera by Hangzhou-born composer Mo Fan based on Thunderstorm by Cao Yu. True to the setting of the play Mo Fan introduced 1930s Shanghai salon tunes into the opera.
WTilos a Bemenet was the first operetta by Jenő Huszka. It premiered 2 September 1899 at the Magyar theatre in Budapest, Hungary but was not a success, mainly due to the poor libretto.
WDer Traum ein Leben, Op. 50, is a 1937 opera by Walter Braunfels based on Franz Grillparzer's 1834 play of the same.
WVerdi is a 2013 album of baritone arias by the 72-year-old Plácido Domingo, returning to the baritone register of his youth. The album, the first collection of baritone arias by the singer, was released by Sony Classics on 27 August 2013. Domingo is accompanied by the Cor de la Generalitat Valenciana and the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. The album won a Latin Grammy in 2014 for Best Classical Album.
WA Village Teacher is a 2009 Chinese-language western-style opera by composer Hao Weiya to a libretto by Liu Heng. Liu is well known for the scripts to films like Ju Dou, The Knot, and Assembly.
WViola is an unfinished romantic opera by Bedřich Smetana. The libretto was written by Eliška Krásnohorská, and is based on Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night. The composer did some work on it in 1874 and then came back to it in 1883, when he only managed to orchestrate a few scenes; the opera was left incomplete upon Smetana's death in 1884.
WVisitors on The Icy Mountain is a Chinese contemporary classical opera composed by Lei Lei after the plot and songs of the 1963 film of the same name.
WWuju, or Jinhua opera, is a form of Chinese opera from Jinhua, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, China. It is also performed in Lishui, Linhai, Jiande, Chun'an, Zhejiang, as well as in northeastern Jiangxi province, in cities such as Yushan, Shangrao, Guixi, Boyang, and Jingdezhen. It is named for Wuzhou (婺州), an ancient name for Jinhua.
WXi Shi is a 2009 Chinese-language western-style opera by woman composer Lei Lei to a libretto by Zou Jingzhi. The plot is based on the story of Xi Shi. The premiere was at Beijing's NCPA.
WZáboj and Slavoj are two invented national heroes of the Czech past, two minstrel-warriors. They are found in Václav Hanka's spurious medieval Manuscript of Dvůr Kralové, allegedly "discovered" in 1817 in the tower of a local church and not exposed as a literary hoax, by Jan Gebauer in Masaryk's journal Athenaeum, until 1886.