Interior of La Fenice in 1837

Teatro La Fenice ("The Phoenix") is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of the most famous theatres in Europe, the site of many famous operatic premieres. Its name reflects its role in permitting an opera company to "rise from the ashes" despite losing the use of two theatres (to fire and legal problems respectively). Since opening and being named La Fenice, it has burned and been rebuilt twice more.

History[link]

Interior in 2005

First theatre[link]

In 1774, the San Benedetto Theatre, which had been Venice's leading opera house for more than forty years, burned to the ground. No sooner had it been rebuilt than a legal dispute broke out between the company managing it and the owners, the Venier family. The issue was decided in favor of the Veniers.

The construction began in June 1790, and by May 1792 the theatre was completed. It was named "La Fenice", in reference to the company's survival, first of the fire, then of the loss of its former quarters. La Fenice was inaugurated on May 16, 1792 with an opera by Giovanni Paisiello entitled I Giuochi di Agrigento (libretto by count Alessandro Pepoli).

From the beginning of the 19th century, La Fenice acquired a European reputation. Rossini mounted two major productions in the theatre and Bellini had two operas premiered there. Donizetti, fresh from his triumphs at La Scala in Milan and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, returned to Venice in 1836, after an absence of seventeen years.

Second theatre[link]

In December 1836, disaster struck again when the theatre was destroyed by fire. However, it was quickly rebuilt with a design provided by the architect-engineer team of the brothers, Tommaso and Giovanni Battista Meduna.^[1] La Fenice once again rose from its ashes to open its doors on the evening of December 26, 1837.

Giuseppe Verdi's association with La Fenice began in 1844, with a performance of Ernani during the carnival season. Over the next thirteen years, the premieres of Attila, Rigoletto, La traviata and Simon Boccanegra took place there.

During the First World War, La Fenice was closed, but reopened to again become the scene of much activity, attracting many of the world's greatest singers and conductors. In 1930, the Venice Biennale initiated the First International Festival of Contemporary Music, which brought such composers as Stravinsky and Britten, and more recently Berio, Nono and Bussotti, to write for La Fenice.

On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire. Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians guilty of setting the fire. Enrico Carella and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work. Carella, the company's owner, disappeared after a final appeal was turned down. He had been sentenced to seven years in prison. Marchetti surrendered to serve a six-year sentence. Carella was ultimately arrested in February 2007 at the Mexico-Belize border, was extradited to Italy, and released on day parole after serving 16 months.

Present theatre[link]

After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two hundred plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsman succeeded in recreating the ambience of the old theatre at a cost of some €90 million.

La Fenice was rebuilt in 19th-century style on the basis of a design by architect Aldo Rossi and using still photographs from the opening scenes of Luchino Visconti's 1954 film Senso, which was filmed in the house, in order to obtain details of its design. It reopened on 14 December 2003 with an inaugural concert of Beethoven, Wagner, and Stravinsky. The first opera production was La traviata in November 2004.

Critical response to the rebuilt La Fenice was mixed. The music critic of the paper Il Tempo, Enrico Cavalotti, was satisfied. He found the colours a bit bright but the sound good and compact. However, for his colleague Dino Villatico of the La Repubblica the acoustics of the new hall lacked resonance and the colours were painfully bright. He found it "kitsch, a fake imitation of the past". He said that "the city should have had the nerve to build a completely new theater; Venice betrayed its innovative past by ignoring it". However, for many Venetians, a painful wound in the historical, much-admired, much adored cityscape has begun to heal.^{[original research?]}

See also[link]

• Berendt, John, The City of Falling Angels, New York: The Penguin Press, 2005 ISBN 1-59420-058-0. The book centers on the fire that destroyed the Fenice Theater for the second time and its aftermath.
• Opera houses and theatres of Venice
• Category:La Fenice world premieres

References[link]

Notes

1. ^ La Fenice's website account of the Meduna brothers' design, teatrolafenice.it

Sources

• Beauvert, Thierry. Opera Houses of the World, The Vendome Press, New York, 1995. ISBN 0-86565-978-8

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Teatro La Fenice

• La Fenice website, teatrolafenice.it
• La Fenice Reconstruction website, ricostruzionefenice.it
• "Two jailed for La Fenice arson" (BBC News)
• "Arsonist of La Fenice released after 16 months", Corriere della Sera
• "Teatro la Fenice di Venezia: the long (and shamy) story of a reconstruction", veniceword.com

Coordinates: 45°26′00″N 12°19′59″E / 45.4333333°N 12.33306°E / 45.4333333; 12.33306

Riccardo Muti (2008).

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI^[1] (Italian pronunciation: [rikˈkardo ˈmuːti]; born 28 July 1941) is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Childhood and education[link]

Muti was born in Naples but spent his early childhood in Molfetta, near Bari, in the long region of Apulia on Italy's southern Adriatic coast. His father was a doctor in Molfetta and an amateur singer; his mother, a Neapolitan, was a professional singer. As wryly explained in the conductor's 2010 autobiography, it was a family pattern for the children to be born in Naples.

Muti graduated from Liceo classico (Classical Lyceum) Vittorio Emanuele II in Naples, then studied piano at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella under Vincenzo Vitale; here Muti was awarded a diploma cum laude. He was subsequently awarded a diploma in Composition and Conducting by the Conservatory "Giuseppe Verdi", Milan, where he studied with the composer Bruno Bettinelli and the conductor Antonino Votto. He has also studied composition with Nino Rota, whom he considers a mentor. He was unanimously awarded first place by the jury of the "Guido Cantelli" competition for conductors in Milan in 1967 and became, the next year, principal conductor and music director of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, a post he held for eleven years.

Early career[link]

Since 1971 he has been a frequent conductor of operas and concerts at the Salzburg Festival, where he is particularly known for his Mozart opera performances. From 1972 Muti regularly conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and in 1974 he was appointed its principal conductor, succeeding Otto Klemperer.^[2]

In 1987 Muti became principal conductor of the Filarmonica della Scala, Milan, with which in 1988 he received the Viotti d'Oro and toured Europe. In 1991, after twelve years as music director, he announced his resignation from the Philadelphia Orchestra, effective at the end of the 1991–1992 season.

Berlin and Vienna[link]

Muti has been a regular guest of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic. In 1996 he conducted the latter during Vienna Festival Week and on tour to Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and Germany; he most recently toured with the Vienna Philharmonic to Japan in 2008. Muti has also led the orchestra's globally televised Vienna New Year's Concert on several occasions: in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004.^[3]

Work in opera[link]

Apart from his work at Milan's Teatro alla Scala, where he was music director for 19 years, Muti has led operatic performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and productions in the principal opera houses of Rome (from 1969), Ravenna, Vienna, London (from 1977), Munich (from 1979), and, finally, in 2010, New York. His work with the Vienna State Opera has included Aida in 1973, La forza del destino in 1974, Norma in 1977, Rigoletto in 1983, Così fan tutte in 1996 and 2008, Don Giovanni in 1999, and Le nozze di Figaro in 2001.

At the Salzburg Festival[link]

A special relationship connects Muti with the Salzburg Festival, where the conductor debuted in 1971 with Donizetti's Don Pasquale (staged by Ladislav Stros). In the following years Muti has been constantly present at the festival, conducting both numerous concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and opera productions, such as Così fan tutte (staged by Michael Hampe) from 1982 to 1985 and from 1990 to 1991, La clemenza di Tito (staged by Peter Brenner) in 1988 and 1989, Don Giovanni (staged by Michael Hampe) in 1990 and 1991, La traviata (staged by Lluis Pasqual, and designed by Luciano Damiani) in 1995, Die Zauberflöte in 2005 (staged by Graham Vick) and 2006 (staged by Pierre Audi, stage designed by Karel Appel), Otello (staged by Stephen Langridge) in 2008, Moise et Pharaon (staged by Jürgen Flimm) in 2009, and Orfeo ed Euridice (staged by Dieter Dorn) in 2010. In 2011, Muti will conduct a new production of Verdi's Macbeth, that will be directed by Peter Stein.^[4] Muti also owns a residence close to Salzburg.

Salzburg Whitsun Festival[link]

From 2007 to 2011, Muti is the principal conductor at Salzburg's Whitsun Festival. He conducts productions of rare Italian operas from the 18th century, and concerts with his Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra.

Muti with Vladimir Putin after a performance in Moscow, 1 June 2000.

USA[link]

In the USA, from 1980 to 1992, Muti was music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which he led on numerous international tours. In 1979, he was appointed its music director and, in 1992, conductor laureate. Muti stated that his approach was to remain faithful to the intent of the composer. This meant a change from applying the lush "Philadelphia Sound," created by his predecessors Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski, to all repertoire; however, many of his recordings with that orchestra largely seem to do away with its hallmark sound, even in the works of such composers as Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and other high romantics. His sonic changes to the orchestra remain controversial. Some felt he turned it into a generic-sounding institution with a lean sound much favored by modern recording engineers. Others believe Muti uncovered the true intention of the works, which had been covered in a silky sheen by Muti's predecessor. Since his departure from Philadelphia, he has made very few guest conducting appearances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, most recently in 2005.^[5]

Muti has been a regular and popular guest conductor with the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra's musicians had reportedly been interested – towards the end of the tenures of Kurt Masur and Lorin Maazel, and before Muti took the Chicago post – in having the conductor as their music director, but Muti stated that he had no wish to take on the position.^[6][7]

On 5 May 2008, Muti was named the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), effective with the 2010–2011 season, with an initial contract of 5 years. Muti is to conduct a minimum of 10 weeks of CSO subscription concerts each season, in addition to domestic and international tours. He made his CSO debut at the Ravinia Festival in 1973.^[8] In August 2009, Muti was said to be named the next music director of the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, effective December 2010,^[9] but the news given by the mayor (and therefore president of Opera di Roma) Gianni Alemanno was not true. Alemanno, instead, announced in October 2011 that Muti accepted an invitation by the Orchestra of Opera di Roma to become a "lifetime conductor" of Opera di Roma.^[10]

End of tenure in Milan[link]

In 2003, there were reports of artistic and programming conflicts at La Scala between musical director and principal conductor Muti and general manager Carlo Fontana.^[11] Muti did not attend the press conference that announced the 2003-2004 season. The appointment in 2003 of Mauro Meli as La Scala's artistic director was intended to calm the conflict between Fontana and Muti.^[12]

On 24 February 2005, the La Scala governors dismissed Fontana as general manager and named Meli as his successor.^[13] The musicians sided with Fontana against Muti at this point in the dispute, and on 13 March, Muti stated that he would refuse to conduct the La Scala orchestra from that point on.^[14] On 16 March 2005, the orchestra and staff of La Scala voted overwhelmingly against Muti in a motion of no-confidence.^[15] Muti was forced to cancel a concert prior to the vote, and some other productions were disrupted at the theater because of continuing rifts with Fontana's supporters. On 2 April, he resigned from La Scala, citing "hostility" from staff members.^[16][17]

Political intervention[link]

On the night of 12 March 2011, Rome's Teatro dell'Opera staged the first in a series of scheduled performances of Verdi's opera Nabucco, conducted by Muti. After the end of the chorus "Va, pensiero", which contains the lyrics "Oh mia patria, sì bella e perduta" ("Oh my country, so beautiful and so lost"), the audience applauded "heartily". Conductor Muti, breaking with opera protocol and the strict conventions of composer Verdi himself,^[18] turned to the audience and delivered a small speech, referring to the severe budget cuts announced by the Berlusconi government^[19] that would particularly affect the funding of the arts. Muti spoke of the need to keep culture alive in Italy, prompted, as he later stated, by the belief that "killing culture in a country like Italy is a crime against society. Culture is the spiritual glue that holds a people together".^[18] Muti then invited the audience to participate in an encore of the "Va, pensiero" chorus – the invitation and the encore also a break from tradition for an opera performance.^[20] The opera audience stood up and sang along with the on-stage chorus .^[21] Muti recalls that "80 percent of the audience knew the lyrics" and sang along, while "some members of the chorus were in tears".^[18]

On 18 March, the performance of Nabucco was repeated in front of Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Muti, who had stated that it had been the first time in his life that he conducted chorus and audience together and also the last,^[18] on that occasion conducted the Verdi opera in the "orthodox" manner.^[21]

Personal life[link]

Muti is married to Maria Cristina Mazzavillani, the founder and director of the Ravenna Festival.^[22] They have two sons and a daughter.

Repertoire and recordings[link]

With the Philadelphia, his recordings include the first Beethoven Symphony Cycle made for compact disc, the symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Alexander Scriabin, selected works of Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev, as well as less-known works of composers such as Giacomo Puccini and Ferruccio Busoni.

Muti is considered one of the world's greatest conductors of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi. He also led a series of annual performances of opera in concerts including the works of Verdi, Puccini, Mozart and Wagner. In 1992, Muti conducted performances of Ruggiero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with Luciano Pavarotti. A recording was also made of these performances.

At La Scala, Muti was noted for exploring lesser-known works of the Classical- and early Romantic-era repertory such as Lodoiska by Luigi Cherubini and La Vestale by Gaspare Spontini.

Honors[link]

• Muti is an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music since 1981.^[23]
• Muti was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire KBE in 2000.^[24]
• Muti was awarded a doctorate honoris causa by the Universitat de Barcelona on 13 October 2003.
• On 4 June 2010, Muti was awarded the title of Commandeur de la Légion d'honneur by French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.^[25]
• In 2011, Muti was awarded Russia's Order of Friendship.^[26]

Awards[link]

• 2011 Birgit Nilsson Prize^[27]
• 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Riccardo Muti Official website
• Riccardo Muti at Allmusic
• Riccardo Muti at the Internet Movie Database
• Riccardo Muti biography at Sony BMG Masterworks

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Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫, born 手塚 治, Tezuka Osamu^?, November 3, 1928 – February 9, 1989) was a Japanese cartoonist, manga artist, animator, producer, activist and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Black Jack. He is often credited as the "Godfather of Anime", and is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during his formative years.^[1] His prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the father of manga", "the god of comics"^[2] and "kamisama of manga".^[3] His grave is located in Tokyo's Souzen-ji Temple Cemetery.

Early life[link]

Osamu was born, as the eldest son of three children of Tezuka family, on November 3, 1928, in Toyonaka City, Osaka.^[4][5] His nickname was gashagasha-atama (gashagasha is slang for messy, atama means head). His mother often comforted him by telling him to look to the blue skies, giving him confidence. His mother's stories inspired his creativity as well. Tezuka grew up in Takarazuka City, Hyōgo and his mother often took him to the Takarazuka Theatre. The Takarazuka Revue that performed at the theatre is made up in its entirety of women, and so male characters are also played by women. The Takarazuka Revue is known for its romantic musicals usually aimed at a female audience, thus having a large impact on the later works of Tezuka, including his costuming designs. He has said that he has a profound "spirit of nostalgia" for Takarazuka.^[6] His animation production company was named Mushi (insect) Production.^[7]

He started to draw comics around his second year of elementary school. Around his fifth year he found a bug named "Osamushi". It so resembled his name that he adopted osamushi as his pen name. He came to the realization that he could use manga as a means of helping to convince people to care for the world. After World War II, he created his first piece of work (at age 17), Diary of Ma-chan and then Shin Takarajima (New Treasure Island), which began the golden age of manga, a craze comparable to American comic books at the time.^[8] Japanese manga artists call him "Manga-no-kami sama" [the god of manga].

Works[link]

The distinctive "large eyes" style of Japanese animation was invented by Tezuka,^[9] drawing inspirations on cartoons of the time such as Betty Boop and Walt Disney's Bambi and Mickey Mouse. As an indication of his productivity, the Complete Manga Works of Tezuka Osamu (手塚治虫漫画全集, published in Japan) comprises some 400 volumes, over 80,000 pages; even so, it is not comprehensive. His complete oeuvre includes over 700 manga with more than 150,000 pages.^[10][11] However, the vast majority of his work has never been translated from the original Japanese.

When he was younger, Tezuka's arms swelled up and he became ill. He was treated and cured by a doctor which made him want to be a doctor. However, he began his career as a manga artist while a university student, drawing his first professional work while at school. At a crossing point, he asked his mother whether he should look into doing manga full time or whether he should become a doctor. At the time, being a manga author was not a particularly rewarding job. The answer his mother gave was: "You should work doing the thing you like most of all." Tezuka decided to devote himself to manga creation on a full-time basis. He graduated from Osaka University and obtained his medical degree, but he would later use his medical and scientific knowledge to enrich his sci-fi manga, such as Black Jack.^[11][12]

His creations include Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu in Japan, literally translated to "Iron-armed Atom"), Black Jack, Princess Knight, Phoenix (Hi no Tori in Japan), Kimba the White Lion, Adolf and Buddha. His "life's work" was Phoenix — a story of life and death that he began in the 1950s and continued until his death.^[13]

In January 1965, Tezuka received a letter from Stanley Kubrick, who had watched Astro Boy and wanted to invite Tezuka to be the art director of his next movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tezuka could not afford to leave his studio for an entire year to live in England, so he refused the invitation. Though he could not work on it, he loved the movie, and would play its soundtrack at maximum volume in his studio to keep him awake during the long nights of work.^[14][15]

Tezuka headed the animation production studio Mushi Production ("Bug Production"), which pioneered TV animation in Japan.^[7] The name of the studio derives from one of the kanji (虫 - Japanese reading: mushi, English meaning: bug,insect) used to write his name.

Many young manga artists once lived in the apartment where Tezuka lived, Tokiwa-sō. (As the suffix -sō indicates, this was probably a small, inexpensive apartment.) The residents included Shotaro Ishinomori; Fujio Akatsuka; and Abiko Motou and Hiroshi Fujimoto (who worked together under the pen name Fujiko Fujio).^[16][17]

Tezuka died of stomach cancer on February 9, 1989, at the age of 60.^[2] His death came about one month after the death of Hirohito, the Shōwa Emperor of Japan. In an afterword written by Takayuki Matsutani, president of Mushi Productions, that was published in Viz Media's English language release of the Hi no Tori manga, it is said that his last words were, "I'm begging you, let me work!"

The city of Takarazuka, Hyōgo, where Tezuka grew up, opened a museum in his memory.^[5] Stamps were issued in his honor in 1997. Also, beginning in 2003 the Japanese toy company Kaiyodo began manufacturing a series of figurines of Tezuka's creations, including Princess Knight, Unico, the Phoenix, Dororo, Marvelous Melmo, Ambassador Magma and many others. To date three series of the figurines have been released. A separate Astro Boy series of figurines has also been issued, and continuing popularity for fans throughout Japan are annual Tezuka calendars with some of Tezuka's most famous artwork.

His legacy has continued to be honored among Manga artists and animators and many artists including Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), and Kazuki Takahashi (Yu-Gi-Oh!) have cited Tezuka an inspiration for their works.

He was a personal friend (and apparent artistic influence) of Brazilian comic book artist Mauricio de Sousa. In 2012, Mauricio will publish a two-issue story arc in the Monica Teen comic book featuring some of Tezuka's main characters, such as Astro, Sapphire and Kimba, joining Monica and her friends in an adventure in the Amazon Rainforest against a smuggling organization chopping down hundreds of trees in the jungles of the Amazon. This is the first time that Tezuka Productions Co. has allowed overseas animators to use Tezuka’s characters.^[18] Rock Holmes, another character created by Tezuka, will apparently be featured as a villain in the story arc.

Style[link]

Tezuka is known for his imaginative stories and stylized Japanese adaptations of western literature. He loved reading novels and watching films that came from the West. Tezuka's early works included manga versions of Disney movies such as Bambi.^[19] His work, like that of other manga creators, was sometimes gritty and violent. However, he stayed away from graphic violence in some titles such as Astro Boy.

Awards[link]

• 1958 Shogakukan Manga Award for Manga Seminar on Biology and Biiko-chan^[20]
• 1975 Bungeishunjū manga Award
• 1975 Japan Mangaka Association Award — Special Award
• 1977 Kodansha Manga Award for Black Jack and The Three-Eyed One^[21]
• 1983 Shogakukan Manga Award for Hidamari no Ki^[20]
• 1984 Animafest Zagreb Grand Prize for Jumping
• 1985 Hiroshima International Animation Festival for Onboro-Film
• 1986 Kodansha Manga Award for Adolf^[21]
• 1989 Nihon SF Taisho Award - Special Award
• 1989 Zuihōsho 3rd class
• 2004 Eisner Award for Buddha (vols. 1–2)
• 2005 Eisner Award for Buddha (vols. 3–4)
• 2009 Eisner Award for Dororo

Selected manga and anime[link]

For a more complete list, see List of Osamu Tezuka manga and List of Osamu Tezuka anime

The years cited beside each title refer to the period of manga serialization.

• Metropolis, 1949. One of Tezuka's early science fiction works, about a private detective, Higeoyaji, who tries to take care of Mitchy, a gender switching robot, after its creator is killed. It would be made into a 2001 animated film. The 2001 film was heavily influenced by the Fritz Lang film Metropolis, as well as Tezuka's manga. It is said that Tezuka never even saw the 1927 film but was inspired by the poster of the film.

• Jungle Taitei (Jungle Emperor), 1950–54. Better known by these other names in the English speaking world as Kimba the White Lion, this manga established one of Tezuka's most iconic creations. His first full-scale long serial, Jungle Taitei follows the adventures of Leo the white lion as he seeks to succeed his father, killed by a hunter, as king of the jungle. In 1965, Tezuka's Mushi Productions, financed by NBC Enterprises, produced a 52-episode anime series loosely based on the manga.^[7] This was followed immediately by a 26-episode sequel, produced by Mushi Productions alone. This sequel was dubbed into English in 1984 under the title Leo the Lion. A full-length animated film based on the last half of Tezuka's original manga was released theatrically in 1997 under the title Jungle Emperor Leo. A New 30 minute short was shown on Fuji TV on September 5, 2009. It was directed by Goro Taniguchi creator of Code Geass and Planetes.

• Tetsuwan ATOM (Astro Boy), 1952–68. A sequel to Captain ATOM (1951), with Atom (Atomu in Japanese, renamed Astro Boy in the U.S.)^[22] as its main character. Eventually, Astro Boy would become Tezuka's most famous creation. He created the nuclear-powered, yet peace-loving, boy robot first after being punched in the face by a drunken GI.^[22] In 1963, Astro Boy made its debut as the first domestically produced animated program on Japanese television. The 30-minute weekly program (of which 193 episodes were produced) led to the first craze for anime in Japan.^[23] In America, the TV series (which consisted of 104 episodes licensed from the Japanese run) was also a hit,^[24][25] becoming the first Japanese animation to be shown on U.S. television, although the U.S. producers downplayed and disguised the show's Japanese origins.^[26][27] Several other Astro Boy series have been made since, as well as a 2009 CGI-animated feature film Astro Boy.

• Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight), 1953–56. A gender-bending adventure drama about Princess Sapphire, a girl who must pretend to be a boy—and whose body, in fact, has two human souls; a boy's and a girl's. The manga was inspired by the themes and styles of musicals by the all-girl Takarazuka Revue, which Tezuka had watched in his youth. Ribon no Kishi itself established many of the themes and styles of later shōjo manga (girls' manga), such as its affinity for androgynous heroes, and is sometimes referred to as "the Mother of all shōjo manga." It was made into an anime TV series in 1967, and the anime has been dubbed into English and sporadically broadcast on TV in the United States and other English-speaking countries; also known in English as Choppy and the Princess. The series was the first anime produced in color, and the quality of the show's art is still impressive, even today. In spite of the series' obscurity in the United States due to legal and distribution problems, the series has turned out to be one of Tezuka's most popular creations practically everywhere else. It's known in Spanish-speaking countries as La princesa caballero, in Germany as Choppy und die Prinzessin, in Italy as La Principessa Zaffiro, in Portugal and Brazil as Princesa e o Cavaleiro, in France as "Prince Saphir" and in Poland under no less than five different titles, including Czopi i Księżniczka. A new musical version of Princess Knight was performed in August 2006 starring the members of the all-female pop group Morning Musume. An excerpt from the manga will be published in the June 19, 2007 issue of Shojo Beat from VIZ. The entire manga had previously been released in bilingual (English/Japanese) volumes from Kodansha Bilingual Comics. As of 2011, Vertical acquired the rights to Princess Knight for the North American market.^[28]

• Hi no Tori (Phoenix), 1956–89. Tezuka's most profound and ambitious work, dealing with man's quest for immortality, ranging from the distant past to the far future. The central character is the Phoenix, the physical manifestation of the cosmos, who carries within itself the power of immortality; either granted by the Phoenix or taken from the Phoenix by drinking a small amount of its blood. Other characters appear and reappear throughout the series; usually due to their reincarnation. The work remained unfinished at the time of Tezuka's death in 1989. Phoenix has been filmed several times, most notably as Phoenix 2772 (1980).

• Twin Knight, 1958. Twin Knight was a sequel to Princess Knight, and takes place several years after the end of the original series. In Twin Knight Princess Sapphire is now Queen Sapphire and is married to Frantz, her love interest in the original series. The main characters in Twin Knight are the twin children of Sapphire and Frantz, Prince Daisy and Princess Violetta. In keeping with the theme of the original series, following Prince Daisy's kidnapping, Princess Violetta must pretend to be both of them, all the while trying to discover the whereabouts of her brother. Although Twin Knight was originally published under the same Ribon no Kishi title during its short run, the title was changed in 1960 when the series was collected into a single volume. Ever since then it has been regarded as a separate series. No television version has ever been produced.

• Kureopatora (Cleopatra: Queen of Sex), 1970. The movie told the story of Cleopatra and her numerous romantic encounters with Julius Caesar and the other men in her life. When the film was released in the United States, American distributors released it under the title Cleopatra: Queen of Sex with an X rating in an attempt to cash in on the success of Fritz the Cat. In actuality, the film had not been submitted to the MPAA, and it is considered to be highly unlikely that it would have received an X rating if it had been submitted. One critic described it as "kid stuff with naked breasts.."^[29] The film was not a success in Japan (partly due to financial troubles Tezuka's film company was having at the time), and is rarely seen today.

• Black Jack, 1973–83. The story of Black Jack, a talented surgeon who operates illegally, using radical and supernatural techniques to combat rare afflictions. Black Jack received the Japan Cartoonists' Association Special Award in 1975 and the Koudansha Manga Award in 1977. Three Black Jack TV movies were released between 2000-01. In fall 2004, a TV anime was aired in Japan with 61 episodes, releasing another movie afterward. A new series, titled Black Jack 21, started broadcasting on April 10, 2006. In September 2008, the first volume of the manga had been published in English by Vertical Publishing and more volumes are being published to this day.

Museum[link]

The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum (宝塚市立手塚治虫記念館, Takarazuka's Tezuka Osamu Memorial Hall) was inaugurated on April 25 of 1994 and has three floors (15069.47 ft²). In the basement there is an "Animation Workshop" in which visitors can make their own animations, and a mockup of the city of Takarazuka and a replica of the table where Osamu Tezuka worked.

On the ground floor on the way before the building's entrance, are imitations of the hands and feet of several characters from Tezuka (as in a true walk of fame) and on the inside, the entry hall, a replica of Princess Knight's furniture. On the same floor, is a permanent exhibition of manga and a room for the display of anime. The exhibition is divided into two parts: Osamu Tezuka and the city of Takarazuka and Osamu Tezuka, the author.

On the first floor are held several exhibitions and are available a Manga Library, with five hundred works of Tezuka (some foreign editions are also present), a video library and a lounge with a decor inspired by Kimba the White Lion.

There is also a center of glass that represents the planet Earth and is based on a book written by him in his childhood called "Our Earth of Glass".

Personal life[link]

Tezuka was a fan of Superman and was made honorable chairman of the Superman Fan Club in Japan.^[30] His son Makoto Tezuka, would later become a film and anime director. ^[31] He gave guidance to many known cartoonists such as Shotaro Ishinomori and Go Nagai.

Tezuka enjoyed bug collecting, entomology, Walt Disney, baseball, and licensed the "grown up" version of his character Kimba the White Lion as the logo for the Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. ^[31][32] Tezuka met Walt Disney in person, who wanted to hire Tezuka.

Tezuka is a descendent of Hattori Hanzo^[33], a famous ninja and samurai who faithfully served Tokugawa Ieyasu during the Sengoku period in Japan.

See also[link]

	Anime and manga portal
	Biography portal

• Makoto Tezuka
• List of Osamu Tezuka manga
• List of Osamu Tezuka anime
• Osamu Tezuka's Star System
• Tezuka Award
• Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Osamu Tezuka

• TezukaOsamu.net Official site in Japanese and English
• Tezuka in English (works, characters, bibliography, and fan index)
• Osamu Tezuka at Find a Grave
• Osamu Tezuka at the Internet Movie Database
• Osamu Tezuka at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Osamu Tezuka at Anime.com
• Tezuka Osamu Manga Museum Information page at TezukaOsamu.net
• The Osamu Tezuka Manga Museum Information page on city of Takarazuka municipal site (Japanese)
• Based on Osamu Tezuka movies or mangas [sic] at Universal Videogame List (Video games based on Osamu Tezuka works)
• Interview: Osamu Tezuka speaks at Hartford at web.archive.org
• Osamu Tezuka, A Japanese Godfather of Modern Day Manga

Jules Massenet

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (French pronunciation: [ʒyl emil fʁedeʁik masnɛ]) (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many operas of his such as Thaïs and Esclarmonde have undergone periodic revivals.

Biography[link]

Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. When he was six, his family moved to Paris due to his father's ill-health. There his mother (Adélaïde Massenet, née Royer; her husband's second wife) started taking piano pupils. She also taught Jules so well that at the age of 11 he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire. He was still a student when his family moved from Paris to Chambéry, but Jules returned to Paris after a few months, living with a married member of his father's family by his first wife. To support himself during his studies, he worked as timpanist for six years at the Théâtre Lyrique, playing also other percussion instruments in other theatres, and working as a pianist in the Café de Belleville.

Although at first some of his teachers had not predicted for him any career in music, this changed in 1862 when he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata David Rizzio and spent three years in Rome. There he met Franz Liszt, at whose request he gave piano lessons to Louise-Constance "Ninon" de Gressy, the daughter of a wealthy lady named Mme Sainte-Marie. Ninon became Massenet's wife in 1866.

Massenet early in his career

His first opera, La grand' tante, was a one-act production at the Opéra-Comique in 1867. Nevertheless it was his dramatic oratorio Marie-Magdeleine (first performed in 1873) that won him praise from the likes of Tchaikovsky, d'Indy (who afterwards turned against him), and Gounod. His real mentor, though, was the composer Ambroise Thomas, a man with important contacts in theatrical milieux. Another important early patron was his publisher, Georges Hartmann, whose connections with journalistic circles aided him in becoming better known during the difficult initial years of his composing activity. Even Massenet's marriage to Ninon helped him a great deal in securing commissions and garnering fame in important social circles.

Massenet took a break from his composing to serve as a soldier in the Franco-Prussian War, but returned to his art following the end of the conflict in 1871. From 1878 he worked as professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory where his pupils included André Bloch, Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn, Georges Enesco, and Charles Koechlin. His greatest successes were Manon in 1884, Werther in 1892, and Thaïs in 1894. Notable later operas were Le jongleur de Notre-Dame, produced in 1902, and Don Quichotte, produced in Monte Carlo 1910, with the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin in the title-role.

In 1876 he received the Légion d'honneur, and was appointed a Grand Officer in 1899. In 1878 he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, to the exclusion of Camille Saint-Saëns. He was only 36, the youngest member ever elected to the Académie.

In addition to his operas, Massenet composed concert suites, ballet music, oratorios and cantatas and about two hundred songs. Some of his non-vocal output has achieved widespread popularity, and is commonly performed: for example the Méditation from Thaïs, which is a violin solo with orchestra, as well as the Aragonaise, from his opera Le Cid and the Élégie for cello and orchestra (from his incidental music to Les Érinnyes). The latter two pieces are commonly played by piano students, and the Élégie became world-famous in many arrangements.

There have been periodic performances and recordings of Massenet's orchestral music, especially the seven suites. Naxos has issued the complete suites, as well as ballet music from Herodiade, as performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Yves Ossonce.^[1]

Massenet died in Paris at the age of 70, after suffering from a long illness (cancer).^{[2] [3]}

Being a very prolific, hard-working composer (over 25 extant operas, with his daily schedule starting frequently from as early as 4 am), he created his pieces not "at the piano" (as so many other composers do), but entirely from his imagination. That ability greatly helped him to achieve his high standards as an orchestrator. Even in his loudest passages, the instrumental texture is always lucid. It is curious that he was also known to avoid all public dress rehearsals and performances of his works; often he would have to be informed by others of his own operatic successes.

The only known recording by Massenet is a scene from Sapho where he accompanies the soprano Georgette Leblanc on the piano; never published, it is in the Historical Sound Recordings collection of Yale University.^[4]

Compositions[link]

	"Manon! avez-vous peur...On l'appelle Manon" From Manon (1884), performed by Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar in 1912. "Ah! fuyez, douce image" From Manon (1884). Recorded in 1910 by Aristodemo Giorgini for Edison Records. "Notre Père" Performed by l'Atelier Vocal des Herbiers
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Operas[link]

Oratorios and cantatas[link]

• David Rizzio – 1863
• Marie-Magdeleine – 1873
• Ève – 1875
• Narcisse – 1877
• La Vierge – 1880
• Biblis – 1886
• La Terre Promise – 1900

Ballets[link]

• Le carillon – 1892
• Cigale – 1904
• Espada – 1908
• L'histoire de Manon (arr. Leighton Lucas) – 1974

Orchestral compositions[link]

• Première suite d'orchestre – 1867
• Scènes hongroises – 1870
• Scènes pittoresques – 1874
• Scènes dramatiques – 1875
• Scènes napolitaines – 1876
• Scènes de féerie – 1881
• Scènes alsaciennes – 1882
• Fantasy for cello and orchestra – 1897
• Piano Concerto – 1903
• Ouverture de concert
• Overture to Racine's Phèdre
• Sarabande espagnole

Incidental music[link]

• Les érinnyes (containing the famous Élégie) – 1873
• Un drame sous Philippe II – 1875
• La vie de bohème – 1876
• L'Hetman – 1877
• Notre-Dame de Paris – 1879
• Michel Strogoff – 1880
• Nana-Sahin – 1883
• Théodora – 1884
• Le crocodile – 1900
• Phèdre – 1900
• Le grillon du foyer – 1904
• Le manteau du roi – 1907
• Perce-Beige et les sept gnomes – 1909
• Jérusalem – 1914

Song collections and cycles[link]

• Poëme d'Avril (Armand Silvestre), Op. 14, songs, declaimed poems and piano solos, c.1866, published 1868
• Poëme pastoral (Florian and Armand Silvestre), baritone, 3 female voices, piano, 1870–72, published 1872
• Chansons des bois d'Amaranthe (M. Legrand, after Redwitz), four solo voices (SATB) and piano, 1900, published 1901

Songs[link]

• À Colombine (Serenade d’Arlequin) (Louis Gallet)
• À la trépassée (Armand Silvestre)
• À la Zuecca (Alfred de Musset)
• À Mignonne (Gustave Chouquet)
• Adieu (Complainte) (Armand Silvestre)
• Adieux (Gilbert)
• Anniversaire (Armand Silvestre)
• Aubade (Gabriel Prévost)
• Automne (Paul Collin)
• Berceuse (Gustave Chouquet)
• Bonne nuit! (Camille Distel)
• Ce que disent les cloches (Jean de la Vingtrie)
• C'est l'amour (Victor Hugo)
• Chant provençal (Michel Carré)
• Comme autrefois (Jeanne Dortzal)
• Crépuscule (Armand Silvestre)
• Dans l'air plein de fils de soie (Armand Silvestre)
• Declaration (Gustave Chouquet)
• Élégie (Louis Gallet)
• Epitaphe (Armand Silvestre)
• Être aimé (Jules Massenet after Victor Hugo)
• Feux-follets d'amour (Madeleine Grain)
• Guitare (Victor Hugo)
• La Lettre (Catulle Mendès)
• La mort de la cigale (Maurice Fauré)
• La veillée du Petit Jésus (André (Theuriet)
• La vie d'une rose, Op. 12, No. 3 (Jules Ruelle)
• L'air du soir emportati (Armand Silvestre)
• L'âme des oiseau (Elena Vacarescu)
• Le portrait d'une enfant, Op. 12, No. 4 (Pierre de Ronsard)
• Le printemps visite la Terre (Jeanne Chaffotte)
• Le sais-tu? (Stéphan Bordèse)
• Le sentier perdu (Paul de Choudens)
• Le verger (Camille Distel)
• Les alcyons (Joseph Antoine Autran)
• Les bois de pins (Camille Distel)
• Les enfants
• Les femmes de Magdala (Louis Gallet)
• Les mains (Noel Bazan)
• Les oiselets (Jacques Normand)
• L'esclave, Op. 12, No. 1 (Théophile Gautier)
• Lève-toi (Armand Silvestre)
• Loin de moi ta lèvre Qui Ment (Jean Aicard)
• Madrigal (Armand Silvestre)
• Musette (Jean Pierre Claris de Florian)
• Narcisse à la fontaine (Paul Collin)
• Néére (Michel Carré)
• Nocturne (Jeanne Dortzal)
• Nouvelle chanson sur un vieil air (Victor Hugo)
• Nuit d'Espagne (Louis Gallet)
• Ouvre tes yeux bleus (Paul Robiquet)
• Pensée d'automne (Armand Silvestre)
• Pour qu'à l'espérance (Armand Silvestre)
• Prélude (Armand Silvestre)
• Première danse (Jacques Clary Jean Normand)
• Puisqu’elle a pris ma vie (Paul Robiquet)
• Que l'heure est donc brève (Armand Silvestre)
• Rêvons, c'est l'heure (Paul Verlaine)
• Riez-vous (Armand Silvestre)
• Rondel de la belle au bois (Julien Gruaz)
• Rose de Mai (S.Poirson)
• Roses d’Octobre (Paul Collin)
• Sérénade (Molière)
• Sérénade aux mariés, Op. 12, No. 2 (Jules Ruelle)
• Sérénade de Zanetto (François Coppée)
• Sérénade du passant (François Coppée)
• Si tu veux, Mignonne (Abbé Claude Georges Boyer)
• Soir de rêve (Antonin Lugnier)
• Soleil couchant (Victor Hugo)
• Sonnet (Georges Pradel)
• Sonnet matinal (Armand Silvestre)
• Sonnet payen (Armand Silvestre)
• Souhait (Jacques Normand)
• Sous les branches (Armand Silvestre)
• Souvenez-vous, Vierge Marie! (Georges Boyer)
• Souvenir de Venise (Alfred de Musset)
• Stances (Gilbert)
• Sur la source (Armand Silvestre)
• Un adieu (Armand Silvestre)
• Un souffle de parfums (Armand Silvestre)
• Voici que les grans lys (Armand Silvestre)
• Voix suprême (Antoinette Lafaix-Gontié)
• Vous aimerez demain (Armand Silvestre)

Other[link]

• Miscellaneous piano pieces
• Massenet completed and orchestrated Léo Delibes' unfinished opera Kassya.
• Prelude in C major for organ.

References[link]

Notes

Cited sources

• Irvine, Demar (1994). Massenet: A Chronicle of His Life and Times. Portland, Oregan: Amadeus Press. ISBN 0-931340-63-2. 
• Harding, James (1970). Massenet. New York: St. Martin's Press. 
• Massenet, Jules (1971). My Recollections. New York: AMS Press. ISBN 0-404-04229-5. 
• Full text of My recollections at archive.org
• Huebner, Steven (2006). French Opera at the Fin de Siecle: Part I – Jules Massenet. Oxford Univ. Press, US. pp. 25–168. ISBN 978-0-19-518954-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=KSQGZOTQKmwC&pg=PA25&dq=%22The+Ascent+of+Massenet%22. 
• Finck, Henry T. (2007). Massenet and His Operas. READ BOOKS. ISBN 978-1-4067-3416-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=byUI4dmwy4AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Massenet+And+His+Operas%22. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jules Massenet

• Works by Jules Massenet at Project Gutenberg
• Free scores by Jules Massenet at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Jules Massenet in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Massenet – Meditation from Thais on YouTube for cello and orchestra.
• Masters of French Music: Jules Massenet by Arthur Hervey
• All Music biographical notes on Massenet (in English)
• Extensive biography with list of references and compositions (in French)
• Scores and Vocal Scores on Indiana University Bloomington Libraries:
  • Werther: Full orchestral score, French text only
  • Manon: Full orchestral score, French text only
  • Don Quichotte: Vocal score (piano reduction), French and English libretto

1918 portrait of Strauss by Max Liebermann.

Signature of Dr. Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and other orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, An Alpine Symphony, and Metamorphosen. Strauss was also a prominent conductor throughout Germany and Austria.

Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

Life and works[link]

Early life and family[link]

Strauss age 24

Strauss was born on 11 June 1864, in Munich, the son of Franz Strauss, who was the principal horn player at the Court Opera in Munich. In his youth, he received a thorough musical education from his father. He wrote his first composition at the age of six, and continued to write music almost until his death.

During his boyhood Strauss attended orchestra rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra, and he also received private instruction in music theory and orchestration from an assistant conductor there. In 1874 Strauss heard his first Wagner operas, Lohengrin and Tannhäuser. The influence of Wagner's music on Strauss's style was to be profound, but at first his musically conservative father forbade him to study it. Indeed, in the Strauss household, the music of Richard Wagner was viewed with deep suspicion, and it was not until the age of 16 that Strauss was able to obtain a score of Tristan und Isolde. In later life, Richard Strauss said that he deeply regretted the conservative hostility to Wagner's progressive works.^[1] Nevertheless, Strauss's father undoubtedly had a crucial influence on his son's developing taste, not least in Strauss's abiding love for the horn.

In 1882 he entered Munich University, where he studied Philosophy and Art History, but not music. He left a year later to go to Berlin, where he studied briefly before securing a post as assistant conductor to Hans von Bülow, who had been enormously impressed by the young composer's Serenade for wind instruments, composed when he was only 16 years of age. Strauss learned the art of conducting by observing Bülow in rehearsal. Bülow was very fond of the young man and decided that Strauss should be his successor as conductor of the Meiningen orchestra when Bülow resigned in 1885. Strauss's compositions at this time were indebted to the style of Robert Schumann or Felix Mendelssohn, true to his father's teachings. His remarkably mature Horn Concerto No. 1, Op. 11, is representative of this period and is a staple of modern horn repertoire.

Richard Strauss married soprano Pauline de Ahna on 10 September 1894. She was famous for being irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken, but the marriage, to all appearances, was essentially happy and she was a great source of inspiration to him. Throughout his life, from his earliest songs to the final Four Last Songs of 1948, he preferred the soprano voice to all others, and all his operas contain important soprano roles.

The Strausses had one son, Franz, in 1897. Franz married Alice von Grab, a Jewish woman, in a Catholic ceremony in 1924. Franz and Alice had two sons, Richard and Christian.

Works[link]

Solo and chamber works[link]

Some of Strauss's first compositions were solo and chamber works. These pieces include: early compositions for piano solo in a conservative harmonic style, many of which are lost; a string quartet (opus 2); a cello sonata; a piano quartet; Violin Sonata in E flat (1888); as well as a handful of late pieces.

After 1890 Strauss composed very infrequently for chamber groups, his energies being almost completely absorbed with large-scale orchestral works and operas. Four of his chamber pieces are actually arrangements of portions of his operas, including the Daphne-Etude for solo violin, and the string Sextet which is the overture to his final opera Capriccio. His last independent chamber work, an Allegretto in E for violin and piano, dates from 1940.

Tone poems and other orchestral works[link]

Strauss's style began to truly develop and change when, in 1885, he met Alexander Ritter, a noted composer and violinist, and the husband of one of Richard Wagner's nieces. It was Ritter who persuaded Strauss to abandon the conservative style of his youth, and begin writing tone poems. He also introduced Strauss to the essays of Richard Wagner and the writings of Arthur Schopenhauer. Strauss went on to conduct one of Ritter's operas, and at Strauss's request Ritter later wrote a poem describing the events depicted in Strauss's tone poem Death and Transfiguration.

The new influences from Ritter resulted in what is widely regarded^[2] as Strauss's first piece to show his mature personality, the tone poem Don Juan (1888), which displays a new kind of virtuosity in its bravura orchestral manner. Strauss went on to write a series of increasingly ambitious tone poems: Death and Transfiguration (1889), Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks (1895), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1896), Don Quixote (1897), A Hero's Life (1898), Symphonia Domestica (1903) and An Alpine Symphony (1911–1915). One commentator has observed of these works that "no orchestra could exist without his tone poems, written to celebrate the glories of the post-Wagnerian symphony orchestra."^[3]

Solo instrument with orchestra[link]

Strauss's output of works for solo instrument or instruments with orchestra was fairly extensive. The most famous include two concertos for horn, which are still part of the standard repertoire of most horn soloists; a Violin Concerto in D minor; the Burleske for piano and orchestra; the tone poem Don Quixote for cello, viola and orchestra; the well-known late Oboe Concerto in D major; and the Duet-Concertino for bassoon, clarinet and orchestra, which was one of his last works (1947).

Opera[link]

Richard Strauss engraved by Ferdinand Schmutzer (1922)

Around the end of the 19th century, Strauss turned his attention to opera. His first two attempts in the genre, Guntram (1894) and Feuersnot (1901), were controversial works: Guntram was the first significant critical failure of Strauss's career, and Feuersnot was considered obscene by some critics.^[4]

In 1905, Strauss produced Salome, a somewhat dissonant modernist opera based on the play by Oscar Wilde, which produced a passionate reaction from audiences. The premiere was a major success, with the artists taking more than 38 curtain calls.^[5] Many later performances of the opera were also successful, not only with the general public but also with Strauss's peers: Maurice Ravel said that Salome was "stupendous",^[6] and Mahler described it as "a live volcano, a subterranean fire".^[7] Strauss reputedly financed his house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen completely from the revenues generated by the opera.

Strauss's next opera was Elektra (1909), which took his use of dissonance even further, in particular with the Elektra chord. Elektra was also the first opera in which Strauss collaborated with the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The two subsequently worked together on numerous occasions. For his later works with Hofmannsthal, Strauss moderated his harmonic language: he used a more lush, melodic late-Romantic style based on Wagnerian chromatic harmonies that he had used in his tone poems, with much less dissonance, and exhibiting immense virtuosity in orchestral writing and tone color. This resulted in operas such as Der Rosenkavalier (1911) having great public success. Strauss continued to produce operas at regular intervals until 1942. With Hofmannsthal he created Ariadne auf Naxos (1912), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1918), Die ägyptische Helena (1927), and Arabella (1932). For Intermezzo (1923) Strauss provided his own libretto. Die schweigsame Frau (1934), was composed with Stefan Zweig as librettist; Friedenstag (1935–6) and Daphne (1937) both had a libretto by Joseph Gregor and Stefan Zweig; and Die Liebe der Danae (1940) was with Joseph Gregor. Strauss's final opera, Capriccio (1942), had a libretto by Clemens Krauss, although the genesis for it came from Stefan Zweig and Joseph Gregor.

Lieder[link]

All his life Strauss produced Lieder. The Four Last Songs are among his best known, along with "Zueignung", "Cäcilie", "Morgen!", "Allerseelen", and others. In 1948, Strauss wrote his last work, the masterful and haunting Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra. He reportedly composed them with Kirsten Flagstad in mind, and she gave the first performance, which was recorded. Strauss's songs have always been popular with audiences and performers, and are generally considered^{[by whom?]} – along with many of his other compositions – to be masterpieces of the first rank.

Strauss in Nazi Germany[link]

[edit] The Nazi Reich forms the Reichsmusikkammer

In March 1933, when Richard Strauss was 68, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power. Strauss never joined the Nazi party, and studiously avoided Nazi forms of greeting. For reasons of expediency, however, he was initially drawn into cooperating with the early Nazi regime in the hope that Hitler — an ardent Wagnerian and music lover who had admired Strauss's work since viewing Salome in 1907 — would promote German art and culture. Strauss's need to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and Jewish grandchildren also motivated his behavior, in addition to his determination to preserve and conduct the music of banned composers such as Mahler and Debussy.

In 1933, Strauss wrote in his private notebook:

I consider the Streicher-Goebbels Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honour, as evidence of incompetence — the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent.^[8]

Meanwhile, far from being an admirer of Strauss's work, Joseph Goebbels maintained expedient cordiality with Strauss only for a period. Goebbels wrote in his diary:

Unfortunately we still need him, but one day we shall have our own music and then we shall have no further need of this decadent neurotic.^[9]

Nevertheless, because of Strauss's international eminence, in November 1933 he was appointed to the post of president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Strauss, who had lived through numerous political regimes and had no interest in politics, decided to accept the position but to remain apolitical, a decision which would eventually become untenable. He wrote to his family, "I made music under the Kaiser, and under Ebert. I'll survive under this one as well."^[10] In 1935 he wrote in his journal:

In November of 1933, the minister Goebbels nominated me president of the Reichsmusikkammer without obtaining my prior agreement. I was not consulted. I accepted this honorary office because I hoped that I would be able to do some good and prevent worse misfortunes, if from now onwards German musical life were going to be, as it was said, "reorganized" by amateurs and ignorant place-seekers.^[10]

Strauss privately scorned Goebbels and called him "a pipsqueak."^[11] In order to gain Goebbels' cooperation, however, in extending the German music copyright laws from 30 years to 50 years, in 1933 Strauss dedicated an orchestral song, Das Bächlein ("The Little Brook") to him.^[12]

Strauss attempted to ignore Nazi bans on performances of works by Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn. He also continued to work on a comic opera, Die schweigsame Frau, with his Jewish friend and librettist Stefan Zweig. When the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, Strauss insisted that Zweig's name appear on the theatrical billing, much to the ire of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Goebbels avoided attending the opera, and it was halted after three performances and subsequently banned by the Third Reich.^[13]

On 17 June 1935, Strauss wrote a letter to Stefan Zweig, in which he stated:

Do you believe I am ever, in any of my actions, guided by the thought that I am 'German'? Do you suppose Mozart was consciously 'Aryan' when he composed? I recognise only two types of people: those who have talent and those who have none.^[14]

This letter to Zweig was intercepted by the Gestapo and sent to Hitler. Strauss was subsequently dismissed from his post as Reichsmusikkammer president in 1935. The 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics nevertheless used Strauss's Olympische Hymne, which he had composed in 1934. Strauss's seeming relationship with the Nazis in the 1930s attracted criticism from some noted musicians, including Arturo Toscanini, who in 1933 had said, "To Strauss the composer I take off my hat; to Strauss the man I put it back on again," when Strauss had accepted the presidency of the Reichsmusikkammer.^[15] Much of Strauss's motivation in his conduct during the Third Reich was, however, to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice and his Jewish grandchildren from persecution. Both of his grandsons were bullied at school, but Strauss used his considerable influence to prevent the boys or their mother from being sent to concentration camps.^[16]

[edit] Friedenstag

In 1938, when the entire nation was preparing for war, Strauss created Friedenstag (Peace Day), a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty Years' War. The work is essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has a close affinity with Beethoven's Fidelio. Productions of the opera ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.

When his Jewish daughter-in-law Alice was placed under house arrest in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1938, Strauss used his connections in Berlin, including the Berlin intendant Heinz Tietjen, to secure her safety. He drove to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in order to argue, albeit unsuccessfully, for the release of his son Franz's Jewish mother-in-law, Marie von Grab. Strauss also wrote several letters to the SS pleading for the release of her children who were also held in camps; his letters were ignored.^[17]

In 1942, Strauss moved with his family back to Vienna, where Alice and her children could be protected by Baldur von Schirach, the Gauleiter of Vienna. Strauss was unable, however, to protect his Jewish relatives completely; in early 1944, while Strauss was away, Alice and his son Franz were abducted by the Gestapo and imprisoned for two nights. Only Strauss's personal intervention at this point was able to save them, and he was able to take the two of them back to Garmisch, where they remained under house arrest until the end of the war.

[edit] Metamorphosen

Strauss completed the composition of Metamorphosen, a work for 23 solo strings, in 1945. The title and inspiration for the work comes from a profoundly self-examining poem by Goethe, which Strauss had considered setting as a choral work.^[18] Generally regarded as one of the masterpieces of the string repertoire, Metamorphosen contains Strauss's most sustained outpouring of tragic emotion. Conceived and written during the blackest days of World War II, the piece expresses in music Strauss's mourning of, among other things, the destruction of German culture — including the bombing of every great opera house in the nation. At the end of the war, Strauss wrote in his private diary:

The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.^[19]

In April 1945, Strauss was apprehended by American soldiers at his Garmisch estate. As he descended the staircase he announced to Lieutenant Milton Weiss of the U.S. Army, "I am Richard Strauss, the composer of Rosenkavalier and Salome." Lt. Weiss, who, as it happened, was also a musician, nodded in recognition. An 'Off Limits' sign was subsequently placed on the lawn to protect Strauss.^[20] The American oboist John de Lancie, who knew Strauss's orchestral writing for oboe thoroughly, was in the army unit, and asked Strauss to compose an oboe concerto. Initially dismissive of the idea, Strauss completed this late masterpiece, his Oboe Concerto, before the end of the year.

Final upsurge of genius[link]

The metaphor "Indian Summer" is often used by journalists, biographers, and music critics to describe Strauss's late upsurge of genius from 1942 through the end of his life. The horrifying events of World War II seemed to bring the composer — who had grown old, tired, and a little jaded — into focus. The major works of the last years of Strauss's life, written in his late 70s and 80s, have a luminosity which matches anything he had composed earlier in his life, and they surpass most of them in emotional depth.^[21] These pieces include, among others, his Horn Concerto No. 2, Metamorphosen, his Oboe Concerto, and his masterful and haunting Four Last Songs.

The Four Last Songs, composed shortly before Strauss's death, deal poetically with the subject of dying. The last, "At Sunset" (Im Abendrot), ends with the line "Is this perhaps death?" The question is not answered in words, but instead Strauss quotes the "transfiguration theme" from his earlier tone poem, Death and Transfiguration — symbolizing the transfiguration and fulfillment of the soul after death.

Death and legacy[link]

Stamp issued in 1954

Richard Strauss died at the age of 85 on 8 September, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Georg Solti, who had arranged Strauss's 85th birthday celebration, also directed an orchestra during Strauss's burial.^[22] During the singing of the famous trio from Rosenkavalier, Solti described how "each singer broke down in tears and dropped out of the ensemble, but they recovered themselves and we all ended together." Strauss's wife, Paulina, died eight months later, on 13 May, 1950, at the age of 88.^[23]

During his lifetime Strauss was considered the greatest composer of the first half of the 20th century, and his music had a profound influence on the development of 20th-century music. There were few 20th-century composers who compared with Strauss in terms of orchestral imagination, and no composer since Wagner made a more significant contribution to the history of opera. And Strauss's late works, modelled on "the divine Mozart at the end of a life full of thankfulness,"^[24] are perhaps the most remarkable works by any octogenarian composer.

Strauss himself declared in 1947 with characteristic self-deprecation, "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould described Strauss in 1962 as "the greatest musical figure who has lived in this century."^[25]

Strauss as a conductor[link]

Richard Strauss during his career.

Strauss, as conductor, made a large number of recordings, both of his own music as well as music by German and Austrian composers.

His 1929 performances of Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra have long been considered the best of his early electrical recordings; even the original 78 rpm discs had superior sound for their time, and the performances were top-notch and quite exciting at times, despite a noticeable mistake by the Horn soloist in the famous opening passage of Till Eulenspiegel.

One of the more interesting of Strauss's recordings is perhaps the first complete performance of his An Alpine Symphony, made in 1941 and later released by EMI, because Strauss used the full complement of percussion instruments required in this spectacular symphony. The intensity of the performance rivaled that of the digital recording Herbert von Karajan made many years later with the Berlin Philharmonic.

Music critic Harold C. Schonberg in The Great Conductors (1967), says that while Strauss was a very fine conductor, he often put scant effort into his recordings. Schonberg focused primarily on Strauss's recordings of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, as well as noting that Strauss played a breakneck version of Beethoven's 9th Symphony in about 45 minutes. Concerning the Beethoven 7th symphony, Schonberg wrote, "There is almost never a ritard or a change in expression or nuance. The slow movement is almost as fast as the following vivace; and the last movement, with a big cut in it, is finished in 4 minutes, 25 seconds. (It should run between 7 and 8 minutes.)" Schonberg also complained that the Mozart symphony had "no force, no charm, no inflection, with a metronomic rigidity."

Peter Gutmann's 1994 review for ClassicalNotes.com says the performances of the Beethoven 5th and 7th symphonies, as well as Mozart's last three symphonies, are actually quite good, even if they are sometimes unconventional. Gutman wrote:

The Koch CDs represent all of Strauss's recordings of works by other composers. The best of his readings of his own famous tone poems and other music are collected on DGG 429 925-2, 3 CDs. It is true, as the critics suggest, that the readings forego overt emotion, but what emerges instead is a solid sense of structure, letting the music speak convincingly for itself. It is also true that Strauss's tempos are generally swift, but this, too, contributes to the structural cohesion and in any event is fully in keeping with our modern outlook in which speed is a virtue and attention spans are defined more by MTV clips and news sound bites than by evenings at the opera and thousand page novels.

Koch Legacy has also released Strauss's recordings of overtures by Gluck, Carl Maria von Weber, Peter Cornelius, and Wagner. The preference for German and Austrian composers in Germany in the 1920s through the 1940s was typical of the German nationalism that existed after World War I. Strauss clearly capitalized on national pride for the great German-speaking composers.

There were many other recordings, including some taken from radio broadcasts and concerts, during the 1930s and early 1940s. The sheer volume of recorded performances would undoubtedly yield some definitive performances from a very capable and rather forward-looking conductor.

In 1944, Strauss celebrated his 80th birthday and conducted the Vienna Philharmonic in recordings of his own major orchestral works, as well as his seldom-heard Schlagobers ("Whipped Cream") ballet music. Some find more feeling in these performances than in Strauss's earlier recordings, which were recorded on the Magnetophon tape recording equipment. Vanguard Records later issued the recordings on LPs. Some of these recordings have been reissued on CD by Preiser and are of remarkable fidelity.

Strauss also made live-recording player piano music rolls for the Hupfeld system, all of which survive today.

Richard Strauss was the composer of the music on the first CD to be commercially released: Deutsche Grammophon's 1983 release of their 1980 recording of Herbert von Karajan conducting the Alpine Symphony.

Works[link]

Selected major works[link]

Operas[link]

See List of operas by Richard Strauss

Ballet music[link]

• Josephslegende (The Legend of Joseph), Op. 63 (1914)
• Schlagobers (Whipped Cream), Op. 70 (1921/2)

Tone poems[link]

• Aus Italien (From Italy), Op. 16 (1886)
• Don Juan, Op. 20 (1889)
• Macbeth, Op. 23 (1888/90)
• Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24 (1888–89)
• Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks), Op. 28 (1895)
• Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), Op. 30 (1896)
• Don Quixote, Op. 35 (1898)
• Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), Op. 40 (1899)
• Symphonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony), Op. 53 (1904)
• Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), Op. 64 (1915)

Other orchestral works[link]

• Symphony in D minor (1880)
• Symphony No. 2 in F minor, Op. 12 (1883)
• Festive Prelude for orchestra with organ (1913)
• Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, suite for orchestra Op. 60 (1917)
• Film music for Der Rosenkavalier (1925)
• Japanese Festival Music (1940)
• Metamorphosen, for 23 solo strings (1945)

Keyboard[link]

• Fünf Klavierstücke, Op. 3 (1880–81)
• Sonata for piano in B minor, Op. 5 (1880–81)

Concertante[link]

	Burleske noicon Burleske (1885–86), performed by Neal O'Doan with the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

• Romance for Clarinet and Orchestra (1879)
• Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 8 (1882)
• Horn Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 11 (1882/83)
• Romance for Cello and Orchestra (1883)
• Burleske for piano and orchestra (1886–1890)
• Parergon zur Symphonia Domestica, for piano (left hand) and orchestra, Op. 73 (1925; ded. Paul Wittgenstein)
• Panathenäenzug, for piano (left hand) and orchestra, Op. 74 (1926–1927; ded. Wittgenstein)
• Horn Concerto No. 2 in E flat major (1942)
• Oboe Concerto in D major (1945)
• Duett-Concertino, for clarinet and bassoon with string orchestra (1947)

Vocal/Choral[link]

• Acht Lieder aus Letzte Blätter, Op. 10 (1885)
• Ruhe, meine Seele! ("Rest, My Soul!") Op. 27 No. 1
• Cäcilie, Op. 27 No. 2
• Heimliche Aufforderung ("Secret Invitation"), Op. 27 No. 3
• Morgen! ("Tomorrow!"), Op. 27 No. 4
• Zwei Gesänge, Op. 34 (1896/97) – 1. Der Abend 2. Hymne
• Wiegenlied ("Lullaby"), Op. 41 No. 1
• Deutsche Motette, Op. 62 (1913)
• Olympische Hymne, for chorus and orchestra (1934)
• Die Göttin im Putzzimmer (1935)
• Männerchöre (1935)
• An den Baum Daphne (1943)
• Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948)

Chamber[link]

• Sonata for Cello and Piano in F, Op. 6 (1883)
• Violin Sonata in E-flat, Op. 18 (1888)

Notes[link]

Sources[link]

Selective bibliography[link]

• Kennedy, Michael (1999). Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-58173-7.
• Del Mar, Norman (1962). Richard Strauss. London: Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 0-214-15735-0.
• Tuchman, Barbara W. (1966, reprinted 1980). The Proud Tower chapter 6. Macmillan, London. ISBN 0-333-30645-7.
• Gilliam, Bryan (1999). The Life of Richard Strauss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-57895-7.
• Osborne, Charles (1991). The Complete Operas of Richard Strauss. New York City: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80459-X.
• Wilhelm, Kurt (1989). Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-01459-0.
• Youmans, Charles (2005). Richard Strauss's Orchestral Music and the German Intellectual Tradition: the Philosophical Roots of Musical Modernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34573-1.
• Karpath, Ludwig and Strauss, Richard (1905–1936). The handwritten correspondence between Richard Strauss and Ludwig Karpath, covering 31 years was acquired by the National Library of Austria in 1962 from the daughters of Dr. Alfred Marill who was Mr. Karpath's attorney.^{[citation needed]} It consists of approximately 150 items covering Strauss relationships with the Vienna State Opera and other musical events of the period. It stops at the death of Ludwig Karpath in 1936. Dr. Alfred Marill was Mr. Karpath's executor. The terms of Karpath's will stipulated that the correspondence between Karpath and Strauss not be published until after Richard Strauss's death.^{[citation needed]} In keeping with these terms Dr. Marill transported it to the United States when he emigrated in 1940. After Dr. Marill's death his daughters provided the letters to the library so that Mr. Karpath's wishes could be carried out. There is no evidence that these letters have been published.^{[citation needed]}

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Richard Strauss

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Richard Strauss.

• Richard Strauss online
• Richard Strauss Institute, in English
• Free scores by Richard Strauss at the International Music Score Library Project
• Works by or about Richard Strauss in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Free scores by Richard Strauss in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• In America with Richard Strauss: Elisabeth Schumann's 1921 diary

v t e Vienna Staatsoper General Directors Franz von Dingelstedt (1867) Johann von Herbeck (1870) Franz von Jauner (1875) Wilhelm Jahn (1881) Gustav Mahler (1897) Felix Weingartner (1908) Hans Gregor (1911) Richard Strauss / Franz Schalk (1919) Franz Schalk (1924) Clemens Krauss (1929) Felix Weingartner (1935) Heinrich Karl Strohm (1940) Lothar Müthel (1941) Karl Böhm (1943) Franz Salmhofer (1945) Karl Böhm (1954) Herbert von Karajan (1956) Egon Hilbert (1964) Heinrich Reif-Gintl (1968) Rudolf Gamsjäger (1972) Egon Seefehlner (1976) Lorin Maazel (1982) Egon Seefehlner (1984) Claus Helmut Drese (1986) Eberhard Wächter / Ioan Holender (1991) Ioan Holender (1992)