Jürgen Flimm (born 17 July 1941 in Gießen) is a German theater and opera director, and theater manager. After establishing himself as one of the exponents of Regietheater, Flimm was called to manage renowned theaters and festivals. His operatic productions in Germany led to an international career, with operas staged in the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, England, Italy, and the United States.

Flimm studied theory of drama, literature and sociology at the University of Cologne and started his career with his first position as assistant director at the Munich Kammerspiele in 1968. He had positions as director at the National Theatre Mannheim and as senior director at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg (1973/74), then he worked as freelance director and director at the Schauspiel Cologne.

In 1985, he once more joined the Thalia Theatre, where he worked as leading director for the next fifteen years and which became, under his executive, one of the artistically and economically most successful voice theatres in Germany. Among his most important productions in Hamburg are plays by Anton Chekhov (Platonov, 1989; Uncle Vanya, 1995; Three Sisters, 1999), Henrik Ibsen (Peer Gynt, 1985; The Wild Duck, 1994), Arthur Schnitzler (Liebelei, 1988; Das weite Land, 1995) and William Shakespeare (Hamlet, 1986; King Lear, 1992; As You Like It, 1998).

Ferruccio Furlanetto (born 16 May 1949 in Sacile, Italy) is an Italian bass. His professional debut was in 1979 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in a production of Verdi's Macbeth, conducted by Claudio Abbado. He has gone on to sing numerous roles, including both Don Giovanni and Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Philip II in Verdi's Don Carlos, Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Gremin in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Zaccaria in Verdi's Nabucco, Méphistophélès in Gounod's Faust, Orestes in Strauss' Elektra, Fiesco in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, the title role of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, as well as several other roles.

He has sung in the world's major opera houses. He debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1980/81 season, and has performed at the Opéra de Paris (Bastille), the Salzburg Easter Festival and the regular Salzburg Festival, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Vienna Staatsoper, and the Tel Aviv Opera.

His appearances in the United States have been primarily with the Metropolitan Opera and San Diego Opera. With the latter company, he has sung the title role in Oberto (1985), Méphistophélès in Faust (1988 and 2001), the title role in Don Giovanni (1993 and 2000), King Philip in Don Carlo (2004), Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia (2006), and his only US appearances in the title roles in Boris Godunov (2007) and Don Quichotte in 2009. He reprised his performance in Don Quichotte in Palermo in 2010, and sings his first Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier with San Diego Opera in 2011, and his first USA performances of Thomas Becket in Pizzetti's Assassinio nella cattedrale there in 2013.

King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians. The sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, and the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.

The legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest largely through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain). Some Welsh and Breton tales and poems relating the story of Arthur date from earlier than this work; in these works, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh Otherworld, Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia (completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.

Ludwig van Beethoven (ⁱ/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪt.hoʊvən/; German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.hoːfən] ( listen); baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.

Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.

Beethoven was the grandson of a musician of Flemish origin named Lodewijk van Beethoven (1712–73) who moved at the age of twenty to Bonn. Lodewijk (Ludwig is the German cognate of Dutch Lodewijk) was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become Kapellmeister (music director). Lodewijk had one son, Johann (1740–1792), who worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment, and gave lessons on piano and violin to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier.