Richard Ernest Bellman (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, celebrated for his invention of dynamic programming in 1953, and important contributions in other fields of mathematics.

Biography[link]

Bellman was born in 1920 in New York City, where his father John James Bellman ran a small grocery store on Bergen Street near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Bellman completed his studies at Abraham Lincoln High School in 1937,^[1] and studied mathematics at Brooklyn College where he received a BA in 1941. He later earned an MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During World War II he worked for a Theoretical Physics Division group in Los Alamos. In 1946 he received his Ph.D. at Princeton under the supervision of Solomon Lefschetz.^[2] From 1949 Bellman worked for many years at RAND corporation and it was during this time that he developed dynamic programming.^[3]

He was a professor at the University of Southern California, a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1975),^[4] and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1977).^[5]

He was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1979, "for contributions to decision processes and control system theory, particularly the creation and application of dynamic programming".^[6] His key work is the Bellman equation.

Work[link]

Bellman equation[link]

A Bellman equation, also known as a dynamic programming equation, is a necessary condition for optimality associated with the mathematical optimization method known as dynamic programming. Almost any problem which can be solved using optimal control theory can also be solved by analyzing the appropriate Bellman equation. The Bellman equation was first applied to engineering control theory and to other topics in applied mathematics, and subsequently became an important tool in economic theory.

Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation[link]

The Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation (HJB) equation is a partial differential equation which is central to optimal control theory. The solution of the HJB equation is the 'value function', which gives the optimal cost-to-go for a given dynamical system with an associated cost function. Classical variational problems, for example, the brachistochrone problem can be solved using this method as well.

The equation is a result of the theory of dynamic programming which was pioneered in the 1950s by Richard Bellman and coworkers. The corresponding discrete-time equation is usually referred to as the Bellman equation. In continuous time, the result can be seen as an extension of earlier work in classical physics on the Hamilton-Jacobi equation by William Rowan Hamilton and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi.

Curse of dimensionality[link]

The "Curse of dimensionality", is a term coined by Bellman to describe the problem caused by the exponential increase in volume associated with adding extra dimensions to a (mathematical) space. One implication of the curse of dimensionality is that some methods for numerical solution of the Bellman equation require vastly more computer time when there are more state variables in the value function.

For example, 100 evenly-spaced sample points suffice to sample a unit interval with no more than 0.01 distance between points; an equivalent sampling of a 10-dimensional unit hypercube with a lattice with a spacing of 0.01 between adjacent points would require 10²⁰ sample points: thus, in some sense, the 10-dimensional hypercube can be said to be a factor of 10¹⁸ "larger" than the unit interval. (Adapted from an example by R. E. Bellman, see below.)

Bellman–Ford algorithm[link]

The Bellman–Ford algorithm sometimes referred to as the Label Correcting Algorithm, computes single-source shortest paths in a weighted digraph (where some of the edge weights may be negative). Dijkstra's algorithm accomplishes the same problem with a lower running time, but requires edge weights to be non-negative. Thus, Bellman–Ford is usually used only when there are negative edge weights.

Publications[link]

Over the course of his career he published 619 papers and 39 books. During the last 11 years of his life he published over 100 papers despite suffering from crippling complications of a brain surgery (Dreyfus, 2003). A selection^[1]:

• 1957. Dynamic Programming
• 1959. Asymptotic Behavior of Solutions of Differential Equations
• 1961. An Introduction to Inequalities
• 1961. Adaptive Control Processes: A Guided Tour
• 1962. Applied Dynamic Programming
• 1967. Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Control Processes
• 1970. Algorithms, Graphs and Computers
• 1972. Dynamic Programming and Partial Differential Equations
• 1982. Mathematical Aspects of Scheduling and Applications
• 1983. Mathematical Methods in Medicine
• 1984. Partial Differential Equations
• 1984. Eye of the Hurricane: An Autobiography, World Scientific Publishing.
• 1985. Artificial Intelligence
• 1995. Modern Elementary Differential Equations
• 1997. Introduction to Matrix Analysis
• 2003. Dynamic Programming
• 2003. Perturbation Techniques in Mathematics, Engineering and Physics
• 2003. Stability Theory of Differential Equations

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• J.J. O'Connor and E.F. Robertson (2005). Biography of Richard Bellman from the MacTutor History of Mathematics.
• Stuart Dreyfus (2002). "Richard Bellman on the Birth of Dynamic Programming". In: Operations Research. Vol. 50, No. 1, Jan–Feb 2002, pp. 48–51.
• Stuart Dreyfus (2003) "Richard Ernest Bellman". In: International Transactions in Operational Research. Vol 10, no. 5, Pages 543 - 545
• Salvador Sanabria. Richard Bellman's Biography. Paper at www-math.ucdenver.edu

External links[link]

Systems science portal

• "IEEE Global History Network - Richard Bellman". IEEE. http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Richard_Bellman. Retrieved April 6, 2011 (2011-04-06). 
• Harold J. Kushner's speech when accepting the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award
• IEEE biography

Richard O'Brien
O'Brien in 2006
Born	Richard Timothy Smith (1942-03-25) 25 March 1942 (age 70)[1] Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
Occupation	Actor, writer, broadcaster, voice actor, theatre performer
Period	1965–present
Genres	Cult film
Notable work(s)	The Rocky Horror Show (Writer) The Crystal Maze (Presenter)
Spouse(s)	Kimi Wong (m. 1971–?, divorced) Jane Moss (m. 1983–2006, divorced)
Children	3
www.rockyhorror.com

Richard Timothy Smith (born 25 March 1942), better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze. In addition to writing The Rocky Horror Show, O'Brien also co-wrote the screenplay of the 1975 film adaptation, and appeared in the film himself as the character Riff Raff. The stage show has been in almost continuous production and the cinematic version is one of the best known and most ardently followed cult films of all time. He is also the voice of Lawrence Fletcher, the title characters' father in Phineas and Ferb.

Early life[link]

O'Brien was born Richard Timothy Smith in 1942 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. In 1951, O'Brien emigrated with his family to Tauranga, New Zealand, where his father had purchased a sheep farm. After learning how to ride horses, a skill which provided him with his break into the film industry as a stuntman in Carry On Cowboy, and developing a keen interest in comic books and horror films, he returned to England in 1964. Upon launching his acting career he changed his name to O'Brien, his maternal grandmother's name,^[2] as there was already an actor named Richard Smith.

Early work[link]

After taking a few Method acting classes, O'Brien joined several stage productions as an actor. In 1970 he went into the touring production of Hair for nine months, and spent another nine months in the London production. He and actress Kimi Wong were married on 4 December 1971. May 1972 saw the birth of his son Linus by Kimi, and that summer he met director Jim Sharman who cast him as an Apostle and Leper in the London production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Sharman then cast O'Brien as Willie, the alien in his March 1973 production of Sam Shepard's The Unseen Hand at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, and would help make O'Brien's draft of a gothic-themed, schlock-horror comic-book fantasy romp into a reality. Sharman suggested changing the working title from They Came from Denton High, and The Rocky Horror Show opened at the Theatre Upstairs in June 1973.^[3] Within weeks it had become the cult show to see in London theatre, moving from the Royal Court to a nearby venue the Pheasantry in the King's Road, then to the Classic Cinema and eventually into the West End at the Comedy Theatre. After seeing the second night in the Theatre Upstairs, Jonathan King produced the original cast soundtrack over 48 hours during an off stage weekend and rushed it out on his UK Records label. He also became a 20% backer with producer Michael White who put up the remaining 80%. During this period, O'Brien and his wife recorded and released a number of pop singles under the name Kimi and Ritz.

Later career[link]

Richard O'Brien continued writing musicals with arranger Richard Hartley, including: T.Zee (1976), Disaster (1978), The Stripper (1982– based on the Carter Brown novel and produced in Australia), and Top People (1984). In 1995 O'Brien wrote his one-man revue Disgracefully Yours, singing as Mephistopheles Smith. O'Brien became a serial bit-part actor in cult films and has appeared in movies such as Jubilee (1977), Flash Gordon (1980), Dark City (1998), Ever After (1998) and Dungeons & Dragons (2000). Additionally he guest starred in five episodes in the third season of the popular HTV dramatisation of Robin of Sherwood, as the corrupt druid. In 1998 he released a music CD of the songs from Disgracefully Yours entitled "Absolute O'Brien."

He became the presenter of UK Channel 4's popular game show The Crystal Maze in 1990, specialising in sardonic put-downs, occasional eccentricities and playing his harmonica at random intervals. The show's heyday was around 1991–1993. It was regularly Channel 4's highest watched programme, mainly seen by children and young adults (particularly university students who made it into a cult show), reaching a peak of 7 million viewers for the 1993 Christmas special. The extent of both the shows and to a large extent O'Brien's success is shown by the fact that The Crystal Maze was named 'Greatest UK Game Show of All Time' in a 2006 poll by the UKGameshows.com website. Richard left The Crystal Maze in 1993 after the fourth series; the show was then taken over by Edward Tudor-Pole. It never achieved the same degree of success under Tudor-Pole, and was discontinued within two years.

In other roles O'Brien has conceptualized and played the role of the Child Catcher in the West End theatre production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He also occasionally does cabaret-style music and comedy performances on stages around the world, singing songs from Rocky Horror among others. In 1995, he performed a select number of shows as the devilish charmer, Mephistopheles Smith, in a musical/comedy show he wrote entitled Disgracefully Yours, which was later given permission to be adapted into a musical, performed first by Eubank Productions for the Kansas City Fringe Fest in 2006, and more recently by Janus Theatre Company for the Edinburgh Fringe 2007, simply entitled Mephistopheles Smith. In late 2005, he appeared (as the spirit of the mirror) in the pantomime version of Snow White, which played at the Milton Keynes Theatre. In the summer of 2006 he played the Child Catcher in the Queen's 80th birthday celebrations at Buckingham Palace.

Richard O'Brien performed in Thank-You for the Music, a 90-minute ABBA documentary for ITV, directed by Martin Koch, who previously directed the musical Mamma Mia!^[4] The documentary included a remake of the mini musical The Girl with the Golden Hair which ABBA performed during their 1977 world tour and which was featured on The Album. The musical was performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre and featured Richard O'Brien, Liz McClarnon, and the Dynamos.^[5]

He is also a patron of the Five Stars Scanner Appeal,^[6] which benefits the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, UK. From 2001 until 2006 he hosted the annual Transfandango,^[7] gala gathering of "Dearhearts and Trans 'n' Gentle People" to raise money for the hospital. This has now been superseded by 'Richard O'Brien's Halloween Party'.

A script for another rumored sequel entitled Revenge of the Old Queen, has been circulated on the web and reproduced on various fansites, though officially denied as O'Brien's work by his representatives. While he has worked on a screenplay by that title, it was never publicly released. He has been working again on The Stripper (based on the book by Carter Brown), a musical for which he wrote the lyrics and which had its UK premiere at The Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch, Essex on 28 August 2009.

In 2004, Hamilton City Council in New Zealand honoured O'Brien's contribution to the arts with a statue of Riff Raff, the character Richard played in The Rocky Horror Show, on the site of the former Embassy Cinema.^[8] His love of horror and similar genres can be traced back to the countless afternoons he spent watching double feature horror/science fiction films at the Embassy before he moved back to England. This was made ironic when, in June 2010, O'Brien was refused New Zealand citizenship and so could himself not settle in the country. He commented "They build a statue of me and celebrate me as a New Zealander, but I have to go on my knees and do all sorts of things, and I'm probably too old."^[9] The government eventually made an exception, and O'Brien became a New Zealand citizen in December 2011.^[10]

In September 2007 he reprised his role as the Child Catcher for the final 2 weeks of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's 5 year UK run, and then played the role in its Singapore engagement for the month of November, extended to 9 December. Also in December, he visited Hamilton, New Zealand and presented An Evening With Richard O'Brien, in conjunction with an independent New Zealand film group, planning to film a musical based on his early life, The King's Stilettoes.

In December 2008 Richard O'Brien donated his original script, Pig In Boots to 'The Wireless Theatre Company'^[11] who converted it into an audio pantomime. The show was recorded live at the Headliners Comedy Club in front of a studio audience with live FX and music. The production was opened by an original interview with Richard O'Brien.

In June 2012, Richard returns to Hamilton, New Zealand to appear on stage as 'Fagin' with the Hamilton Operatic Society's production of Oliver! at the Founders Theatre.

Personal life[link]

O'Brien has married twice and fathered three children. In a 2009 interview he spoke about an ongoing struggle to reconcile cultural gender roles and described himself as being transgender or possible third sex. O'Brien stated, "There is a continuum between male and female. Some are hard-wired one way or another, I’m in between."^[12]

In June 2010, the media reported that O'Brien had been denied citizenship after he applied to retire in New Zealand.^[13] In August 2010, New Zealand's The Dominion Post reported that O'Brien would be allowed residency and possibly citizenship as an "exceptional" case.^[14] According to the Waikato Times, he was officially registered as a New Zealand citizen on 14 December 2011.^[10]

On 16 August 2010, he appeared on a Celebrity Cash in the Attic episode, where he donated the takings from his sale of memorabilia to Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.

Filmography[link]

• Carry On Cowboy (1965) – Rider
• Zee & Co. (1971)
• The Four Dimensions of Greta (1972)
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) – Riff Raff, and the church custodian in the opening scene
• Jubilee (1977) – John Dee
• The Odd Job (1978) – Batch
• Flash Gordon (1980) – Fico
• Shock Treatment (1981) – Dr. Cosmo McKinley
• Robin of Sherwood (1986) – Gulnar
• The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1989) – James
• The Crystal Maze (TV) (1990–1993) – Presenter
• The Ink Thief (TV) (1994) – The Ink Thief
• Spiceworld (1997) – Damien
• Ever After (1998) – Pierre Le Pieu
• Dark City (1998) – Mr. Hand
• The Mumbo Jumbo (2000) – Archie
• Dungeons & Dragons (2000) – Xilus
• Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001) – Lord Vladimere Hellsubus
• Phineas and Ferb (2007–) – Lawrence Fletcher (Dad)
• Night Train (2009) – Mrs Froy
• Jackboots on Whitehall (2010) – Himmler (voice)
• Manor Hunt Ball (2011) - Uncle Felix
• Mongrels (2011) - Zombie Dog, Series 2 Episode 2

References[link]

External links[link]

• Richard O'Brien at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard O'Brien at the Internet Broadway Database* Richard O'Brien at RockyMusic.org
• Interview on British television
• The Richard O'Brien Crusade, a fansite
• Richard O'Brien – God of Cult, a LiveJournal community
• Transfandango, Richard O'Brien's annual charity fundraiser
• RiffRaffStatue.org, for the tribute statue in Hamilton, New Zealand
• Pig In Boots, Richard O'Brien's Pig In Boots – Audio Pantomime produced by The Wireless Theatre Company

Franz von Suppé

Franz von Suppé or Francesco Suppé Demelli (April 18, 1819 – May 21, 1895) was an Austrian composer of light operas who was born in what is now Croatia during the time his father was working in this outpost of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.^[1][2] A composer and conductor of the Romantic period, he is notable for his four dozen operettas.

Life and education[link]

Franz von Suppė during his career.

Franz von Suppé's parents named him Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere di Suppé-Demelli when he was born on April 18, 1819, in Split, Dalmatia, Austrian Empire. His Belgian ancestors may have emigrated there in the 18th century.^[3] His father – a man of Italian and Belgian ancestry – was a civil servant in the service of the Austrian Empire, as was his father before him; Suppé's mother was Viennese by birth. He was a distant relative of Gaetano Donizetti. He simplified and Germanized his name when in Vienna, and changed "cavaliere di" to "von". Outside Germanic circles, his name may appear on programs as Francesco Suppé-Demelli.

He spent his childhood in Zadar, where he had his first music lessons and began to compose at an early age. As a boy he had no encouragement in music from his father, but was helped by a local bandmaster and by the Spalato cathedral choirmaster.^[4] His Missa dalmatica dates from this early period. As a teenager in Cremona, Suppé studied flute and harmony. His first extant composition is a Roman Catholic Mass, which premiered at a Franciscan church in Zadar in 1832. At the age of 16, he moved to Padua to study law – a field of study not chosen by him – but continued to study music. Suppé was also a singer, making his debut as a basso profundo in the role of Dulcamara in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at the Sopron Theater in 1842.

He was invited to Vienna by Franz Pokorny,^[3] the director of the Theater in der Josefstadt. In Vienna, after studying with Ignaz von Seyfried and Simon Sechter, he conducted in the theater, without pay at first, but with the opportunity to present his own operas there. Eventually, Suppé wrote music for over a hundred productions at the Theater in der Josefstadt as well as the Carltheater in Leopoldstadt, at the Theater an der Wien. He also put on some landmark opera productions, such as the 1846 production of Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots with Jenny Lind.^[3]

Suppé's grave at the Zentralfriedhof

Franz von Suppé died in Vienna on May 21, 1895, and is buried in the Zentralfriedhof.^[3]

Works[link]

Two of Suppé's comic operas – Boccaccio and Donna Juanita – have been performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but failed to become repertoire works. He composed about 30 operettas and 180 farces, ballets, and other stage works. Although the bulk of Suppé's operas have sunk into relative obscurity, the overtures – particularly Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant, 1846) and Leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry, 1866) – have survived and some of them have been used in all sorts of soundtracks for movies, cartoons, advertisements, and so on, in addition to being frequently played at symphonic "pops" concerts. Some of Suppé's operas are still regularly performed in Europe; Peter Branscombe, writing in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, characterizes Suppé's song Das ist mein Österreich as "Austria's second national song".

Suppé retained links with his native Dalmatia, occasionally visiting Split, Zadar, and Šibenik. Some of his works are linked with Dalmatia, in particular his operetta The Mariner's Return, the action of which takes place in Hvar. After retiring from conducting, Suppé continued to write operas, but shifted his focus to sacred music. He also wrote a Requiem for theater director Franz Pokorny, three Masses, songs, symphonies, and concert overtures.

Posthumous use[link]

The descriptive nature of von Suppé's overtures have earned them frequent use in numerous animated cartoons:

Morgen, Mittag, und Abend in Wien (Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna) was the central subject of the Bugs Bunny cartoon Baton Bunny. One small segment of that work, about six minutes in, is recognizable^[who?] as the inspiration for Dudley Do-Right's theme music. Poet and Peasant appears in the Fleischer Studios 1935 Popeye cartoon The Spinach Overture; the overture to Light Cavalry is used in Disney's 1942 Mickey Mouse cartoon Symphony Hour.

The start of the cello solo (about one minute in) of the Poet and Peasant overture is nearly an exact match to the start of the folk song "I've Been Working on the Railroad", which may (or may not) have pre-dated the overture.

List of works[link]

	Overture to Leichte Kavallerie The overture to Leichte Kavallerie, played by the United States Marine Band Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien Suppé's overture Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien played by the Marine Band
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Some of Suppé's more well-known works are listed here, listed with date of first performance. All are operettas unless indicated:

• Dichter und Bauer (Poet and Peasant) – August 24, 1846, Theater an der Wien, Vienna
• Die Irrfahrt um's Glück – April 24, 1853. Theater an der Wien, Vienna
• Das Pensionat – November 24, 1860, Theater an der Wien, Vienna
• Die Kartenschlägerin – April 26, 1862, Kai-Theatre Vienna
• Zehn Mädchen und kein Mann – October 25, 1862, Kai-Theatre Vienna
• Flotte Burschen – April 18, 1863, Kai-Theater Vienna
• Pique Dame – Opera – June 22, 1864, Graz (revision of Die Kartenschlägerin; based on the same story by Pushkin as was Tchaikovsky's opera The Queen of Spades^[5])
• Die schöne Galathee (The Beautiful Galatea) – September 9, 1865, Carltheater Vienna
• Leichte Kavallerie (Light Cavalry) (MIDI) – March 21, 1866, Carltheater Vienna
• Banditenstreiche – April 27, 1867, Carltheater Vienna
• Die Frau Meisterin – January 20, 1868, Carltheater Vienna
• Fatinitza – January 5, 1876, Carltheater Vienna [1]
• Boccaccio – February 1, 1879, Carltheater Vienna
• Donna Juanita – February 21, 1880, Carltheater Vienna
• Der Gascogner – March 22, 1881, Carltheater Vienna
• Bellmann – February 26, 1887, Theater an der Wien, Vienna
• Die Jagd nach dem Glück – October 27, 1888, Carltheater Vienna
• March Oh Du mein Österreich
• Overture Ein Morgen, ein Mittag und ein Abend in Wien (Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna) - 1844
• Overture Tantalusqualen

References[link]

• Gänzl, Kurt. The Encyclopedia of Musical Theatre (3 Volumes). New York: Schirmer Books, 2001.
• Traubner, Richard. Operetta: A Theatrical History. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1983

External links[link]

Austria-Hungary portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Franz von Suppé

• List of stage works by Franz von Suppé (with other composers)
• List of 50 stage works by Franz von Suppé
• Free scores by Franz von Suppé at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Franz von Suppé in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Franz von Suppé at Find a Grave

Ambroise Thomas
Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896)
Born	(1811-08-05)August 5, 1811 Metz, France
Died	February 12, 1896(1896-02-12) Paris

Thomas circa 1880, taken by Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon.

Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas (5 August 1811, Metz – 12 February 1896, Paris) was a French composer, best known for his operas Mignon (1866) and Hamlet (1868, after Shakespeare) and as Director of the Conservatoire de Paris from 1871 till his death.

Biography[link]

"There is good music, there is bad music, and then there is Ambroise Thomas." - Emmanuel Chabrier

Early life and studies[link]

Thomas's parents were music teachers. By the age of 10, he was already an experienced pianist and violinist. In 1828, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Jean-François Le Sueur (who also taught Berlioz) while at the same time taking piano lessons privately from the famous virtuoso Frédéric Kalkbrenner. In 1832, his cantata Hermann et Ketty won the Conservatory's prestigious composition prize, the Grand Prix de Rome, which allowed him to travel to and study in that city for three years. He took with him a love for Mozart and Beethoven; but once in Rome, he became an ardent admirer of the Italian cantilena and melodic tradition. It was during his Italian sojourn that he wrote all of his chamber music: namely, a piano trio, a string quintet and a string quartet.

Career[link]

The first opera Thomas composed, La double échelle (1837), was produced at the Opéra Comique and subsequently received 247 performances. Le caïd (1849), did still better, and achieved over 400 performances. For the next quarter of a century Thomas's productivity was incessant, and several of his operas (he wrote 24 altogether) enjoyed a considerable, if ephemeral, popularity. The questionable quality of their libretti hampers them, but a few have been revived now and then as historic curiosities or recorded as vehicles for bel canto singers, such as Le songe d'une nuit d'été (1850; loosely adapted from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) or Psyché (1857). The overture to Raymond (1851) has also been given the occasional modern performance.

To his theatrical successes, Thomas added administrative achievements. In 1856 he acquired a professorship at the Conservatoire, where he taught, among others, Jules Massenet, one of the few French composers of the younger generation whose music interested him. He succeeded Auber as director of the Conservatoire in 1871. Baffled by the musical unconventionality of César Franck, Gabriel Fauré, and certain other Conservatoire colleagues, he nevertheless was rather well liked as a man, even by those who found his output old-fashioned.

Success[link]

Ambroise Thomas wearing his medals from the Légion d'honneur

With Mignon (premiered at the Opéra Comique in 1866), Thomas achieved his first great acclaim outside, as well as within, France. Goethe's celebrated Wilhelm Meister had provided inspiration for a highly sentimentalized libretto; Marie Galli-Marié (1840–1905), it was said [1], "had modelled her conception of the part upon the well-known picture by Ary Scheffer". Mignon was a success all over Europe, to audiences who had embraced Charles Gounod's indirectly Goethe-inspired Faust (1859); and in Paris Mignon received more than a thousand performances by 1894, thereby becoming one of the most successful operas in French history. [2] It is still heard sometimes today, more often in the form of extracts for concert use, or in recordings, than in complete stagings. One of its arias, "Connais-tu le pays", was for generations among the most famous operatic excerpts by any composer.

Thomas turned to Shakespeare again for his Hamlet (Paris Opera, 1868), with a libretto by the seasoned team of Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. This opera has a strong, dramatic libretto, although it closes with a traditional (and, surprising for Hamlet) happy ending. It enjoyed a long vogue, and like Mignon it continues to have a certain following; during 2010 it was heard at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

His last opera, Françoise de Rimini (Paris Opéra, 1882) based on a passage from Dante's Inferno, failed to stay in the repertoire. Seven years later La tempête, a ballet (and yet another treatment of a Shakespeare play, this time The Tempest), was produced at the Opéra, again with little effect. He died in 1896. Massenet had hopes of succeeding him in the job of Conservatoire director, abandoning this plan only when told by the government that the post would no longer carry lifelong tenure. The man who got the job was not Massenet but, rather, organist-composer Théodore Dubois.

Works[link]

Ambroise Thomas, about 1865

Operas[link]

See List of operas by Ambroise Thomas

Ballets[link]

• La gipsy, second act ballet at the Opéra de Paris, 1839
• La tempête, ballet, ("The Tempest", based on Shakespeare), 1889

Other works[link]

• String Quartet in e major, Op.1

References[link]

Cited sources

• Composers: (Charles Louis) Ambroise Thomas
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Thomas, Charles Louis Ambroise". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Some of the material in the above article appears on the website of Edition Silvertrust but permission to copy, distribute and alter has been given to Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU License in accordance with the GDFL.

Other sources

• Georges Masson, 1996. Ambroise Thomas (Metz: Editions Serpentoise)

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Ambroise Thomas String Quartet in e minor Soundbites & short biography.
• Free scores by Ambroise Thomas at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Ambroise Thomas in the loumy.org
•  "Charles L.A. Thomas". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913. 
• "Ambroise Thomas". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8082799. Retrieved August 9, 2010. 

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company. 

Sanna Nielsen
Sanna Nielsen at Gröna Lund in Stockholm
Background information
Born	(1984-11-27) November 27, 1984 (age 27)
Origin	Bromölla, Sweden
Genres	Pop, Schlager, soul, dansband music (early career)
Occupations	Singer

Sanna Viktoria Nielsen (born 27 November 1984) is a Swedish singer. She comes from Bromölla in Skåne, Southern Sweden.

Career[link]

At the age of eleven she reached the number one spot on the Svensktoppen Charts with the song "Till en fågel". At that time, she sung with the dansband Mats Elmes. She participated in Melodifestivalen 2001 singing "Igår, idag", which finished 3rd. Nielsen returned to Melodifestivalen again in 2003 with "Hela världen för mig" which finished 5th, and again in 2005 with "Du och jag mot världen", a duet with Fredrik Kempe, which finished 8th.

On 3 March 2007, she participated in Melodifestivalen again with "Vågar du, vågar jag". During the Second Chance round, the song qualified for the final in Stockholm Globen Arena on 10 March 2007, where the song ended up in 7th place after the final of Melodifestivalen 2007.

Nielsen participated in Melodifestivalen 2008, singing "Empty Room", written and composed by Bobby Ljunggren and Aleena Gibson. She reached the final from the Västerås semi-final on 16 February 2008. Although she won the public televote in the final at the Stockholm Globe Arena on 15 March, beating second-placed Charlotte Perrelli by more than 50,000 votes, she was denied the chance to represent Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest after she lost out to Perrelli in the overall points-based scoring system once a jury vote had been factored into the results, thus finishing only second in the final official standings.

During 2008, "Empty Room" won the OGAE Second Chance Contest 2008 with a 91 points lead to runner-up Coral from Spain.

In April 2008, Sanna released her fifth album, Stronger.

She participated in the 2011 edition of Melodifestivalen, singing the song "I'm in Love". She came 1st at the second semi-final which took place at Göteborg the 12th February 2011. One month later, she finished 4th at the finale.^[1]

Albums[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official Website

Preceded by Måns Zelmerlöw

OGAE Second Chance Contest winner 2008

Succeeded by Hera Björk