Calgary

Calgary ⁱ/ˈkælɡᵊri/ is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, about 80 km (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. In the 2011 census, the City of Calgary had a population of 1,096,833 and a metropolitan population of 1,214,839, making it the largest city in Alberta, and the third-largest municipality and fifth-largest census metropolitan area (CMA) in Canada.

The economy of Calgary includes activity in the energy, financial services, film and television, transportation and logistics, technology, manufacturing, aerospace, health and wellness, retail, and tourism sectors. The Calgary CMA is home to the second-highest number of corporate head offices in Canada among the country's 800 largest corporations.

Calgary anchors the south end of what Statistics Canada defines as the "Calgary–Edmonton Corridor".

In 1988, Calgary became the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Winter Games.

Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney, Australia, identified as one of the 20th century's most distinctive buildings.

Designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the building was formally opened on 20 October 1973 after a gestation beginning with Utzon's 1957 selection as winner of an international design competition. The government of New South Wales, led by the premier, Joseph Cahill, authorised work to begin in 1958 with Utzon directing construction. The government's decision to build Utzon's design is often overshadowed by circumstances that followed, including cost and scheduling overruns as well as the architect's ultimate resignation.

The Sydney Opera House became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 28 June 2007.

The building and its surrounds occupy the whole of Bennelong Point in Sydney Harbour, between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove, adjacent to the Sydney central business district and the Royal Botanic Gardens, and close by the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Opera Australia

Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the Arts Centre Melbourne, where it is accompanied by Orchestra Victoria. In 2004, the company gave 226 performances in its subscription seasons in Sydney and Melbourne, attended by more than 294,000 people.

Like most opera companies, it is funded by a combination of government money, corporate sponsorship, private philanthropy, and ticket sales. The proportion of its revenue from ticket sales is considerably higher than that of most companies, approximately 75 per cent. The company is perhaps best known internationally for its association with Dame Joan Sutherland, and for Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's La bohème in the early 1990s.

By the end of 2004, Opera Australia provided employment to approximately 1,300 Australians. Oz Opera (Opera Australia's education, access and development arm) presented the La bohème production in Victoria, Northern Territory and Western Australia, attended by 13,350 people, while OzOpera's Schools Company performed to over 63,500 primary age children in more than 360 performances in urban and regional New South Wales and Victoria. Many thousands of Australians also experienced the work of their national opera company through television, radio, video, compact disc, DVD, and the annual free performance of opera in the Domain in Sydney.

Opera house

An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building. While some venues are constructed specifically for operas, other opera houses are part of larger performing arts centers.

History

The first public opera house came into existence in 1637 as the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice, Italy, in a country where opera has been popular through the centuries among ordinary people as well as wealthy patrons; it still has a large number of working opera houses. In contrast, there was no opera house in London when Henry Purcell was composing and the first opera house in Germany was built in Hamburg in 1678. Early United States opera houses served a variety of functions in towns and cities, hosting community dances, fairs, plays, and vaudeville shows as well as operas and other musical events.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, opera houses were often financed by rulers, nobles, and wealthy people who used patronage of the arts to endorse their political ambitions and social positions or prestige. With the rise of bourgeois and capitalist social forms in the 19th century, European culture moved away from its patronage system to a publicly supported system. In the 2000s, most opera and theatre companies raise funds from a combination of government and institutional grants, ticket sales, and private donations.

Bon Iver

Bon Iver (/boʊn iːˈvɛər/ bohn-ee-VAIR) is an American indie folk band founded in 2007 by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago independently in July 2007. The majority of that album was recorded while Vernon spent three months in a cabin in northwestern Wisconsin. Bon Iver won the 2012 Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for their album Bon Iver, Bon Iver. The name Bon Iver is derived from the French phrase bon hiver (French pronunciation: ​[bɔn‿ivɛːʁ]), meaning "good winter", taken from a greeting on Northern Exposure.

History

After the breakup of his band DeYarmond Edison, the ending of a relationship, and a bout with mononucleosis hepatitis, Vernon left Raleigh, North Carolina, and moved back to Wisconsin to spend the oncoming winter months at his father's cabin in Dunn County, Wisconsin. According to Vernon, it was during this time that the "Bon Iver" moniker first entered his mind; while bedridden with mononucleosis, he began watching the 1990s TV series Northern Exposure on DVD. One episode depicts a group of citizens in Alaska, where the show is set, emerging from their homes into the first snowfall of the winter and wishing one another bon hiver (pronounced: [bɔn‿ivɛːʁ], French for "good winter"). This was initially transcribed by Vernon as "boniverre"; however, when he learned of its proper French spelling, he elected not to use it, deciding "hiver" reminded him too much of "liver", the site of his illness at the time.