1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Opera
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Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below
3.
Santa Barbara, California
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Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County in the U. S. state of California. Situated on a section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States. Santa Barbaras climate is described as Mediterranean, and the city has been promoted as the American Riviera. The population of the county in 2010 was 423,895. In 2004, the sector accounted for fully 35% of local employment. Education in particular is well represented, with four institutions of learning on the south coast. The Santa Barbara Airport serves the city, as does Amtrak, U. S. Highway 101 connects the Santa Barbara area with Los Angeles to the southeast and San Francisco to the northwest. Behind the city, in and beyond the Santa Ynez Mountains, is the Los Padres National Forest, Channel Islands National Park and Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary are located approximately 20 miles offshore. Evidence of human habitation of the area begins at least 13,000 years ago, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Chumash lived on the south coast of Santa Barbara County at the time of the first European explorations. Five Chumash villages flourished in the area, portuguese explorer João Cabrilho, sailing for the Kingdom of Spain, sailed through what is now called the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, anchoring briefly in the area. In 1602, Spanish maritime explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno gave the name Santa Barbara to the channel, a land expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà visited in 1769, and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi, who accompanied the expedition, named a large native town Laguna de la Concepcion. Cabrillos earlier name, however, is the one that has survived, the first permanent European residents were Spanish missionaries and soldiers under Felipe de Neve, who came in 1782 to build the Presidio. They were sent both to fortify the region against expansion by other such as England and Russia. Many of the Spaniards brought their families with them, and those formed the nucleus of the small town – at first just a cluster of adobes – that surrounded the Presidio, the Santa Barbara Mission was established on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4,1786. It was the tenth of the California Missions to be founded by the Spanish Franciscans and it was dedicated by Padre Fermín Lasuén, who succeeded Padre Junipero Serra as the second president and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain. The Mission fathers began the work of converting the native Chumash to Christianity. The Chumash laborers built a connection between the creek and the Santa Barbara Mission water system through the use of a dam. During the following decades, many of the natives died of such as smallpox
4.
Metropolitan Opera
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The Metropolitan Opera, commonly referred to as The Met, is a company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager, the music director position is in transition as of 2016. The music director designate is Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the director emeritus is James Levine. The Met was founded in 1880 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house, the Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. It presents about 27 different operas each year in a season lasts from late September through May. The operas are presented in a rotating schedule with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. Moving to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966, performances are given in the evening Monday through Saturday with a matinée on Saturday, several operas are presented in new productions each season. Sometimes these are borrowed from or shared with other opera houses, the rest of the years operas are given in revivals of productions from previous seasons. The 2015-16 season comprised 227 performances of 25 operas, the operas in the Mets repertoire consist of a wide range of works, from 18th-century Baroque and 19th-century Bel canto to the Minimalism of the late 20th century. These operas are presented in staged productions that range in style from those with elaborate traditional decors to others that feature modern conceptual designs, the Mets performing company consists of a large symphony-sized orchestra, a chorus, childrens choir, and many supporting and leading solo singers. The company also employs numerous free-lance dancers, actors, musicians, the Mets roster of singers includes both international and American artists, some of whose careers have been developed through the Mets young artists programs. The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1880 to create an alternative to New Yorks old established Academy of Music opera house, the subscribers to the Academys limited number of private boxes represented the highest stratum in New York society. By 1880, these old families were loath to admit New Yorks newly wealthy industrialists into their long-established social circle. Frustrated with being excluded, the Metropolitan Operas founding subscribers determined to build a new house that would outshine the old Academy in every way. A group of some 22 men assembled at Delmonicos restaurant on April 28,1880 and they elected officers and established subscriptions for ownership in the new company. The first Met subscribers included members of the Morgan, Roosevelt, the new Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22,1883, and was an immediate success, both socially and artistically. The Academy of Musics opera season folded just three years after the Met opened, in its early decades the Met did not produce the opera performances itself but hired prominent manager/impresarios to stage a season of opera at the new Metropolitan Opera House. Henry Abbey served as manager for the season, 1883–84
5.
Die Frau ohne Schatten
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Die Frau ohne Schatten, Op.65, is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917, when it premiered in Vienna on 10 October 1919, critics and audiences were unenthusiastic. Many cited problems with Hofmannsthals complicated and heavily symbolic libretto, however, it is now a standard part of the operatic repertoire. Work on the began in 1911. Hofmannsthal’s earliest sketches for the libretto are based on a piece by Goethe, The Conversation of German Emigrants. Hofmannsthal handles Goethes material freely, adding the idea of two couples, the emperor and empress who come from another realm, and the dyer, Hofmannsthal also drew on portions of the Arabian Nights, Grimms Fairy Tales, and even quotes Goethes Faust. The opera is conceived as a fairy-tale on the theme of love blessed through the birth of children, Hofmannsthal, in his letters, compared it with Mozarts Magic Flute, which has a similar arrangement of two couples. He and Hofmannsthal worked on music and words in parallel, each receiving inspiration from the other, Strauss was happy with Hofmannsthal’s text, but asked him to rewrite many passages for the sake of dramatic effect. Hofmannsthal was adamantly opposed and was worried about the symbolism beneath his libretto. The opera was finished in 1915, during the First World War, the sometimes difficult genesis of the opera is documented in their correspondence. Strauss himself called this opera his “child of woe”, he called it Die Frosch. The complexity of the text and the stress of wartime made its composition a laborious task, musically, Die Frau ohne Schatten is one of Strauss’s most complicated and colorful scores. In contrast to the quickly-moving Salome and Elektra, it includes extended monologues and scenes, scenically, it is also demanding, with all the scene changes and special effects. Children singing out of a pan is particularly demanding, as is the final golden waterfall scene. Few opera houses are capable of staging the work, in 1946 Strauss created a one-movement orchestral piece, the Fantasy on Die Frau ohne Schatten, based on highlights from the opera. It was premiered in Vienna in 1947, writing about Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1948, Strauss said, despite the difficulties of staging it, it has succeeded nevertheless and has made a deep impression. And music lovers in particular consider it to be my most important work, the Nurses role makes some demands on the singers lower range but also requires frequent leaps above the staff. The Dyers Wife also calls for a soprano with immense sound to be heard over heavily orchestrated passages
6.
New York City Opera
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The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in Manhattan in New York City. The company has been active from 1943 through 2013, and again since 2016 when it was revived, the opera company, dubbed the peoples opera by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943. The companys stated purpose was to make accessible to a wide audience at a reasonable ticket price. It also sought to produce an innovative choice of repertory, the company was originally housed at the New York City Center theater on West 55th Street in Manhattan. It later became part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts at the New York State Theater from 1966 to 2010, in 2011, the company left Lincoln Center due to financial difficulties and moved its offices to 75 Broad Street in Lower Manhattan. In the 2011−12 and 2012−13 seasons, NYCO performed four operas at various venues in New York City, on October 1,2013, following an unsuccessful emergency fund-raising campaign, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The group, led by Roy Niederhoffer, a fund manager and former board member of the NYCO. The first opera was Puccinis Tosca, presented at the Rose Theater at Jazz at Lincoln Center in January 2016, Sills later served as the companys director from 1979 until 1989. More recent acclaimed American singers who have called NYCO home include David Daniels, Mark Delavan, Mary Dunleavy, Lauren Flanigan, Elizabeth Futral, Bejun Mehta, Robert Brubaker and Carl Tanner. NYCO has similarly championed the work of American composers, approximately one-third of its repertoire has traditionally been American opera, the companys American repertoire has ranged from established works to new works. The company has occasionally produced musicals and operettas, including works by Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert. The NYCO was founded as the New York City Center Opera, laszlo Halasz was the companys first director, serving in that position from 1943 until 1951. To this end, ticket prices during the companys first season were priced at just 75 cents to $2, at such prices the company was unable to afford the star billing enjoyed by the Metropolitan Opera. Halasz, however, was able to turn fact into a virtue by making the company an important platform for young singers. The companys first season opened in February 1944, and included productions of Giacomo Puccinis Tosca, Friedrich von Flotows Martha and Georges Bizets Carmen, all of them conducted by Halasz. Several notable singers performed with the company in the first season, including Jennie Tourel and Martha Lipton, in 1945, the company became the first major opera company to have an African American performer. This was in the production of Leoncavallos Pagliacci, with Todd Duncans performance as Tonio, lawrence Winters and Robert McFerrin were other notable African American opera pioneers to sing with the company during this period. The first African American woman to sing with the company was soprano Camilla Williams, Winters and Williams later went on to sing the title roles in the most complete recording made up to that time of Gershwins Porgy and Bess, for Columbia Masterworks Records in 1951
