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64-412: Later models introduced the concept of AC tape bias , which improved the sound quality by largely eliminating background hiss. The resulting reproduction was so great an advance on any existing recording method that even those well acquainted with the industry could not tell the recordings from live play. Adolf Hitler used these machines to perform what appeared to be live broadcasts from one city while he

128-425: A nonlinear response as determined by its coercivity . Without bias, this response results in poor performance, especially at low signal levels. A recording signal that generates a magnetic field strength less than the tape's coercivity cannot magnetise the tape and produces little playback signal. Bias increases the signal quality of most audio recordings significantly by pushing the signal into more linear zones of

192-493: A German radio station at Bad Nauheim near Frankfurt in 1945. The allied forces were traveling through Germany during WWII when they first discovered the device. The Allies then handed the Magnetophon over to Mullin. Over the next two years Mullin modified and developed these machines, hoping to create a commercial recording system that could be used by movie studios. American popular vocalist Bing Crosby , dissatisfied with

256-664: A cheaper alternative to the Kaiserstein. The staircases were constructed from polished Kaiserstein, while most of the rest of the interior was decorated with varieties of marble . The decision was made to use dimension stone for the exterior of the building. Due to the monumental demand for stone, stone from Sóskút , widely used in Budapest , was also used. Three Viennese masonry companies were employed to supply enough masonry labour: Eduard Hauser (still in existence today), Anton Wasserburger and Moritz Pranter. The foundation stone

320-419: A magnetic recorder and proposed magnetic tape. Fritz Pfleumer was granted a German patent for a non-magnetic "Sound recording carrier" with a magnetic coating, on 1 January 1928, Years earlier, Joseph O'Neil had created a similar recording medium, yet had not made a working machine that could record sound. The earliest magnetic recording systems simply applied the unadulterated ( baseband ) input signal to

384-463: A new wave of operatic excitement to the many tourists and locals who experienced this cultural event. During daytime the screen displays a replica of the Opera House's façade, as it obstructs a considerable part of the building, along with information about upcoming performances. The Vienna State Opera is particularly open to children: under Holender's direction (he has three children of his own),

448-431: A recording head, resulting in recordings with poor low-frequency response and high distortion. Within short order, the addition of a suitable direct current to the signal, a DC bias, was found to reduce distortion by operating the tape substantially within its linear-response region. The principal disadvantage of DC bias was that it left the tape with a net magnetization, which generated significant noise on replay because of

512-572: A reduced schedule of the classic ballets. 2009 marked the 140th anniversary of the Vienna Opera House. To celebrate this milestone an idea designed to reach out and embrace a new audience was conceived. A giant 50 sqm screen was placed on the side of the opera house facing Kärntner Straße . In four months live broadcasts of over 60 famous operas were transmitted in this way, including performances of Madama Butterfly , The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni . This successful venture brought

576-414: A replica of the original design; Boltenstern decided on a design similar to the original with some modernisation in keeping with the design of the 1950s. In order to achieve good acoustics, wood was the favoured building material, on the advice of, among others, Arturo Toscanini . In addition, the number of seats in the parterre (stalls) was reduced, and the fourth gallery, which had been fitted with columns,

640-533: A straightforward or assisting role. This was the beginning of Krips' worldwide career, which would take him to the most prominent houses in the world. Until his death in 1974, Krips was regarded as one of the most important Maestri (conductors/music directors) of the Staatsoper. On 1 July 1998, a historical broadcast took place, as Austria undertook its first presidency of the European Union . Fidelio

704-408: A tape speed slightly in excess of 30 inches per second (76.8 cm/sec). The AC biased Magnetophon machines reduced the harmonic distortion to well under 3 percent; extended the dynamic range to 65 dB and the frequency response was now from 40 Hz to 15 kHz at the same tape speed. These AC biased magnetophons provided a fidelity of recording that outperformed any other recording system of

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768-527: Is a production of The Magic Flute every year for 9- and 10-year-olds, decorated like the Opernball . The opera house also has an opera school for boys and girls between the ages of eight and fourteen, which takes place in the afternoons after regular school. The children are introduced to music theatre and the prospect of becoming opera singers. The company recruits singers for children's roles in its productions from this opera school. Twice every season there

832-426: Is a special matinée performance of the opera school. In 2006, the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, they performed a 20-minute miniature opera Der kleine Friedrich arranged from songs of Mozart by Janko Kastelic and Claudia Toman. Eighty minutes before each performance, cheap standing room tickets are sold ( € 10 ). These are popular with all age groups, and now have an almost legendary regular clientele, which

896-536: Is an online version parallel to the publication, which receives (as of March 2007) an average of 10,000 visitors a week, and therefore is one of the most successful German-language opera portals. For many decades, the opera house has been the venue of the Vienna Opera Ball . It is an event, which takes place annually on the last Thursday in Fasching . Those in attendance often include visitors from around

960-489: Is merciless in showing its displeasure with a performance loudly and unambiguously, but is even louder in voicing approval. Every performance at the Vienna State Opera is reviewed by an independent company in the opera publication Der Neue Merker ( The New Judge ) which is printed in about 2000 copies. This is unusual in that most opera magazines prefer to concentrate on new productions and premieres. There

1024-464: Is quite common to find a different opera being produced each day of a week. The Staatsoper employs over 1000 people. As of 2008, the annual operating budget of the Staatsoper was 100 million euros with slightly more than 50% as a state subsidy. The company's 2019 production of Olga Neuwirth 's opera Orlando marked the first production of an opera by a female composer in the history of

1088-406: Is the term for two techniques, AC bias and DC bias, that improve the fidelity of analogue tape recorders . DC bias is the addition of direct current to the audio signal that is being recorded. AC bias is the addition of an inaudible high-frequency signal (generally from 40 to 150  kHz ) to the audio signal. Most contemporary tape recorders use AC bias. When recording, magnetic tape has

1152-632: The 78 rpm system of the time). Many speeches, concerts, and operatic performances were recorded. Since many of the recordings survived World War II they were later issued on LPs and compact discs. One of the more remarkable series of recordings took place at the Vienna State Opera House, also known as Wiener Staatsoper , in 1944, when the German composer Richard Strauss recorded many of his famous symphonic poems, including Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel , and Also sprach Zarathustra , with

1216-768: The Vienna Philharmonic are recruited from the Vienna State Opera's orchestra. The building is also the home of the Vienna State Ballet , and it hosts the annual Vienna Opera Ball during the carnival season. The opera house was the first major building on the Vienna Ringstrasse commissioned by the Viennese "city expansion fund". Work commenced on the house in 1861 and was completed in 1869, following plans drawn up by architects August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll . It

1280-506: The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra . AEG engineers made rapid strides in perfecting the system and had practical stereo recorders by 1943. Until 1945, about 250 stereophonic tape recordings were known to exist, including some Richard Strauss and Furtwängler . Only three of those recordings are known to still exist. This includes a performance of Beethoven 's "Emperor" Concerto with pianist Walter Gieseking and

1344-564: The 2010–2011 season a new company was formed called Wiener Staatsballet , Vienna State Ballet , under the direction of former Paris Opera Ballet principal dancer Manuel Legris . Legris eliminated Harangozós's policy of presenting nothing but traditional narrative ballets with guest artists in the leading roles, concentrated on establishing a strong in-house ensemble and restored evenings of mixed bill programs, featuring works of George Balanchine , Jerome Robbins , Jiří Kylián , William Forsythe , and many contemporary choreographers, as well as

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1408-637: The Ampex 200A went into production and within three years most major recording studios had purchased one. The Magnetophon tape recorder was one of the first recording machines to use magnetic tape in preserving voice and music. At first, early Magnetophons gave disappointing results. One of the first concerts to be recorded on a Magnetophon was Mozart's 39th Symphony played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra , conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham , during their 1936 concert tour. The recording

1472-648: The Berlin Reichssenders Orchestra conducted by Artur Rother . This remarkable performance was later issued on LP by Varèse Sarabande . Later in 1993, the Audio Engineering Society (AES) issued a special CD for the 50th birthday of stereo recording. This CD not only includes the "Emperor" Concerto, but the two other stereo recordings known to exist: a Brahms serenade and the last movement of Bruckner's 8th Symphony conducted by Herbert von Karajan . Piano Library also issued

1536-652: The Emperor concerto, and Iron Needle issued the Bruckner recordings (catalog IN 1407). ArkivMusic released a CD of the concerto, as well a later recording Gieseking made of Beethoven's first piano concerto with the Rafael Kubelik and the Philharmonic Orchestra . Magnetophon recorders were widely used in German radio broadcasts during World War II , although they were a closely guarded secret at

1600-589: The Fe 3 O 4 oxide was replaced by the Fe 2 O 3 type, which gave a significantly better recording quality, so much that the formula became a worldwide standard until the 1970s when chromium dioxide tapes appeared. Adding a direct-current bias to the record head gave some improvement, but in 1941, Hans Joachim von Braunmühl and Dr. Walter Weber , both engineers at the German national broadcasting organisation RRG ( Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft ), accidentally discovered

1664-702: The Mullinized Magnetophon called the Rangertone; however, a demonstration of that machine to Bing Crosby did not go well. Mullin then arranged for Crosby to experience a demonstration of the machine designed by Lindsey and Stolaroff: the Ampex Model 200A. Although an initial showcase of the Ampex machine was unable to demonstrate recording, the audio quality of its playback was good enough to get Crosby to agree to work with them. With Bing Crosby arranging financial support for start-up manufacturing,

1728-472: The Staatsoper and the Vienna Volksoper were merged under the direction of Gyula Harangozó, which led to a reduction in the number of performers in the resulting ensemble. This has resulted in an increase in the number of guest stars engaged to work in the ballet. The practice of combining the two ballet companies proved an artistic failure, and Harangozó left when his contract expired in 2010. From

1792-459: The Vienna State Opera. Gustav Mahler was one of the many conductors who have worked in Vienna. During his tenure (1897–1907), Mahler cultivated a new generation of singers, such as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg and Selma Kurz , and recruited a stage designer who replaced the lavish historical stage decors with sparse stage scenery corresponding to modernistic, Jugendstil tastes. Mahler also introduced

1856-621: The Wiener Mozart-Ensemble was formed, which put on guest performances and became known particularly for its singing and playing culture. The Austrian conductor Josef Krips was the founder and mentor, who had only survived the Nazi era (given his Jewish heritage) thanks to luck and help from colleagues. At the end of the war, Krips started the renovation of the Staatoper, and was able to implement his aesthetic principles, including

1920-835: The basis of his own designs, which he demonstrated to the San Francisco chapter of the Institute of Radio Engineers in May 1946, and later at the MGM Studios in Hollywood in October of that year. Attending the SF demo were Ampex engineers Harold Lindsey and Myron Stolaroff , who were inspired to design their own reel-to-reel recorder based on Mullin's modified Magnetophon. Mullin's friend, Richard Ranger, had also designed his own take on

1984-602: The company went on tour to London. Due to the appalling conditions at Theater an der Wien, the opera company leadership tried to raise significant quantities of money to speed up reconstruction of the original opera house. Many private donations were made, as well as donations of building material from the Soviets, who were very interested in the rebuilding of the opera. The mayor of Vienna had receptacles placed in many sites around Vienna for people to donate coins only. In this way, everyone in Vienna could say they had participated in

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2048-1077: The company's first Grammy Award for Technical Achievement, to honor their contribution sixty years earlier of the Ampex 200, which "revolutionized the radio and recording industries". Ampex 200 co-designer Myron Stolaroff was among the company's employees representing Ampex who accepted the award. Magnetophon became the generic word for the tape recorder in some languages including German ("Magnetophon"), Swedish ("magnetofon"), Czech, Polish ( magnetofon ), French ( magnétophone ), Italian ( magnetofono - only for reel-to-reel), Romanian, Serbian, Croatian ( magnetofon - only for reel-to-reel), Greek (μαγνητόφωνο - magnitofono ), Russian ( магнитофон - magnitofon), Bulgarian (магнетофон - magnetofon ), Slovak, Spanish ( magnetófono or magnetofón ), Hungarian ( magnetofon - commonly shortened to magnó ), Finnish ( magnetofoni - commonly shortened to mankka ), Estonian ( magnetofon - commonly shortened to makk ), Lithuanian ( magnetofonas ), Latvian ( magnetofons ) and Ukrainian ( магнітофон - magnitofon). Tape bias Tape bias

2112-538: The departure from the Romantic Mozart ideal with a voluminous orchestral sound. Instead, qualities more associated with chamber music were featured, as well as a clearer, lighter sound, which would later come to be known as "typically Viennese". Singers who worked with Krips during this time were Erich Kunz , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Wilma Lipp , among others. As early as 1947, the Mozart-Ensemble

2176-418: The end of World War II, on 12 March 1945, the opera was set alight by an American bombardment. The auditorium and stage were destroyed by flames, as well as almost the entire décor and props for more than 120 operas with around 150,000 costumes. The front section, which had been walled off as a precaution, however, remained intact including the foyer , with frescoes by Moritz von Schwind , the main stairways,

2240-446: The grain of the tape particles. However: the earlier wire recorders were largely immune to the problem due to their high running speed and relatively large wire size. Some early DC-bias systems used a permanent magnet that was placed near the record head. It had to be swung out of the way for replay. DC bias was replaced by AC bias but was later re-adopted by some very low-cost cassette recorders. The original patent for AC bias

2304-488: The military disaster of 1866 (the Battle of Königgrätz ), was deprecatingly referred to as "the 'Königgrätz' of architecture". Eduard van der Nüll committed suicide, and barely ten weeks later Sicardsburg died from tuberculosis so neither architect saw the completion of the building. The opening premiere was Don Giovanni , by Mozart , on 25 May 1869. Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) were present. Towards

2368-412: The opera house as it had been, and the main restoration experts involved were Ernst Kolb (1948–1952) and Udo Illig (1953–1956). The Austrian Federal Chancellor Leopold Figl made the decision in 1946 to have a functioning opera house again by 1949. An architectural competition was announced, which was won by Erich Boltenstern. The submissions had ranged from a complete restructuring of the auditorium to

2432-436: The opera house has become well known for its children's productions, which are performed in a tent on the roof of the Staatsoper. Recent examples include Peter Pan , Das Traumfresserchen  [ de ] ( The Dream Gobbler ), Der 35. Mai ( The 35th of May ), C. F. E. Horneman 's Aladdin , Bastien und Bastienne and Wagners Nibelungenring für Kinder ( Wagner's Ring for children ). In addition to this, there

2496-458: The original patent, and Bell simply kept silent about their rediscovery of AC bias. Teiji Igarashi, Makoto Ishikawa, and Kenzo Nagai of Japan published a paper on AC biasing in 1938 and received a Japanese patent in 1940. Marvin Camras (USA) also rediscovered high-frequency (AC) bias independently in 1941 and received a patent in 1944. The reduction in distortion and noise provided by AC bias

2560-455: The policy of predominantly engaging guest singers. He began a collaboration with La Scala in Milan, in which both productions and orchestrations were shared. This created an opening for the prominent members of the Viennese ensemble to appear in Milan, especially to perform works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss . At the beginning of the 2005–2006 season, the ballet companies of

2624-416: The practice of dimming the lighting in the theatre during performances, which was initially not appreciated by the audience. However, Mahler's reforms were maintained by his successors. Herbert von Karajan introduced the practice of performing operas exclusively in their original language instead of being translated into German. He also strengthened the ensemble and regular principal singers and introduced

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2688-423: The quality of existing radio network recordings was prevailed upon to invest in this development and would use the technology, as modified by Mullin and the fledgling Ampex company, to record his radio broadcasts in the more relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio, which was a significant break from the then-norm of live studio audience broadcasts. In 2008, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards Ceremony, Ampex received

2752-485: The reconstruction and feel pride in considering themselves part owners. However, in 1949, there was only a temporary roof on the Staatsoper, as construction work continued. It was not until 5 November 1955, after the Austrian State Treaty , that the Staatsoper could be reopened with a performance of Beethoven 's Fidelio , conducted by Karl Böhm . The American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles ,

2816-568: The safety curtain by means of magnets and are shown during the course of a season. Artists up to date: Pierre Alechinsky , Tauba Auerbach , John Baldessari , Matthew Barney , Thomas Bayrle, Tacita Dean , Cerith Wyn Evans , Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster , Richard Hamilton , David Hockney , Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Joan Jonas , Martha Jungwirth, Jeff Koons , Maria Lassnig , Oswald Oberhuber, Giulio Paolini , Rirkrit Tiravanija , Rosemarie Trockel , Cy Twombly , Kara Walker , Carrie Mae Weems and Franz West . In chronological order,

2880-461: The tape's magnetic transfer function . Magnetic recording was proposed as early as 1878 by Oberlin Smith , who on 4 October 1878 filed, with the U.S. patent office, a caveat regarding the magnetic recording of sound and who published his ideas on the subject in the 8 September 1888 issue of The Electrical World as "Some possible forms of phonograph" . By 1898, Valdemar Poulsen had demonstrated

2944-405: The technique of high-frequency bias in which the simple addition of a high level (about 10X the maximum audio level) inaudible high-frequency tone resulted in a striking improvement in sound quality by effectively smoothing the magnetization of unused portions of the audio band. The discovery was made when a Magnetophon producing recordings of extraordinary quality was sent 'for repair'. The machine

3008-590: The time. Wiener Staatsoper The Vienna State Opera (German: Wiener Staatsoper , IPA: [ˈviːnɐ ˈʃtaːtsˌʔoːpɐ] ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna , Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road . It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by August Sicard von Sicardsburg and Eduard van der Nüll , and designs by Josef Hlávka . The opera house

3072-652: The time. The Allies were aware of the existence of the pre-war Magnetophon recorders, but not of the introduction of high-frequency bias and PVC-backed tape. Their intelligence experts knew that the Germans had some new form of recording system but they did not know the full details of its construction and operation until working models of the Magnetophon were discovered during the Allied invasion of Germany during 1944-45. American audio engineer Jack Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders and fifty reels of magnetic tape from

3136-465: The vestibule and the tea room. The State Opera was temporarily housed at the Theater an der Wien and at the Vienna Volksoper . Lengthy discussion took place about whether the opera house should be restored to its original state on its original site, or whether it should be completely demolished and rebuilt, either on the same location or on a different site. Eventually the decision was made to rebuild

3200-422: The world, especially prominent names in business and politics. The opera ball receives media coverage from a range of outlets. The opera ball in 1968 was the occasion for a protest, at which the organisation was criticised for being "elite" (due to the high prices), "conceited" (due to the opulent display of wealth for the newspapers and cameras) and "reactionary" (for upholding an allegedly outdated culture). There

3264-511: Was accidentally rediscovered in 1940 by Walter Weber while working at the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG) when a DC-biased Magnetophon that he had been working on developed an 'unwanted' oscillation in its record circuitry. The last production DC biased Magnetophon machines had harmonic distortion in excess of 10 percent; a dynamic range of 40 dB and a frequency response of just 50 Hz to 6 kHz at

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3328-524: Was broadcast live from the Vienna State Opera to the 15 capital cities of the EU. The Vienna State Opera is closely linked to the Vienna Philharmonic , which is an incorporated society of its own, but whose members are recruited from the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. The Wiener Staatsoper is one of the busiest opera houses in the world producing 50 to 60 operas in a repertory system per year and ten ballet productions in more than 350 performances. It

3392-601: Was built in the Neo-Renaissance style by the Czech architect and contractor Josef Hlávka . The Ministry of the Interior had commissioned a number of reports into the availability of certain building materials, with the result that stones long not seen in Vienna were used, such as Wöllersdorfer Stein, for plinths and free-standing, simply-divided buttresses, the famously hard stone from Kaisersteinbruch , whose colour

3456-413: Was filed by Wendell L. Carlson and Glenn L. Carpenter in 1921, eventually resulting in a patent in 1927. The value of AC bias was somewhat masked by the fact that wire recording gained little benefit from the technique and Carlson and Carpenter's achievement was largely ignored. The first rediscovery seems to have been by Dean Wooldridge at Bell Telephone Laboratories , around 1937, but their lawyers found

3520-402: Was found to have an oscillating DC bias amplifier . Magnetic media are inherently non-linear, but AC bias was the means whereby the magnetisation of the recording tape was made linearly proportional to the electrical signal which represents the audio component. The Magnetophon became a 'high fidelity' recording system because in so many respects, it outperformed gramophone recording (which was

3584-664: Was in another. A cache of 350 of these tapes was released years later when they were found in Koblenz . Two later model Magnetophons were taken to the United States at the end of the war, having been found in Bad Nauheim . These included both the newer oxide-coated PVC tape developed by I.G. Farben ( BASF division) as well as the AC bias system. The Army officer who tracked them down, Jack Mullin , would use these machines as

3648-585: Was inaugurated as the "Vienna Court Opera" ( Wiener Hofoper ) in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria . It became known by its current name after the establishment of the First Austrian Republic in 1921. The Vienna State Opera is the successor of the old Vienna Court Opera (built in 1636 inside the Hofburg ). The new site was chosen and the construction paid by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1861. The members of

3712-630: Was laid on 20 May 1863. The building was, however, not very popular with the public. On the one hand, it did not seem as grand as the Heinrichshof, a private residence which was destroyed in World War II (and replaced in 1955 by the Opernringhof). Moreover, because the level of Ringstraße was raised by a metre in front of the opera house after its construction had begun, the latter was likened to "a sunken treasure chest" and, in analogy to

3776-446: Was made on an AEG K2 Magnetophon running at 100 cm/s. The tape used was the early black iron oxide Fe 3 O 4 type. When Beecham and the musicians heard the playback, they were greatly disappointed with the distortion and noise on the recording. Although the original tape is now lost, the recording survived until the 1990s and has been transferred. Some other surviving tapes show a tendency toward overmodulation . Later in 1939,

3840-462: Was more appropriate than that of Kelheimerstein , for more lushly decorated parts. The somewhat coarser-grained Kelheimerstein (also known as Solnhof Plattenstein) was intended as the main stone to be used in the building of the opera house, but the necessary quantity was not deliverable. Breitenbrunner stone was suggested as a substitute for the Kelheimer stone, and stone from Jois was used as

3904-581: Was playing guest performances at the Royal Opera House in London, with Mozart's Don Giovanni . Richard Tauber , who had fled from the Nazis, sang Don Ottavio ; three months later he died, and was remembered for singing with "half a lung" in order to fulfil his dream, many other artists became associated with the Mozart-Ensemble, for example Karl Böhm , but their role was still greatly peripheral, in

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3968-411: Was present. The state broadcaster ORF used the occasion to make its first live broadcast, at a time when there were only c. 800 televiewers in the whole of Austria. The new auditorium had a reduced capacity of about 2,276, including 567 standing room places. The ensemble, which had remained unified until the opening, crumbled in the following years, and slowly an international ensemble formed. In 1945,

4032-489: Was restructured so as not to need columns. The façade, entrance hall and the "Schwind" foyer were restored and remain in their original style. In the meantime, the opera company, which had at first been performing in the Volksoper, had moved rehearsals and performances to Theater an der Wien , where, on 1 May 1945, after the liberation and re-independence of Austria from the Nazis, the first performances were given. In 1947,

4096-405: Was violence between the demonstrators and the police. "Safety Curtain" is an exhibition series conceived by the non-profit art initiative museum in progress , which has been transforming the safety curtain of the Vienna State Opera into a temporary exhibition space for contemporary art since 1998. A jury ( Daniel Birnbaum and Hans-Ulrich Obrist ) selects the artists whose works are attached to

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