Spokane Coliseum (nicknamed The Boone Street Barn ) was an indoor arena in the northwestern United States , located in Spokane, Washington . Opened in late 1954, it had a seating capacity of 5,400.
103-572: After more than a year of construction, the arena was dedicated on December 3, 1954, in a program headlined by Metropolitan Opera soprano Patrice Munsel , a Spokane native. The largest crowds in its early years were for a Catholic Mass and stage shows by Lawrence Welk and Liberace , respectively. It was host to a number of teams, including the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League (WHL). The arena served as
206-459: A basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments— viol , cello , double bass —played the bassline . A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite . While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During
309-437: A lute player who would play the bassline and improvise the chords and several bass instruments (e.g., bass viola , cello , double bass ) which would play the bassline. With the writing of the operas L'Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea among others, Monteverdi brought considerable attention to this new genre. This Venetian style was taken handily to Germany by Heinrich Schütz , whose diverse style also evolved into
412-454: A chorus, children's choir, and many supporting and leading solo singers. The company also employs numerous free-lance dancers, actors, musicians and other performers throughout the season. The Met's roster of singers includes both international and American artists, some of whose careers have been developed through the Met's young artists programs. While many singers appear periodically as guests with
515-472: A court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully . He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished Achille et Polyxène . Lully was an early example of a conductor ; he would beat the time with a large staff to keep his ensembles together. Musically, he did not establish
618-667: A dozen or more opera performances in Philadelphia throughout the season. Over the years the number of performances was gradually reduced until the final Philadelphia season in 1961 consisted of only four operas. The final performance of that last season was on March 21, 1961, with Birgit Nilsson and Franco Corelli in Turandot . After the Tuesday night visits were ended, the Met still returned to Philadelphia on its spring tours in 1967, 1968, 1978, and 1979. For its second season,
721-492: A long relationship with the Met during this period. From 1900 to 1904, Lionel Mapleson (1865–1937) made a series of sound recordings at the Met. Mapleson, the nephew of the opera impresario James Henry Mapleson , was employed by the Met as a violinist and music librarian. He used an Edison cylinder phonograph set-up near the stage to capture short, one- to five-minute recordings of the soloists, chorus and orchestra during performances. These unique acoustic documents, known as
824-477: A new home in Lincoln Center. While many outstanding singers debuted at the Met under Bing's guiding hand, music critics complained of a lack of great conducting during his regime, even though such eminent conductors as Fritz Stiedry , Dimitri Mitropoulos , Erich Leinsdorf , Fritz Reiner , and Karl Böhm appeared frequently in the 1950s and '60s. Among the most significant achievements of Bing's tenure
927-492: A rotating repertory schedule, with up to seven performances of four different works staged each week. 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 companies. The rest of the year's operas are given in revivals of productions from previous seasons. The 2015–16 season comprised 227 performances of 25 operas. The operas in
1030-899: A season of opera at the new Metropolitan Opera House . Henry Abbey served as manager for the inaugural season, 1883–84, which opened with a performance of Charles Gounod 's Faust starring the brilliant Swedish soprano Christina Nilsson . Abbey's company that first season featured an ensemble of artists led by sopranos Nilsson and Marcella Sembrich ; mezzo-soprano Sofia Scalchi ; tenors Italo Campanini and Roberto Stagno ; baritone Giuseppe Del Puente ; and bass Franco Novara . They gave 150 performances of 20 different operas by Gounod, Meyerbeer, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Wagner, Mozart, Thomas, Bizet, Flotow, and Ponchielli. All performances were sung in Italian and were conducted either by music director Auguste Vianesi or Cleofonte Campanini (the tenor Italo's brother). The company performed not only in
1133-607: A short transition (the galant style ). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the " classical music " canon , and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term " baroque " comes from the Portuguese word barroco , meaning " misshapen pearl ". The works of Antonio Vivaldi , George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered
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#17327918632381236-464: A six-week tour of American cities following its season in New York. These annual spring tours brought the company and its stars to cities throughout the U.S., most of which had no opera company of their own. In Cleveland, for example, Met stops were sporadic until 1924, when underwriting efforts spearheaded by Newton D. Baker led to 3 consecutive years of annual 8-engagement performances. This led to
1339-407: A solo singing accompanied by a kithara (an ancient strummed string instrument). The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peri 's Dafne and L'Euridice , marked the beginning of opera, which was a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the more widespread use of figured bass (also known as thorough bass ) represents the developing importance of harmony as
1442-721: A sports venue in Washington state is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera is an American opera company based in New York City, currently resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center , situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan . Referred to colloquially as "the Met" , the company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as
1545-463: A technical term from scholastic logic. The term "baroque" is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of about 150 years. Though it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of
1648-566: A tool for expression and communication. The etymology of baroque is likely via the French baroque (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), and from the Portuguese barroco ("irregular pearl"); also related are the Spanish barrueco and the Italian barocco . The term is of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin verrūca ("wart") or possibly from Baroco ,
1751-537: A year, as of the 2017–2018 season. In February 2018, Nézet-Séguin succeeded Levine as music director of the Metropolitan Opera. In August 2024, the company announced the extension of Nézet-Séguin's contract as its music director through the 2029–2030 season. In 2017, Daniele Rustioni first guest-conducted at the Metropolitan Opera. In November 2024, the company announced the appointment of Rustioni as its next principal guest conductor, effective with
1854-530: Is Antonio Vivaldi , who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and concerti. In contrast to these composers, Dieterich Buxtehude was not a creature of court but instead was church musician, holding the posts of organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche at Lübeck. His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of
1957-466: Is dependent on private financing. Gelb began his tenure by opening the 2006–07 season with a production of Madama Butterfly by the English director Anthony Minghella originally staged for English National Opera. Minghella's highly theatrical concept featured vividly colored banners on a spare stage, allowing the focus to be on the detailed acting of the singers. The abstract concept included casting
2060-514: Is often labelled the Age of Absolutism , personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music , which is music for a small ensemble of instrumentalists. One pre-eminent example of
2163-572: The Encyclopédie : "Baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited. It appears that term comes from the word 'baroco' used by logicians". Rousseau was referring to the philosophical term baroco , in use since the 13th century to describe a type of elaborate and, for some, unnecessarily complicated academic argument. The systematic application by historians of
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#17327918632382266-624: The 1980–81 season. They continued to use the Coliseum for occasional home games until its demise. The venue was used for some events of the 1990 Goodwill Games . During 1990, discussions for a new arena to replace the Spokane Coliseum began. One factor that led to the idea included several damages to the arena which had a leaking roof and rusted boilers. Another major issue was the size of Spokane Coliseum, which had then recently lost potential bookings from ZZ Top and New Kids on
2369-469: The Edinburgh Festival . Serving from 1950 to 1972, Bing became one of the Met's most influential and reformist leaders. Bing modernized the administration of the company, ended an archaic ticket sales system, and brought an end to the company's Tuesday night performances in Philadelphia. He presided over an era of fine singing and glittering new productions, while guiding the company's move to
2472-561: The Mapleson Cylinders , preserve an audio picture of the early Met, and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including the tenor Jean de Reszke and the dramatic soprano Milka Ternina. The recordings were later issued on a series of LPs and, in 2002, were included in the National Recording Registry . Beginning in 1898, the Metropolitan Opera company of singers and musicians undertook
2575-487: The Morgan , Roosevelt , and Vanderbilt families, all of whom had been excluded from the academy. The new Metropolitan Opera House opened on October 22, 1883, and was an immediate success, both socially and artistically. The Academy of Music's 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
2678-498: The Western classical music practice. For instance, Italian composers switched to the galant style around 1730, while German composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach largely continued to write in the baroque style up to 1750. The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in
2781-468: The concerto grosso . Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. As with Lully's stylization and organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. Numbered among his students
2884-431: The 1933–34 season. Called the committee to Save Metropolitan Opera, the group was headed by the well-loved leading soprano, Lucrezia Bori . Bori not only led the committee, but also personally carried out much of its work and within a few months her fundraising efforts produced the $ 300,000 that were needed for the coming season. In April 1935, Gatti stepped down after 27 years as general manager. His immediate successor,
2987-517: The 2025-2026 season, with an initial contract of three seasons. Baroque music Baroque music ( UK : / b ə ˈ r ɒ k / or US : / b ə ˈ r oʊ k / ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period , and was followed in turn by the Classical period after
3090-523: The Baroque era to its climax, the High Baroque. Italy: France: Italy: Proliferation: France: Germany: Bohemia : Poland : Galant music : Bach's elder sons and pupils : Mannheim school : A characteristic of the Baroque form was the dance suite . Some dance suites by Bach are called partitas , although this term is also used for other collections of pieces. While
3193-658: The Block due to its small size; Spokane was losing concert dates to larger venues in Pullman and Boise . The Spokane Coliseum was replaced by the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena in 1995, and was demolished that spring and summer. The space it occupied is directly north of the new arena, towards Boone Avenue, now a parking lot. This article about an ice hockey arena is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about
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3296-582: The MOA to create the Metropolitan Opera National Company (MONC); a second touring company that would present operas nationally with young operatic talent. Supported by President John F. Kennedy and funded largely by donations given by philanthropist and publisher Lila Acheson Wallace , the company presented two seasons of operas in 1965–1966 and 1966–1967 in which hundreds of performances were given in hundreds of cities throughout
3399-485: The Met board's Eleanor Robson Belmont , the former actress and wife to industrialist August Belmont , was appointed head of a new organization—the Metropolitan Opera Guild—as successor to a women's club Belmont had set up. The Guild supported the producing company through subscriptions to its magazine, Opera News , and through Mrs. Belmont's weekly appeals on the Met's radio broadcasts. In 1940 ownership of
3502-738: The Met considerably expanded its repertory, offering four world premiers and 22 Met premiers, more new works than under any manager since Gatti-Casazza. Volpe chose Valery Gergiev , who was then the chief conductor and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre , as Principal Guest Conductor in 1997 and broadened the Met's Russian repertory. Marcelo Álvarez , Gabriela Beňačková , Diana Damrau , Natalie Dessay , Renée Fleming , Juan Diego Flórez , Marcello Giordani , Angela Gheorghiu , Susan Graham , Ben Heppner , Dmitri Hvorostovsky , Salvatore Licitra , Anna Netrebko , René Pape , Neil Rosenshein , Bryn Terfel , and Deborah Voigt were among
3605-623: The Met during Bing's tenure include: Roberta Peters , Victoria de los Ángeles , Renata Tebaldi , Maria Callas , who had a bitter falling out with Bing over repertoire, , Birgit Nilsson , Joan Sutherland , Régine Crespin , Mirella Freni , Renata Scotto , Montserrat Caballé , Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Anna Moffo , James McCracken , Carlo Bergonzi , Franco Corelli , Alfredo Kraus , Plácido Domingo , Nicolai Gedda , Luciano Pavarotti , Jon Vickers , Tito Gobbi , Sherrill Milnes , and Cesare Siepi . The Met's 1961 production of Turandot , with Leopold Stokowski conducting, Birgit Nilsson in
3708-431: The Met found new controversy with a production of John Adams 's opera The Death of Klinghoffer , due to criticism that the work was antisemitic. In response to the controversy Gelb canceled the scheduled worldwide HD video presentation of a performance, but refused demands to cancel the live performances scheduled for October and November 2014. Demonstrators held signs and chanted "Shame on Gelb". On April 14, 2016,
3811-413: The Met from 1896 to 1903. The early 1900s saw the development of distinct Italian, German and later French "wings" within the Met's roster of artists including separate German and Italian choruses. This division of the company's forces faded after World War II when solo artists spent less time engaged at any one company. The administration of Heinrich Conried in 1903–08 was distinguished especially by
3914-478: The Met in 1891 in a glittering season of stars organized by the returning Henry E. Abbey, John B. Schoeffel and Maurice Grau as Abbey, Schoeffel and Grau . After missing a season to rebuild the opera house following a fire in August 1892 which destroyed most of the theater, Abbey and Grau continued as co-managers along with John Schoeffel as the business partner, initiating the so-called "Golden Age of Opera". Most of
4017-457: The Met in 1973 as Desdemona in Verdi 's Otello , the same role she debuted there in 1955. From 1975 to 1981 the Met was guided by a triumvirate of directors: the general manager (Anthony A. Bliss), artistic director ( James Levine ), and director of production (English stage director John Dexter ). Bliss was followed by Bruce Crawford and Hugh Southern . Through this period the constant figure
4120-520: The Met's current stars as well as appearances by 26 veteran stars of the Met's the past. Among the artists, Leonard Bernstein and Birgit Nilsson gave their last performances with the company at the concert. This season also marked the debut of bass Samuel Ramey , who debuted as Argante in Handel's Rinaldo in January 1984. The immediate post-Bing era saw a continuing addition of African-Americans to
4223-498: The Met's directors turned to Leopold Damrosch as general manager. The revered conductor of the New York Symphony Orchestra was engaged to lead the opera company in an all German language repertory and serve as its chief conductor. Under Damrosch, the company consisted of some the most celebrated singers from Europe's German-language opera houses. The new German Met found great popular and critical success in
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4326-407: The Met's own SiriusXM radio channel. In 2010, the company named Fabio Luisi as its principal guest conductor in 2010, and subsequently its principal conductor in 2011, to fill a void created by Levine's two-year absence because of illness. In 2013, following the severance of the dancers' contracts, Gelb announced that the resident ballet company at the Met would cease to exist. In 2014, Gelb and
4429-694: The Met's own original productions. Theater directors Bartlett Sher , Mary Zimmerman , and Jack O'Brien joined the list of the Met's directors along with Stephen Wadsworth, Willy Decker, Laurent Pelly , Luc Bondy and other opera directors to create new stagings for the company. Robert Lepage , the Canadian director of Cirque du Soleil , was engaged by the Met to direct a revival of Der Ring des Nibelungen using hydraulic stage platforms and projected 3D imagery. To further engage new audiences Gelb initiated live high-definition video transmissions to cinemas worldwide, and regular live satellite radio broadcasts on
4532-506: The Met's principal conductor (but with no official title) from 1908 to 1915, leading the company in performances of Verdi, Wagner and others that set standards for the company for decades to come. The Viennese composer Gustav Mahler also was a Met conductor during Gatti-Casazza's first two seasons and in later years conductors Tullio Serafin and Artur Bodanzky led the company in the Italian and German repertories respectively. Following Toscanini's departure, Gatti-Casazza successfully guided
4635-541: The Met's regular visits ceased. On April 26, 1910, the Met purchased the Philadelphia Opera House from Oscar Hammerstein I . The company renamed the house the Metropolitan Opera House and performed all of their Philadelphia performances there until 1920, when the company sold the theater and resumed performing at the Academy of Music. During the Met's early years, the company annually presented
4738-462: The Met's repertoire consist of a wide range of works, from 18th-century Baroque and 19th-century Bel canto to the Minimalism of the late 20th and 21st centuries. 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 Met's performing company consists of a large symphony orchestra,
4841-528: The Met's wealthy supporters had significantly declined. Soon after his appointment, Cravath obtained new revenue through a contract with the National Broadcasting Company for weekly radio broadcasts of Met performances. The first national broadcast took place December 25, 1931, when Hansel and Gretel was aired. With Gatti's support, Cravath also obtained a ten percent reduction in the pay of all salaried employees beginning with
4944-837: The Metropolitan Opera to a prolonged era of artistic innovation and musical excellence. He brought with him the fiery and brilliant conductor Arturo Toscanini , the music director from his seasons at La Scala. Many of the most noted singers of the era appeared at the Met under Gatti-Casazza's leadership, including sopranos Rosa Ponselle , Elisabeth Rethberg , Maria Jeritza , Emmy Destinn , Frances Alda , Frida Leider , Amelita Galli-Curci , Bernice de Pasquali , and Lily Pons ; tenors Jacques Urlus , Giovanni Martinelli , Beniamino Gigli , Giacomo Lauri-Volpi , and Lauritz Melchior ; baritones Titta Ruffo , Giuseppe De Luca , Pasquale Amato , and Lawrence Tibbett ; and basses Friedrich Schorr , Feodor Chaliapin , Jose Mardones, Tancredi Pasero and Ezio Pinza —among many others. Toscanini served as
5047-562: The Metropolitan Opera's founding subscribers determined to build a new opera house that would outshine the old Academy in every way. A group of 22 men assembled at Delmonico's restaurant on April 28, 1880. They elected officers and established subscriptions for ownership in the new company. The new theater, built at 39th and Broadway , would include three tiers of private boxes in which the scions of New York's powerful new industrial families could display their wealth and establish their social prominence. The first subscribers included members of
5150-597: The Renaissance, notably Carlo Gesualdo ; However, the use of harmony directed towards tonality (a focus on a musical key that becomes the "home note" of a piece), rather than modality , marks the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque period. This led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece —one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality . By incorporating these new aspects of composition, Claudio Monteverdi furthered
5253-892: The Swedish opera manager Göran Gentele , died in an auto accident before the start of his first season. Following Gentele's tragic loss came Schuyler Chapin , who served as general manager for three seasons. The greatest achievement of his tenure was the Met's first tour to Japan for three weeks in May–June 1975 which was the brainchild of impresario Kazuko Hillyer . The tour played a significant role in popularizing opera in Japan, and boasted an impressive line-up of artists in productions of La traviata , Carmen , and La bohème ; including Marilyn Horne as Carmen, Joan Sutherland as Violetta, and tenors Franco Corelli and Luciano Pavarotti alternating as Rodolfo. Soprano Renata Tebaldi retired from
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#17327918632385356-1138: The United States. Bing publicly supported the organization, but privately detested the idea and actively worked to dismantle the company which he ultimately achieved in a vote of the board in December 1966. The MONC's directors were mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens and Michael Manuel , a long time stage manager and director at the Met. Several well known opera singers performed with the MONC, including sopranos Clarice Carson , Maralin Niska , Mary Beth Peil , Francesca Roberto , and Marilyn Zschau ; mezzo-sopranos Joy Davidson , Sylvia Friederich, Dorothy Krebill, and Huguette Tourangeau ; tenors Enrico Di Giuseppe , Chris Lachona, Nicholas di Virgilio, and Harry Theyard ; baritones Ron Bottcher , John Fiorito , Thomas Jamerson , Julian Patrick , and Vern Shinall; bass-baritones Andrij Dobriansky , Ronald Hedlund, and Arnold Voketaitis ; and bass Paul Plishka . During Bing's tenure,
5459-600: The Venetian Francesco Cavalli , who was principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti , Giovanni Legrenzi , and Alessandro Stradella , who additionally originated the concerto grosso style in his Sonate di viole. Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of
5562-497: The adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. All of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer and Paul Henry Lang . As late as 1960, there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France and Britain, whether it
5665-532: The arrival of the Neapolitan tenor Enrico Caruso , the most celebrated singer who ever appeared at the old Metropolitan. He was also instrumental in hiring conductor Arturo Vigna . Conried was followed by Giulio Gatti-Casazza , who held a 27-year tenure from 1908 to 1935. Gatti-Casazza had been lured by the Met from a celebrated tenure as director of Milan's La Scala Opera House . His model planning, authoritative organizational skills and brilliant casts raised
5768-479: The artists first heard at the Met under his management. He retired as general manager in 2006. Joseph Volpe's post was given to Peter Gelb , formerly a record producer. Gelb began outlining his plans in April 2006; these included more new productions each year, ideas for shaving staging costs, and attracting new audiences without deterring existing opera-lovers. Gelb saw these issues as crucial for an organization which
5871-403: The arts, especially music and drama . In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek ) musical drama that valued discourse and oration. Accordingly, they rejected their contemporaries' use of polyphony (multiple, independent melodic lines) and instrumental music, and discussed such ancient Greek music devices as monody , which consisted of
5974-478: The bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes. The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles of cantata , oratorio , and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been regarded as pre-eminent. The florid, coloratura monody of
6077-415: The broadcasts and savings from both salary cuts and reorganization were not sufficient to cover the company's deficits. Representatives of the opera house, the producing company, and the artists formed a committee for fundraising among the public at large. Mainly though appeals made to radio audiences during the weekly broadcasts, the committee was able to obtain enough money to assure continuation of opera for
6180-713: The church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church. Entirely outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as the Abendmusiken , which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his contemporaries as the equivalent of operas. France: The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi , Tomaso Albinoni , Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others advanced
6283-450: The company announced the conclusion of James Levine's tenure as music director at the conclusion of the 2015–16 season. Gelb announced that Levine would also become Music Director Emeritus. On June 2, the Met board announced the appointment of Yannick Nézet-Séguin as the company's next music director, as of the 2020–2021 season, conducting five productions each season. He took the title of music director-designate, conducting two productions
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#17327918632386386-504: The company through the years of World War I into another decade of premieres, new productions and popular success in the 1920s. The 1930s, however, brought new financial and organizational challenges for the company. In 1931, Otto Kahn , the noted financier, resigned as head of the Met's board of directors and president of the Metropolitan Opera Company. He had been responsible for engaging Gatti-Casazza and had held
6489-554: The company, others maintain a close long-standing association with the Met, appearing many times each season until they retire. The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded in 1883 as an alternative to New York's old established Academy of Music opera house. The subscribers to the academy's limited number of private boxes represented the highest stratum in New York society. By 1880, these " old money " families were loath to admit New York's newly wealthy industrialists into their long-established social circle. Frustrated with being excluded,
6592-446: The early Baroque gave way to a simpler, more polished melodic style. These melodies were built from short, cadentially delimited ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante . The harmonies, too, might be simpler than in the early Baroque monody, to show expression in a lighter manner on the string and crescendos and diminuendos on longer notes. The accompanying bass lines were more integrated with
6695-562: The formation of the Northern Ohio Opera Association led by future U.S. Senator Robert J. Bulkley with the express purpose of underwriting long-term touring contracts with the Met. Cleveland was a particular lucrative stop for the Met, which had no competition in the form of a local opera company, and performances were held in the enormous Public Auditorium, which sat well over 9,000 people. The Met's national tours continued until 1986. Italian opera returned to
6798-487: The former Met bass Herbert Witherspoon , died of a heart attack barely six weeks into his term of office. This opened the way for the Canadian tenor and former Met artist Edward Johnson to be appointed general manager. Johnson served the company for the next 15 years, guiding the Met through the remaining years of the depression and the World War II era. The producing company's financial difficulties continued in
6901-627: The general manager. The company's music director has been Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2018. The Met was founded in 1883 as an alternative to the previously established Academy of Music opera house and debuted the same year in a new building on 39th and Broadway (now known as the "Old Met"). It moved to the new Lincoln Center location in 1966. The Metropolitan Opera is the largest classical music organization in North America. Until 2019, it presented about 27 different operas each year from late September through May. The operas are presented in
7004-652: The greatest operatic artists in the world then graced the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in Italian as well as German and French repertory. Notable among them were the brothers Jean and Édouard de Reszke , Lilli Lehmann , Emma Calvé , Lillian Nordica , Nellie Melba , Marcella Sembrich , Milka Ternina , Emma Eames , Sofia Scalchi , Ernestine Schumann-Heink , Francesco Tamagno , Francesc Viñas , Jean Lassalle, Mario Ancona , Victor Maurel , Antonio Scotti and Pol Plançon . Henry Abbey died in 1896, and Maurice Grau continued as sole manager of
7107-704: The home of the Gonzaga University basketball team , from its entry into NCAA University Division (now Division I ) competition in 1958 , until the opening of the on-campus John F. Kennedy Memorial Pavilion in 1965 , later the Charlotte Y. Martin Centre . The Bulldogs returned to the Coliseum in 1979 , their first year in the West Coast Athletic Conference , for conference home games only, then returned to Kennedy Pavilion for
7210-450: The keyboard player what intervals are to be played above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note. Composers began concerning themselves with harmonic progressions , and also employed the tritone , perceived as an unstable interval, to create dissonance (it was used in the dominant seventh chord and the diminished chord ). An interest in harmony had also existed among certain composers in
7313-433: The linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the result of counterpoint , and figured bass is a visual representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as harpsichord players or pipe organists (or lutenists ). The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to
7416-490: The many home grown artists to become stars at the Met in the 1940s. Ettore Panizza , Sir Thomas Beecham , George Szell and Bruno Walter were among the leading conductors engaged during Johnson's tenure. Kurt Adler began his long tenure as chorus master and staff conductor in 1943. Succeeding Johnson in 1950 was the Austrian-born Rudolf Bing who had most recently created and served as director of
7519-568: The melody, producing a contrapuntal equivalence of the parts that later led to the device of an initial bass anticipation of the aria melody. This harmonic simplification also led to a new formal device of the differentiation of recitative (a more spoken part of opera) and aria (a part of opera that used sung melodies). The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi , who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and
7622-401: The mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera , cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue ), was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. Overall, Baroque music was
7725-561: The most prominent Baroque composer of sacred music. The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality , an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key ; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music . During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by
7828-492: The new Rockefeller Center . The plan was dropped in 1929 when it became apparent that it would produce no savings, and because the Met did not have enough money to move to a new opera house. It soon became apparent that the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and subsequent depression had resulted in a dangerously large deficit in the company's accounts. Between 1929 and 1931 ticket sales remained robust, but subsidies from
7931-549: The new Manhattan opera house, but also started a long tradition of touring throughout the country. In the winter and spring of 1884 the Met presented opera in theaters in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia (see below), Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Washington D.C., and Baltimore. Back in New York, the last night of the season featured a long gala performance to benefit Mr. Abbey. The special program consisted not only of various scenes from opera, but also offered Marcella Sembrich playing
8034-790: The officers of the Met joined forces with the officers of the New York Philharmonic to build the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts , where the new Metropolitan Opera House building opened in 1966. The Met's first season at Lincoln Center featured nine new productions, including the world premiere of Marvin David Levy 's Mourning Becomes Electra . However, the company would not premiere any new operas for decades afterwards, until 1991's The Ghosts of Versailles by John Corigliano . One critic described
8137-400: The opera season of 1931/32. Cravath also engineered a reorganization of the management company by which it was transformed from a corporation, in which all participants were stockholders, to an association, whose members need not have a financial interest in operations. Apart from this change, the new Metropolitan Opera Association was virtually identical to the old Metropolitan Opera Company. It
8240-589: The performing company and the opera house was transferred to the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association from the company's original partnership of New York society families. Zinka Milanov , Jussi Björling , and Alexander Kipnis were first heard at the Met under Johnson's management. During World War II when many European artists were unavailable, the Met recruited American singers as never before. Eleanor Steber , Dorothy Kirsten , Helen Traubel (Flagstad's successor as Wagner's heroines), Jan Peerce , Richard Tucker , Leonard Warren and Robert Merrill were among
8343-416: The period as "a quarter-century in which the notion of commissioned work reminded Met administrators of the emblematic failure of Samuel Barber 's Antony and Cleopatra and the lukewarm reception of Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra ." Following Bing's retirement in 1972, the Met's management was overseen by a succession of executives and artists in shared authority. Bing's intended successor,
8446-412: The period composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part (thus creating the orchestra), made changes in musical notation (the development of figured bass as a quick way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece), and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established
8549-428: The pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were intended for listening, not for accompanying dancers. Composers used a variety of different movements in their dance suites. A dance suite commonly has these movements : The four dance types (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) make up the majority of 17th-century suites. Later suites interpolate one or more additional dances between
8652-594: The pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi , Domenico Scarlatti , Alessandro Scarlatti , Alessandro Stradella , Tomaso Albinoni , Johann Pachelbel , Henry Purcell , Georg Philipp Telemann , Jean-Baptiste Lully , Jean-Philippe Rameau , Marc-Antoine Charpentier , Arcangelo Corelli , François Couperin , Johann Hermann Schein , Heinrich Schütz , Samuel Scheidt , Dieterich Buxtehude , Gaspar Sanz , José de Nebra , Antonio Soler , Carlos Seixas , Adam Jarzębski and others, with Giovanni Battista Pergolesi being
8755-424: The position of president since the beginning of Gatti-Casazza's term as manager. The new chair, prominent lawyer Paul Cravath , had served as the board's legal counsel. Retaining Gatti-Casazza as manager, Cravath focused his attention on managing the business affairs of the company. In 1926, as part of the construction of Rockefeller Center , a plan was floated to move the opera from the building on 39th Street to
8858-618: The première in October 1733 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France in May 1734. The critic implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque", complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device. Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who was a musician and composer as well as philosopher, wrote in 1768 in
8961-586: The roster of leading artists. Kathleen Battle , who in 1977 made her Met debut as the Shepherd in Wagner's Tannhäuser , became an important star in lyric soprano roles. Bass-baritone Simon Estes began a prominent Met career with his 1982 debut as Hermann, also in Tannhäuser . The model of General Manager as the leading authority in the company returned in 1990 when the company appointed Joseph Volpe . He
9064-420: The son of Cio-Cio San as a bunraku -style puppet, operated in plain sight by three puppeteers clothed in black. Gelb focused on expanding the Met's audience through a number of fronts. Increasing the number of new productions every season to keep the Met's stagings fresh and noteworthy, Gelb partnered with other opera companies to import productions and engaged directors from theater, circus, and film to produce
9167-416: The string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition (violins, violas—in hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins ) had been used in the ballet from the time of Louis XIII. He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and
9270-480: The subsequent period. Idiomatic instrumental textures became increasingly prominent. In particular, the style luthé —the irregular and unpredictable breaking up of chordal progressions, in contrast to the regular patterning of broken chords—referred to since the early 20th century as style brisé , was established as a consistent texture in French music by Robert Ballard , in his lute books of 1611 and 1614, and by Ennemond Gaultier . This idiomatic lute figuration
9373-774: The term "baroque" to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin 's theory of the Baroque systematically to music. Critics were quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin's categories to music, however, and in the second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid
9476-493: The title role, and Franco Corelli as Calàf, was called the Met's "biggest hit in 10 years". For the 1962/1963 season, Renata Tebaldi , popular with Met audiences, convinced a reluctant Bing to stage a revival of Adriana Lecouvreur , an opera last presented at the Met in 1907. In 1963, Anthony Bliss, a prominent New York lawyer and president of the Metropolitan Opera Association (MOA), convinced
9579-476: The transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition—the heritage of Renaissance polyphony ( prima pratica ) and the new basso continuo technique of the Baroque ( seconda pratica ). With basso continuo, a small group of musicians would play the bassline and the chords which formed the accompaniment for a melody . The basso continuo group would typically use one or more keyboard players and
9682-503: The violin and the piano, as well as the famed stage actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in a scene from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice . Abbey's inaugural season resulted in very large financial deficits. The Metropolitan Opera began a long history of performing in Philadelphia during its first season, presenting its entire repertoire in the city during January and April 1884. The company's first Philadelphia performance
9785-576: The works of Wagner and other German composers as well as in Italian and French operas sung in German. Damrosch died only months into his first season at the Met. Edmund Stanton replaced Damrosch the following year and served as general manager through the 1890–91 season. The Met's six German seasons were especially noted for performances by the celebrated conductor Anton Seidl whose Wagner interpretations were noted for their almost mystical intensity. The conductor Walter Damrosch , Leopold's son, also initiated
9888-485: The years immediately following the desperate season of 1933–34. To meet budget shortfalls, fundraising continued and the number of performances was curtailed. Still, on given nights the brilliant Wagner pairing of the Norwegian soprano Kirsten Flagstad with the great heldentenor Lauritz Melchior proved irresistible to audiences even in such troubled times. To expand the Met's support among its national radio audience,
9991-539: Was James Levine. Engaged by Bing in 1971, Levine became principal conductor in 1973 and emerged as the Met's principal artistic leader through the last third of the 20th century. During the 1983–84 season the Met celebrated its 100th anniversary with an opening night revival of Berlioz's mammoth opera Les Troyens , with soprano Jessye Norman making her Met debut in the roles of both Cassandra and Dido. An eight-hour Centennial Gala concert in two parts followed on October 22, 1983, broadcast on PBS . The gala featured all of
10094-561: Was hoped the association would be able to save money as it renegotiated contracts which the company had made. During this period there was no change in the organization of the Metropolitan Real Estate Opera Company which owned the opera house . It remained in the hands of the society families who owned its stock, yet the subsidies that the house and its owners had given the producing company fell off. In March 1932, Cravath found that income resulting from
10197-401: Was later transferred to the harpsichord, for example in the keyboard music of Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri D'Anglebert , and continued to be an important influence on keyboard music throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries (in, for example, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin ). The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what
10300-535: Was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo Peri , Domenico Scarlatti , and Johann Sebastian Bach under a single rubric. Nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding ( Renaissance ) and following ( Classical ) periods of musical history. Throughout the Baroque era, new developments in music originated in Italy, after which it took up to 20 years before they were broadly adopted in rest of
10403-500: Was of Faust (with Christina Nilsson) on January 14, 1884, at the Chestnut Street Opera House . The Met continued to perform annually in Philadelphia for nearly eighty years, taking the entire company to the city on selected Tuesday nights throughout the opera season. Performances were usually held at Philadelphia's Academy of Music , with the company presenting close to 900 performances in the city by 1961 when
10506-422: Was the Met's third-longest serving manager, and was the first head of the Met to advance from within the ranks of the company after having started his career there as a carpenter in 1964. During his tenure the Met's international touring activities were expanded and Levine focused on expanding and building the Met's orchestra into a world-class symphonic ensemble with its own Carnegie Hall concert series. Under Volpe
10609-434: Was the opening of the Met's artistic roster to include singers of color. Marian Anderson 's historic 1955 debut was followed by the introduction of a gifted generation of African American artists led by Leontyne Price (who inaugurated the new house at Lincoln Center), Reri Grist , Grace Bumbry , Shirley Verrett , Martina Arroyo , George Shirley , Robert McFerrin , and many others. Other celebrated singers who debuted at
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