Mozart's First Opera
Mozart composed his first opera, Bastien und Bastienne, at the age of twelve. It premiered in Vienna in 1768.
|
Short Composers
Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and Wagner were all 5 feet tall or less.
|
The Brahms-Wagner feud
Brahms had an ongoing famous feud with Wagner. He publicly criticized Wagner's music for being "contrary to the innermost spirit of music, strongly to be condemned and deplored."
He later valued Wagner's work, saying that those who did not like his
rival's music did not understand it. When he had news of Wagner's death
in 1873 Brahms was rehearsing a chorus. He closed his score and said "We sing no more today. A master has died."
|
List of Beethoven's Operas
Fidelio. (Oh c'mon, how many have you written?)
|
The World's Longest Opera
Richard Wagner's The Ring Cycle
clocks in at over 14 hours. If you include intermissions, allow 18
hours before the fat lady sings. The Ring Cycle took Richard Wagner 27
years to compose! It consists of 4 parts: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Götterdämmerung.
The Ring Cycle is loosely based on a Norse legend of the Nibelungenlied from the 1200s. It has many similarities to The Lord Of The Rings.
|
World's record for highest vocal note produced by a male
According
to the Guinness Book of Records, Adam Lopez (Australia) holds the world
record for highest vocal note produced by a male. That pitch is
designated C#8 in note-octave notation; it is one half step above the
highest note on a standard grand piano. Before achieving this record,
Lopez held the previous Guinness Record for singing a D7 in 2003. He
broke his own record in June 2005.
|
World Record for Longest Applause
Thunderous
clapping echoed around the Vienna Staatsoper on the warm summer evening
of July 30, 1991, for one hour and 20 minutes, setting a new record for
the world's longest applause ever. The audience, who had just reveled
in a performance of a lifetime by Placido Domingo in Otello, responded by rising to their feet and clapping through encore after encore - 101 curtain calls to be exact!
|
|
Most Curtain Calls
On February 24, 1988 Luciano Pavarotti received 165 curtain calls and was applauded for 1 hour 7 minutes after singing in Gaetano Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore
at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin, Germany. The greatest recorded number
of curtain calls ever received at a ballet is 89 by Margot Fonteyn de
Arias and Rudolf Nureyev after a performance of Swan Lake in Austria, in October 1964. |
Thanks to OperaGifts.com for the above factoids.
|
For More Fun Opera Facts Click Here |
|