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Topic: Akhnaten opera


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In the News (Wed 8 Oct 08)

  
  RIVERS - Reviews
And now Akhnaten, an opera based on the 1300 BC pharaoh who, in the field of religion, was every bit as revolutionary as Einstein and Gandhi had been in their respective areas of science and politics.
Akhnaten was the first monotheist, abandoning the Egyptian pantheon of deities in favour of one: Atun-re the sungod.
Akhnaten ends a trilogy of works which all share, as their common base, a fascination with the languages in which ideas are couched.
www.newint.org /issue273/reviews.htm   (1779 words)

  
  Akhnaten
Akhnaten is an opera based on the life and religious convictions of the pharaoh Akhnaten (a.k.a.
According to the composer, this work is the culmination of his two other biographical operas, Einstein on the Beach[?] and Satyagraha (about Mohandas Gandhi).
These three -- Akhenaten, Einstein and Gandhi -- were all driven by an inner vision which altered the age in which they lived, particularly Akhenaten in religion, Einstein in science and Gandhi in politics.
www.ebroadcast.com.au /lookup/encyclopedia/ak/Akhnaten.html   (359 words)

  
 PhilipGlass.com: Recordings: Akhnaten
It completes the trilogy of "portrait" operas I began in 1975 with Einstein on the Beach (in collaboration with Robert Wilson) and continued in 1979 with Satyagraha (whose libretto was a joint effort by me and the writer Constance de Jong, with the assistance of designer Robert Israel).
Work on Akhnaten was hardly continuous, though, for during that same time span I wrote such fairly sizeable pieces as The Photographer and Koyaanisqatsi, as well as a number of less expansive works.
Should the three operas be performed within a fairly narrow time span (within the same week, for example), I believe their internal connection will become increasingly obvious and provide the audience with a coherent musical and theatrical experience.
www.philipglass.com /html/recordings/akhnaten.html   (761 words)

  
 Hybrid: Countertenors Then and Now
The twentieth-century revival of the countertenor in opera is tied up with the modern early-music movement, which began in the 1950s, but the history of falsetto singing in Europe dates back at least to the Middle Ages, extending to the present in an unbroken line.
Opera composers began to call for more volume in the upper register than could be produced by falsetto singing, and tenors and their teachers responded by cultivating the extension of the more powerful "chest voice" into ever higher ranges.
While it may seem that the emergence of solo countertenor singing in opera is entirely an authentic revival of baroque practice, today's countertenors are not the equivalent of period instruments.
www.radix.net /~dalila/singers/CT/counter-hybrid.html   (2591 words)

  
 Richardson Review part 2, volume 2 issue 2 spring 2000   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-29)
The original conception of the opera drew extensively on Velikovsky’s controversial theory attributing the origins of the Oedipus legend to events in the life of Akhnaten.
Unfortunately, however, all of this became a little tiresome as the opera progressed, leaving most of the audience as relieved as the young king seemed to be when the mats were eventually discarded after the introduction to the hymn.
The intertwining voices of Akhnaten and Nefertiti, counter-tenor and contralto, both occupying the same vocal range, and Tye and Nefertiti, the former of which is cast with the voice that should rightly belong to the latter (romantic leading ladies are usually sopranos).
www.humnet.ucla.edu /echo/volume2-issue2/reviews/egypt-in-boston2.html   (2456 words)

  
 State Opera South Australia opera seasons: Akhnaten   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-29)
On the death of his father, Akhnaten is crowned as the new Egyptian King in 1375BC.
Akhnaten and his wife Nefertiti, build a city and temple, Akhetaten, in honour of Aten.
The libretto of Glass' opera is drawn from texts written in Akhnaten's own time, and sung in their original language, with a narrator providing the audience with a translation.
www.saopera.sa.gov.au /site/2002_akhnaten   (404 words)

  
 CITY OPERA: 'AKHNATEN' BY GLASS - New York Times
However, the truth is that the City Opera's ''Akhnaten'' staging, co-produced with the Houston Grand Opera, is a fair reflection of Mr.
Akhnaten himself, an androgynous little man with a head like a darning egg, was portrayed limply by the countertenor Christopher Robson.
When Akhnaten, Queen Tye and Nefertiti dance blasphemously through the temple at the end of the first act, they were required to do so as long as the music lasted, which seemed ludicrously long.
query.nytimes.com /gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E6DE1039F936A35752C1A962948260   (654 words)

  
 Philip Glass: Akhnaten
So Philip Glass' three act Akhnaten (1984), which was seen as an oddity by some at its Stuttgart premiere -- one critic called it "Requiem for an Earwig" -- or, at the very least, an unusual dish on a repertory menu, actually fits perfectly into this purview.
No one knows if Akhnaten was assassinated, but his imposition of the worship of his one god, the Aten, on Egyptian's poytheistic society troubled them no end, and not just the priests, who had a cash cow in the rites performed for their principal deity, Amon.
Oakland Opera Theater did wonders with the Thomson - Stein Four Saints in Three Acts, and they'll be reprising Akhnaten this September.
www.classical-music-review.org /reviews/Akhnaten.html   (580 words)

  
 REVIEW : Oakland Opera Theater : Akhnaten
Akhnaten represents one particular type of modern opera, better known as “minimalist,” a term which those who dislike modernity often use interchangeably with “modern” (not to mention “atonal,” which this piece emphatically is not).
Glass’s operas, and the strong reactions they evoke, go directly to the essential question of what “modern opera” is. The great majority of operas performed today were written before 1930.
Akhnaten towered above the worshippers, holding the disk of the sun and bestowing its rays upon his people both in the ensemble and in the audience.
home.earthlink.net /~markdlew/reviews/akhnaten.htm   (3613 words)

  
 Akhnaten (opera)
Akhnaten is an opera based on the life and religious convictions of the pharaoh Akhenaten (a.k.a.
Editorial note: the composer uses the spelling Akhnaten, while the more conventional variant is Akhenaten.
Given the nature of Egyptian hieroglyphics, the absence of a vowel is not terribly important.
publicliterature.org /en/wikipedia/a/ak/akhnaten__opera_.html   (409 words)

  
 CLASSICAL MUSIC ARCHIVES: Definition of OPERA
In one sense his operas were a reaction against the spectacular ‘singers’ operas' of Meyerbeer which he had seen in his Parisian youth.
Nationalist opera was principally an E. European development, beginning with Glinka's A Life for the Tsar in 1836 and continuing with Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Borodin's Prince Igor.
Operas by the It.-born Menotti and by Barber and Argento followed the European tradition, and qualities of exuberance, raciness, and wit which the Americans bring to mus.
www.classicalarchives.com /dict/opera.html   (1544 words)

  
 THEATER REVIEW: Akhnaten -- Shatterproof Egyptian Glass
The opera is a series of staged rituals illustrating fragments of Akhnaten’s life: his father’s funeral, his crowning, his marriage to Nefertiti and his ultimate demise at the hands of the traditionalist priests.
As with most Glass operas, the choir is used as an instrument, and their utterances are performed with grace and precision.
In Akhnaten, being more of a choral composition, the soloists aren’t as crucial as they would be to a traditional opera, but Geoffrey Scott deserves praise for his rendering of the Pharaoh.
www-tech.mit.edu /V120/N3/Pharaoh.3a.html   (920 words)

  
 Glass: Akhnaten - An Opera in Three Acts | Funny UK Comedy
The Opera is well worth the money to buy but expect to skip tracks quite often as they are long, pointless and uninteresting musically.
I listen to pieces from this opera extremely often, but I admit that most of it was listened to perhaps twice then put aside so if you want a full length engaging opera then this probably isn't the one for you.
Egypt is a great subject for opera, and Akhnaten was one of Egypt's most fascinating pharaohs.
www.funny.co.uk /comedy/prod_0-B000086EPA-Glass-Akhnaten-An-Opera-in-Three-Acts.html   (345 words)

  
 Opera
This opera, with its romantic Viennese plot and its lush waltz-time melodies, was often labelled a second "Rosenkavalier." This amorous comedy about the complications surrounding the heroine's betrothal to a rich landowner benefits from careful staging, scrupulous preparation and intimacy.
In this performance from the English National Opera is London, Dame Janet Baker portrays Mary Stuart as she experiences a memorable range of human emotions in the scenes leading to her execution in the climactic scene of the fictitious encounter with her persecutor.
In this Verdi opera, a governor of colonial Boston is fatally stabbed.
www.videolearning.com /S3109.HTM   (1851 words)

  
 Song and dance man - www.theage.com.au
The Adelaide director is in Melbourne to direct the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten, about the Egyptian pharaoh and religious reformer who ruled nearly 4000 years ago.
Akhnaten is designed by Mary Moore, who has worked with Warren for 20 years, while the conductor, Timothy Sexton, worked with Warren on Klinghoffer and had wanted to stage Akhnaten for years.
That would leave Glass's third biographical opera, Satyagraha, based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, to be presented last, probably as part of a cycle with all three works.
www.theage.com.au /articles/2003/10/14/1065917394625.html   (987 words)

  
 GLASS: AKHNATEN (AN OPERA IN 3 ACTS) (STUTTGART STATE OPERA ORCHESTRA & CHORUS / DENNIS RUSSELL): music: Chaos.com
Akhnaten is a modern masterpiece in every way, and deserves a place in the standard repertory.
Forgoing conventional narrative structure, this opera explores the controversial reign of Akhnaten through various tableau showing the Pharaoh overthrowing the religious establishment and founding a new order based on Atenism, and early form of monotheism.
The fact that Akhnaten is scored for a countertenor is a stroke of genuis in itself, highlighting his almost alien nature as well as sexually controversial personality.
chaos.com /product/glass_akhnaten_482570_169227.html   (414 words)

  
 CITY OPERA: PHILIP GLASS'S 'AKHNATEN' - New York Times
Akhnaten, the visionary Egyptian pharaoh, his wife, Nefertiti, and mother, Queen Tye, emerge intermittently in unfocused images throughout the evening and then disappear into the crowd of people onstage.
By squinting hard at the action, one could divine that some psychosexual drama within the pharaoh's family was being played out and that against it was set a momentous decline in Egypt's political power.
The denizens of ''Akhnaten,'' on the other hand, spend a great deal of time running around the stage (sometimes into one another), falling down, skipping, hopping.
query.nytimes.com /gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E2DE1238F93AA35752C1A963948260   (588 words)

  
 Chicago Opera Theater - Reviews
Chicago Opera Theater, under new general director Brian Dickie, is preparing to remedy the situation.
After selling out the Athenaeum Theater in July for Philip Glass' 1984 opera, "Akhnaten," they are going back almost four centuries to opera's birth, to Monteverdi's "Orfeo." Presented in 1607, it is generally considered to be the first surviving work in which the fledgling artform of opera really crystallized.
But "Orfeo" is her first "official" opera, and she is relishing telling the story within the confines of Monteverdi's libretto and music.
www.chicagooperatheater.org /news/news-reviews-orfeo.shtml   (1210 words)

  
 GlassPages: Reviews
Akhnaten revolutionized the leading religion in ancient Egypt by introducing the monotheism, that means, for him "Aton" was the only god.
In "Akhnaten" there stays a certain metaphoric contain, but the scenes are taken chronological from the live of the main character.
Right at the beginning it becomes clear that it is not an opera in the normal sense: There is a slow bass-line with only three notes, played by the electronic organ, and the singing starts with repetitions of numbers "one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four...".
www.glasspages.org /reviews.html   (2342 words)

  
 James Wierzbicki / Philip Glass
The third was the 1984 ''Akhnaten,'' a conventionally scored, conventionally structured and highly lyrical opera named after and based on the life of the Egyptian pharaoh who, according to some scholars, pre-dated Moses in his belief in a single, omnipotent god.
Imagine an opera about Jesus whose libretto consisted solely of aphorisms - in Hebrew - from the Old Testament; as is the case with ''Satyagraha,'' the text would in fact be a sub-text, submerged all the deeper by its realization in an ancient, arcane language.
Glass has said that the three operas, in spite of their differences in sound and format, were conceived as a trilogy; their unified goal, he said, was to celebrate men who in the face of opposition managed to alter the course of history by the strength of their ideas alone.
pages.sbcglobal.net /jameswierzbicki/glass.htm   (5832 words)

  
 The Connection.org : Philip Glass and the Akhnaten Opera
Philip Glass's opera "Akhnaten" is a "Camelot" tragedy set in Ancient Egypt: it's a musical vision-an artist's guess really-about one man's short and revolutionary adventure as Pharoah nearly 4000 years ago.
Bolder still, a first in the human record, Akhnaten decreed the worship of one god, maker and master of all-for which the many old gods of Egypt and their powerful priesthood had their revenge.
The opera is 16-years old now; so it's lasted very nearly as long as Akhnaten ruled Egypt: and in fresh production for Boston and Chicago, "Akhnaten" is a music show and a human figure of surprising poignancy.
www.theconnection.org /shows/2000/02/20000202_b_main.asp   (244 words)

  
 OPERA REVIEW: Just Like An Old Time Movie By Jeff Dunn (Oakland Opera Theater, Angela Dean Baham, Paul Flight, ...
That Akhnaten was a skinhead was unusual for 1984.
Akhnaten and his cohorts are indistinguishable at the outset from members of the audience.
Thanks to Chang and her collaborators, the tourists' incongruity with the rest of the opera has been eliminated by the skill in which they are morphed into and out of ancient roles.
www.sfcv.org /arts_revs/oakoperatheater_9_21_04.php   (947 words)

  
 Philip Glass - Akhnaten
The funeral of Amenhotep III, father of Akhnaten, appears as a central theme of the opera and embodies concepts central to the vision of life in ancient Egypt.
Akhnaten, the third of Philip Glass's "portrait" operas, is based on the life og the Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaten, who ruled Egypt from 1375 BC to 1358 BC.
There is a brief pause, then Akhnaten and Nefertiti resume singing while behind them is seen the funeral cortege in a later stage of its journey, this time ascending on wings of large birds to the heavenly land of Ra.
www.glasspages.org /akhnaten.html   (6596 words)

  
 Amazon.com: Akhnaten: Music: Philip Glass,Dennis Russell Davies,The Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra & Chorus
Akhnaten is a modern masterpiece in every way, and deserves a place in the standard repertory.
The fact that Akhnaten is scored for a countertenor is a stroke of genuis in itself, highlighting his almost alien nature as well as sexually controversial personality.
The very idea of "minimalist" opera seems magically stillborn; fortunately, the orchestration (and no doubt the pageantry) of this piece are lush enough to render meaningless any claims to minimalism.
www.amazon.com /Akhnaten-Philip-Glass/dp/B0000026GR   (1005 words)

  
 Akhnaten
The objective is to find a work such as Jeanne d’Arc au bĂ»cher: one which is ‘bigger’ than your average cantata or mass and which can therefore involve the chorus members in more ways, and inspire them in more directions, than can be met in a straight ‘face the front’ sing.
Akhnaten was the first Glass opera to call for the house orchestra, rather than some hybrid of the PG Ensemble.
Not only should the patience and stamina of both chorus and audience be considered, one should bear in mind that it is possible to change the proportions of the whole work but adding or removing music.
jeremy.marchant.com /akhnaten.htm   (837 words)

  
 Pittsburgh Opera: Season - Artist Bios
First-year Opera Center tenor Peter Nathan Foltz is the recipient of the Liberace Foundation Scholarship at Manhattan School of Music for the 2001-2002 academic year.
She is also well known for her performances in the operas of Handel, including Ariodante, Agrippina, Ottone and Radamisto, all of which she has recorded for the Harmonia Mundi label.
Woodley's most recent opera engagements have included Mustafa in L'Italiana in Algeri with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Capellio in I Capuletti e i Montecchi with the Minnesota Opera, Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte with the Cincinnati Opera and Sam in Un Ballo in Maschera with Seattle Opera.
www.pittsburghopera.org /season/artist_bios.shtml   (1910 words)

  
 Tiny company does grand job with Glass' 'Akhnaten'
Although the libretto is an opaque thicket of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew and a little English, "Akhnaten" does have a plot of sorts.
It begins with the death of Akhnaten's father, Amenhotep, and Akhnaten's accession to the throne, then traces the rise and fall of the pharaoh's short-lived religious revolution.
Taking her cue from Glass' epilogue, which fast-forwards to the modern-day ruins of Akhnaten's palace, Chang stages the whole piece in an engaging midpoint between royal past and tourist-ridden present.
www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/19/DDG5R6NB431.DTL&type=printable   (652 words)

  
 Carmen from Georges Bizet / Opéra de Québec   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-29)
For 7 years, he was artistic and musical director of the Greater Miami Opera, and later artistic administrator of the San Francisco Opera with Kurt Herbert Adler.
Louise Marleau’s first experience as an opera director, at L’Opéra de Québec in May 2004 (Manon) was a huge success, and she has now taken on the challenge of Carmen.
She is often invited to work with the Toronto baroque opera company Opera Atelier in performances in Ontario and Asia.
www.operadequebec.qc.ca /carmen/english/carmen_distribution.htm   (934 words)

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