Which opera was composed first, Venus and Adonis or Saul og David?
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Venus and Adonis (opera) Venus and Adonis is an opera in three acts and a prologue by the English Baroque composer John Blow, composed in about 1683. It was written for the court of King Charles II at either London or Windsor. It is considered by some to be either a semi-opera or a masque, but "The New Grove" names it as the earliest known English opera.
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Saul og David Saul og David ("Saul and David") is the first of the two operas by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen. The four-act libretto, by Einar Christiansen, tells the Biblical story of Saul's jealousy of the young David, taken from the Book of Samuel. The first performance was at Det Kongelige Teater, Copenhagen on 28 November 1902.
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Ovid among the Scythians Ovid among the Scythians (1859 and 1862) is the title of two oil paintings by French artist Eugène Delacroix. The less famous second version was painted to integrate the figures and landscape and rectified the problems of scale of the first version, which had an unusual composition and strange scale of the characters, provoking negative criticism, even among Delacroix's admirers such as Baudelaire and Gautier, although artists like Edgar Degas were deeply impressed.
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The Minotaur (opera) The Minotaur is an opera in two acts, with 13 scenes by English composer Harrison Birtwistle to a libretto by poet David Harsent, commissioned by the Royal Opera House in London. The work, a retelling of the Greek myth of the Minotaur, premiered at the Royal Opera House on 15 April 2008 and was shown on BBC2 television on 7 June 2008. The score is modernistic, and the scenes fall into three types: bullfights; scenes between Ariadne and Theseus; and dream sequences for the Minotaur, in which the creature has the gift of speech. The opera lasts about 140 minutes, not counting the interval.
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Artaserse (Hasse) Artaserse is an opera ("dramma per musica") in three acts composed by Johann Adolph Hasse to an Italian libretto adapted from that by Metastasio by Giovanni Boldini. It premiered at the Teatro di San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice on 11 February 1730, shortly after the libretto's first setting by Leonardo Vinci premiered in Rome 6 days earlier. Metastasio's libretto, "Artaserse", has been used in more than 90 works. Hasse himself would later re-work the score for performances at the Opernhaus am Zwinger in Dresden (1740) and the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples (1760).
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William Tell Overture The "William Tell" Overture is the overture to the opera "William Tell" (original French title "Guillaume Tell"), whose music was composed by Gioachino Rossini. "William Tell" premiered in 1829 and was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement, although he continued to compose cantatas, sacred music and secular vocal music. The overture is in four parts, each following without pause.
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Violet (opera) Violet is a 2005 opera by Roger Scruton to a libretto by the composer, based on the biography of Violet Gordon-Woodhouse by her great-niece, Jessica Douglas-Home. The composer has said that "it tells the remarkable story of this woman who lived with four men – it was a story about the history of music, the history of England, about sex, and the difference between the old culture of sex and the new one, and how it all came together in the life of this peculiar woman". The two-act opera was given the first of two performances on 30 November 2005 at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, directed by Tess Gibbs and conducted by Clive Timms.
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Guinnevere "Guinnevere" is a folk song written by David Crosby in 1969. The song appears on Crosby, Stills & Nash's critically acclaimed eponymous debut album. The song is notable for its serene yet pointed melody and its unique lyrics, which compare Queen Guinevere to the object of the singer's affection, referred to as "m'lady".
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Savitri (opera) Sāvitri is a chamber opera in one act with music composed by Gustav Holst, his Opus 25, to his own libretto. The story is based on the episode of Savitri and Satyavan from the "Mahābhārata", which was also included in "Specimens of Old Indian Poetry" (Ralph Griffiths) and "Idylls from the Sanskrit". The opera features three solo singers, a wordless female chorus, and a chamber orchestra of 12 musicians (consisting of 2 Flutes, a Cor Anglais, 2 String Quartets and a Double Bass). Holst had made at least six earlier attempts at composing opera before arriving at "Sāvitri".
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Dog Days (opera) Dog Days is an opera by David T. Little, to a libretto by Royce Vavrek after the short story by Judy Budnitz.
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Rodrigo (opera) Rodrigo (HWV 5) is an opera in three acts composed by George Frideric Handel. Its original title was "Vincer se stesso è la maggior vittoria" ("To overcome oneself is the greater victory"). The opera is based on the historical figure of Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king of Spain. The libretto was based on Francesco Silvani's "II duello d'Amore e di Vendetta" ("The conflict between love and revenge"). Dating from 1707, it was Handel's first opera written for performance in Italy, and the first performance took place in Florence late in 1707.
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Fantasio (Smyth) Fantasio is an opera in two acts composed by Ethel Smyth. The German-language libretto was written by Smyth and Henry Bennet Brewster. Described in the libretto as a "phantastische Comödie" (fantastic comedy), it was based on Alfred de Musset's 1834 play of the same name. The opera premiered at the Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar on 24 May 1898.
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Sir John in Love Sir John in Love is an opera in four acts by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The libretto, by the composer himself, is based on Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and supplemented with texts by Philip Sidney, Thomas Middleton, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. The music deploys English folk tunes, including "Greensleeves". Originally titled "The Fat Knight", the opera premiered at the Parry Opera Theatre, Royal College of Music, London on 21 March 1929. Its first professional performance was on 9 April 1946 at Sadler's Wells Theatre.
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Og Og (Hebrew: עוֹג‎ , "‘Ōḡ" ʕoːɡ ; Arabic: عوج‎ ‎ , "ûĝ" ) according to the Hebrew Bible, was an Amorite king of Bashan who, along with his army, was slain by Moses and his men at the battle of Edrei. In Arabic literature he is referred to as ‘Uj ibn Anaq (‘Ûj ibn ‘Anâq عوج بن عنق).
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Purcell Operatic Society The Purcell Operatic Society was a short-lived but influential London opera company devoted to the production of stage works by Henry Purcell and his contemporaries. It was founded in 1899 by the composer Martin Shaw and folded in 1902. Its stage director and production designer was Gordon Craig whose productions for the company marked the beginning of his career as a theatre practitioner. Their debut production of Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas" in 1900 was one of the earliest staged performances of the work in modern times.
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Amadis de Gaule (La Borde and Berton) Amadis de Gaule is an opera by the French composers Jean-Benjamin de La Borde and Pierre Montan Berton, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique, Paris (the Paris Opera) on 26 November 1771. It takes the form of a "tragédie en musique" in five acts. The opera is a new setting of a libretto by Philippe Quinault, originally set by Jean-Baptiste Lully in 1684.
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Aida Aida (] ) is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in Egypt, it was commissioned by and first performed at Cairo's Khedivial Opera House on 24 December 1871; Giovanni Bottesini conducted after Verdi himself withdrew. Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, "Aida" has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886. Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.
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Orion (Lacoste) Orion is an opera by the French composer Louis Lacoste, first performed at the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) on 17 February 1728. It takes the form of a "tragédie en musique" in a prologue and five acts. The libretto was begun by Joseph de Lafont, and completed after his death by Simon-Joseph Pellegrin. The plot is based on the Greek myth of Orion.
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L'écume des jours (opera) L'écume des jours (English: "The Foam of Days") is an opera in three acts (14 scenes) by the Russian composer Edison Denisov. The French (also German and Russian) text is by the composer based on the novel of the same title by Boris Vian. It was composed in 1981.
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Alphonse Royer Alphonse Royer, (10 September 1803 – 11 April 1875) was a French author, dramatist and theatre manager, most remembered today for having written (with his regular collaborator, Gustave Vaëz) the librettos for Gaetano Donizetti's opera "La favorite" and Giuseppe Verdi's "Jérusalem". From 1853 to 1856, he was the director of the Odéon Theatre and from 1856 to 1862 director of the Paris Opéra, after which he was appointed France's "Inspecteur Général des Beaux-Arts" (Inspector General for the Fine Arts). In his later years, he wrote a six volume history of the theatre and a history of the Paris Opéra. He also translated the theatrical works of the Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi, as well those of the Spanish writers, Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. A "Chevalier" and later "Officier" of the Légion d'honneur, Royer died in Paris, the city of his birth, at the age of 71.
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Vénus et Adonis Vénus et Adonis is an opera ("tragédie en musique") in a prologue and 5 acts composed by Henri Desmarets to a libretto by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. Based on the story of Venus and Adonis in Book X of Ovid's "Metamorphoses", it was first performed by the Académie Royale de Musique at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris on 28 July 1697 with Marie Le Rochois and Louis Gaulard Dumesny in the title roles. Desmarets staged a major revival of the work with a new prologue at the court of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine in 1707. During the composer's lifetime, it was performed in Germany, Belgium, and France, but then fell into obscurity. Its first staging in modern times took place at the Opéra de Nancy on 28 April 2006.
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La mort d'Abel La mort d'Abel ("The Death of Abel") is an opera by the French composer Rodolphe Kreutzer. The libretto, by François-Benoît Hoffman, deals with the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. It was first performed in a three-act version at the Salle Montansier by the Académie Impériale de Musique (the Paris Opéra) on 23 March 1810 under the title "Abel". A revival at the Salle Le Peletier in 1823, in which the second act was cut, impressed the young Hector Berlioz.