Daphne (opera)

Daphne, Op. 82, is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss, subtitled "Bucolic Tragedy in One Act". The German libretto was by Joseph Gregor. The opera is based loosely on the mythological figure Daphne from Ovid's Metamorphoses and includes elements taken from The Bacchae by Euripides. The opera premiered at the Semperoper in Dresden on 15 October 1938, originally intended as a double bill with Strauss' Friedenstag, but as the scale of Daphne grew, that idea was abandoned. The conductor of the first performance was Karl Böhm, to whom the opera was dedicated.

Performance history

The United States premiere of the opera was performed on October 10, 1960 in a concert version at Town Hall in Manhattan with Gloria Davy in the title role, Florence Kopleff as Gaea, Robert Nagy as Leukippos, Jon Crain as Apollo, Lawrence Davidson as Peneios, and The Little Orchestra Society under conductor Thomas Scherman.

Roles

Synopsis

The chaste girl Daphne sings a hymn of praise to nature. She loves the sunlight as trees and flowers do, but she has no interest in human romance. She cannot return the love of her childhood friend Leukippos, and she refuses to put on the ceremonial clothes for the coming festival of Dionysos, leaving Leukippos with the dress she has rejected.

Daphne

Daphne (/ˈdæfniː/; Greek: Δάφνη, meaning "laurel") is a minor figure in Greek mythology known as a naiad—a type of female nymph associated with fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of freshwater. There are several versions of the myth, but the general narrative is that because of her beauty, Daphne attracted the attention and ardor of the god Apollo (Phoebus). Apollo pursued her and just before being overtaken, Daphne pleaded to her father, the rivergod Ladon, and Ge (Gaia) for help. So Ladon then transformed Daphne into a laurel tree. In Metamorphoses by Roman poet Ovid, she is identified as the daughter of the rivergod Pineios in Thessaly. At the Pythian Games which were held every four years in Delphi in honour of Apollo, a wreath of laurel gathered from the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly was given as a prize. According to Pausanias the reason for this "simply and solely because the prevailing tradition has it that Apollo fell in love with the daughter of Ladon (Daphne)".

Daphné (singer)

Daphné (born 1974) is a French singer. Her first album, L'émeraude (The Emerald), was released in 2005.

Biography

Daphné was born in Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme, France but never actually lived in the prefecture of Auvergne. She has stayed in Paris, Poitiers in the Poitou region, the Alps and even abroad.

Daphné has always been a huge fan of Henry Purcell, Mozart and Maurice Ravel. Her modern musical tastes include Stevie Wonder and Sting but she says the latter did not influence her own work. Technically speaking, the most important thing for her in writing a song is finding the right tune because "tunes carry emotions". Sometimes referred to as the French Björk, Daphné's entrancing voice often has her compared to a fairy. She confesses that she "would love to touch the hearts of people who stopped believing in their dreams, in their lives, who only think of running away..."

Her first album, which could be defined as trip hop with a touch of pop and chanson, just illustrates this frame of mind. Le réveil (The Awakening) is about being happy in love and confident in the future. Anna is about the end of innocence. Un homme sous influence (A Man Under Influence) is about rejection while Ton cœur (Your Heart) is an ode to trust. Trafalgar Square tells how the sun always shines again after the rain. L'insoumise (The Rebel) and Il viaggio (The Journey), a song in Italian, are both about the essential need to stand for oneself, to resist, to fight against oneself and society to uncover one's true personality and eventually see love as it is: a liberation.

List of Heroes characters

This is a list of fictional characters in the television series Heroes, the Heroes graphic novels, and the Heroes webisodes.

Main characters

Character duration

Characters are listed in title credit order (alphabetically), and then by duration.

In its inaugural season, Heroes featured an ensemble cast of fourteen main characters. During the first season, the NBC Heroes cast page listed ten characters among the cast; Leonard Roberts arrived later, and Jack Coleman was promoted to series regular as of the eleventh episode.

For the second season of the show, Santiago Cabrera, Tawny Cypress, and Leonard Roberts left the main cast. Zachary Quinto and James Kyson Lee, who were recurring characters in the first season, were added to the main cast, and were joined by new cast members David Anders, Kristen Bell, Dana Davis and Dania Ramirez. Anders was originally meant to be a recurring character, but was promoted to a series regular prior to the start of the season. He is credited as a guest star for the first four episodes of season two.

Opera (web browser)

Opera is a web browser developed by Opera Software. The latest version is available for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux operating systems, and uses the Blink layout engine. An earlier version using the Presto layout engine is still available, and additionally runs on FreeBSD systems.

Opera siblings – Opera Mobile, Opera Mini and Opera Coast – work on devices running Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Symbian, Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems, while Opera Mini runs on Java ME-capable devices.

According to Opera Software, the browser had more than 350 million users worldwide in the 4th quarter 2014. Total Opera mobile users reached 291 million in June 2015. Opera has been noted for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers. A prominent example is Speed Dial.

History

Opera began in 1994 as a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company. In 1995, it branched out into a separate company named Opera Software ASA. Opera was first released publicly with version 2.0 in 1996, which only ran on Microsoft Windows. In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port Opera to mobile device platforms was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms.

Opera (Budapest Metro)

Opera is a station of the yellow M1 (Millennium Underground) line of the Budapest Metro, in front of the Hungarian State Opera House.

Connection

Opera (magazine)

Opera is a monthly British magazine devoted to covering all things related to opera. It contains reviews and articles about current opera productions internationally, as well as articles on opera recordings, opera singers, opera companies, opera directors, and opera books. The magazine also contains major features and analysis on individual operas and people associated with opera.

The magazine employs a network of international correspondents around the world who write for the magazine. Contributors to the magazine, past and present, include William Ashbrook, Martin Bernheimer, Julian Budden, Rodolfo Celletti, Alan Blyth, Elizabeth Forbes, and J.B. Steane among many others.

Opera is printed in A5 size, with colour photos, and consists of around 130 pages. Page numbering is consecutive for a complete year (e.g. September 2009 goes from p1033-1168). All issues since August 2006 are available online to current subscribers (through Exact Editions).

Based in London, the magazine was founded in 1950 by George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood. It was launched at the house of Richard Buckle, under the imprint 'Ballet Publications Ltd'.