Dionysios Lavrangas
Dionysios Lavrangas ( Greek Διονύσιος Λαυράγκας , born October 17, 1860 in Argostoli ; † July 18, 1941 in Razata, now also in Argostoli) was a Greek violinist, conductor and composer and founder of the first Athens opera company.
Lavrangas' parents came from established noble families on the island of Kefalonia . Early on he came into contact with the traveling Italian opera companies, whose members, the concertmaster Nazzaro Serrao and the conductors Gedeon Olivierei and N. Tzanis, were his first teachers. Early compositions, mainly songs and romances, were performed by the Argostoli Municipal Chapel. From 1882–85 he studied at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Maiella in Naples , from 1885 to 1894 with Léo Delibes , Jules Massenet and Théodore Dubois at the Paris Conservatoire . In France he was also active as a violinist with various traveling opera companies.
In 1890, his first opera, Elda di Vorn , was successfully premiered in the Napoletan Teatro Mercadante . The world premiere of another opera for Milan (La vita è un sogno) did not take place, Lavrangas worked successfully as an opera conductor at several houses in Northern Italy. In 1894 Lavrangas finally settled in Athens, where he took over the management of the Philharmonic Society , through which mainly symphonic and choral works were performed. He also became a teacher at the Athens Odeion . In 1896 he contributed a multi-part symphonic poem for solos, choir and orchestra called Pentathlon (Πένταθλον, pentathlon ) to a concert on the occasion of the first modern Olympic Games , which was performed together with the Olympic anthem by Spyros Samaras .
Finally, in 1898, together with Loudovikos Spinellis , he founded the first permanent opera theater in Athens, the (third) Ellinikon Melodrama ( Ἑλληνικὸν Μελόδραμα ), which he headed until 1935 as conductor, director and artistic director and produced 13 Greek and 38 international, mainly Italian opera performances all of Greece, but also in the wider area of Greek settlement were to be seen on guest tours, including in Odessa, Constantinople and Cairo. He composed several operas for his theater himself, including Ta dyo adelfia ( Τὰ δύω ἀδέλφια 'The Two Brothers') and the Grand opéra Dido (Διδώ) in 1909. He later devoted himself to composing operettas , such as Aspri tricha ( Ἄσπρη τρίχα 'White Hair', 1915), Sporting Club (1917) and Dipli fotia ( Διπλῆ φωτιά 'Double Fire', 1918). In 1935 he withdrew from the public eye and was quickly forgotten. A satisfaction for his decades of work for the Athens Opera was the founding of the Greek National Opera ( Ἐθνικὴ Λυρικὴ Σκηνή ), which still exists today, in 1939 , which became the state-sponsored successor to his own opera company. His last opera, Froso (Φρόσω), completed in 1940 , was no longer performed.
Lavrangas' compositional style in the opera is late Romantic and shaped by French and Italian models, the works are large, colorfully orchestrated and mostly refer to Greek subjects. Even more than in the opera, Lavrangas has contributed to the establishment of Greek national music in the sense of a national school with his instrumental works . In works such as the Greek Suite No. 1 (1904) he used folklore-like melodies and rhythms that became models for the younger generations of Nikos Skalkottas or Manos Hadjidakis . Lavrangas also created chamber music and numerous songs as well as an extensive oeuvre of choral music. As a writer he created several textbooks on harmony and composition; his autobiography with the title Apomnimonevmata ( Ἀπομνημονεύματα ‚Memoirs', Athens 1937) describes in detail the efforts between 1880 and 1930 to establish a western music scene in Greece.
literature
- Giorgos Leotsakos : Dionyssios Lavrangas , in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
- Minos E. Dounias: Dionysios Lavrangas , in: Friedrich Blume (Hrsg.): The music in history and present , Munich and Kassel 1989, ISBN 3-7618-5913-9
Web links
- List of musical theater compositions on opera.stanford.edu
- Portrait with photo on www.sansimera.gr (Greek)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Report on the music for the first Olympiad on the pages of the Greek Music Library Lilian Voudouri (Eng.)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lavrangas, Dionysius |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Λαυράγκας, Διονύσιος (Greek) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Greek composer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 17, 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Argostoli |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 18, 1941 |
| Place of death | Razata, Argostoli |