January 30 Dateline

Birthdays

1697 -  Johann Joachim Quantz, German flutist and composer. (J.J. Quantz. Flutehistory.com. Johann Joachim Quantz Flute Concertos. Upoaded by HarpsichordM. Accessed January 30, 2019.)

1882 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt or FDR, 32nd U.S. President ("The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." - F.D. Roosevelt), American Politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. A member of the Democratic Party, he won a record four presidential elections and became a central figure in world events during the first half of the 20th century. Roosevelt directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing his New Deal domestic agenda in response to the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. As a dominant leader of his party, he built the New Deal Coalition, which defined modern liberalism in the United States throughout the middle third of the 20th century. His third and fourth terms were dominated by World War II, which ended shortly after he died in office.

1937 - Vanessa Redgrave, CBE,  English actress and activist, recipient of the Triple Crown of Acting, inducted to the American Theatre Hall of Fame, and received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2010. She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in the Shakespearean comedy As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since starred in more than 35 productions in London's West End and on Broadway, winning the 1984 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival for The Aspern Papers, and the 2003 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the revival of Long Day's Journey into Night. She made her film debut with the medical drama Behind the Mask (1958), and rose to prominence with the satire Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), which garnered her first of her six Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actress for the holocaust drama Julia (1977). Her other nominations were for Isadora (1968), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), The Bostonians (1984), and Howards End (1992). She is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (the actress Rachel Kempson).

1941 - Paul Albert Anka, OC, Canadian-American singer, songwriter and actor. Anka became famous with hit songs like "Diana", "Lonely Boy", "Put Your Head on My Shoulder", and "(You're) Having My Baby". He wrote such well-known music as the theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and one of Tom Jones's biggest hits, "She's a Lady". He also wrote the English lyrics to Claude François and Jacques Revaux's music for Frank Sinatra's signature song, "My Way", which has been recorded by many, including Elvis Presley. Two songs he co-wrote with Michael Jackson, "This Is It" (originally titled "I Never Heard") and "Love Never Felt So Good" became posthumous hits for Jackson.
 

1941 - Dick Cheney (Richard Bruce Cheney), Former U.S. Vice-President, American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under George W. Bush. He has been cited as the most powerful vice president in American history. He is also one of the most unpopular politicians in the history of the U.S., holding an approval rating of just 13% at the time of leaving office. He played a leading behind-the-scenes role in the George W. Bush administration's response to the September 11 attacks and coordination of the Global War on Terrorism. He was an early proponent of invading Iraq, alleging that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed a weapons of mass destruction program (no active WMDs were in Iraq) and the Hussein regime had an operational relationship with Al-Qaeda (even though there was scant credible evidence of such a relationship at the time).

1951 - Phil Collins, LVO, (Philip David Charles Collins), English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer/singer of the Genesis band and for his solo career. Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. He had more US Top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. His most successful singles from the period include "In the Air Tonight", "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", "One More Night", "Sussudio", "Take Me Home", "Two Hearts", "A Groovy Kind of Love" (featured in the film Buster), "I Wish It Would Rain Down", and "Another Day in Paradise".

Leftie:
Singer Phil Collins

More birthdays and historical events, January 30 - On This Day


Featured:

 

Opera North’s acclaimed concert staging of Wagner’s Ring cycle, filmed in Leeds, UK, June 2016. Accessed December 1, 2022.

 


Notes on Wagner's Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), WWV 86B. (Wiki)

The story of Die Walküre is based on the Norse mythhology told in the Volsunga Saga and the Poetic Edda. In this version the Volsung twins Sieglinde and Siegmund, separated in childhood, meet and fall in love. This union angers the gods who demand that Siegmund must die. Sieglinde and the couple's unborn child are saved by the defiant actions of Wotan's Valkyrie daughter Brünnhilde, who as a result faces the gods' retribution. 

Die Walküre is the second of the four music dramas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, (English: The Ring of the Nibelung). It was performed, as a single opera, at the National Theatre Munich on 26 June 1870, and received its first performance as part of the Ring cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 14 August 1876.

As the Ring cycle was conceived by Wagner in reverse order of performance, Die Walküre was the penultimate of the four texts to be written, although Wagner composed the music in the proper sequence. The text was completed by July 1852, and the music by March 1856. In his composition Wagner largely followed the principles related to the form of musical drama which he had set out in his 1851 essay Opera and Drama under which the music would interpret the text emotionally, reflecting the feelings and moods behind the work, by using a system of recurring leitmotifs to represent people, ideas and situations rather than the conventional operatic units of arias, ensembles, and choruses. Wagner showed greater flexibility in the application of these principles, particularly in Act 3 when the Valkyrie maidens engage in regular ensemble singing.

As with Das Rheingold, Wagner wished to defer any performance of the new work until it could be shown in the context of the completed cycle, but the 1870 Munich premiere was arranged at the insistance of his patron, King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Die Walküre has achieved some popularity as a stand-alone work, and continues to be performed independently from its role in the tetralogy.

Historical Events

1595 - William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is first performed.

1847 - Yerba Buena, California, is renamed San Francisco.

1948 - Indian pacifist and leader Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist.

1885 - Wagner's opera Die Walkure is given its Metropolitan Opera premiere, Leopold Damrosch conducting.

2005 - Amid violence and threats to boycott the results, Iraq holds an election for its national Assembly, the country's first free election since 1953.

Video Credit:
Wagner - Die Walküre, Bayreuth 1992 (Barenboim, Tomlinson, Elming, Secunde). YouTube, uploaded by latos orf. Accessed January 30, 2017.


Resources:

1. Asiado, Tel. The World's Movers and Shapers. New Hampshire: Ore Mountain Publishing House (2005)

2. Britannica. www.britannica.com
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 19th Ed. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011
4. Dateline. Sydney: Millennium House, (2006)
5. Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org


(c) June 2007. Updated January 30, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.