In Ancient Greece, the Acropolis was important in the life of the people, serving as a place of safety in times of trouble. It contained military supplies, food, a shrine, and often a palace or citadel. The most well-known is the Acropolis of Athens, but nearly every Greek city-state had one.
Citadels were sometimes built so strongly that enemies could take over the rest of the city, but fail to take over the city's citadel. During the Maccabean Revolt, the Maccabean rebels managed to take over all of Jerusalem except its citadel. It wasn't until 20 years later that they finally managed to take over the citadel too.
Citadels were not always built to keep away a city's enemies. During the Anglo-Dutch Wars, King Charles II of England built a citadel at Plymouth that could not only keep out enemies, but also the city's people in case they tried to rebel against the King.
The "Citadelle" of Quebec still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America after more than 200 years of existence.
Since the middle of the 20th century, citadels usually protect military center, rather than cities or towns. These citadels are built to protect the center from heavy attacks, such as aerial or nuclear bombardment. The military citadels under London are an example of this.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (born 28 May 1925 in Berlin, died 18 May 2012 in Berg, Upper Bavaria) was a German baritone singer. For more than 30 years he was thought of by many as the greatest male singer in classical music. He was particularly famous for his singing of Lieder (German art songs), but he was also a superbly great singer of opera as well as a concert singer with orchestras. Later in his career he also conducted.
Fischer-Dieskau had a lyrical baritone voice, not a powerful, heroic voice like a Heldentenor. In spite of that he recorded many operatic roles which are traditionally thought of as being for Heldentenor: Wotan in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Amfortas in Parsifal, Macbeth in Verdi's opera etc.
He is the most recorded singer of all time. He sang in many languages as well as German: French, Russian, Hebrew and Hungarian.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was born in Berlin. His parents were teachers. He started singing as a child and began voice lessons at the age of 16. He had to join the German army (the Wehrmacht) during World War II, in 1943. He had only just finished school. He was captured in Italy in 1945 and spent two years as an American prisoner of war. During that time, he sang Lieder in POW camps to homesick German soldiers.
In 1947 he returned to Germany where he started his professional career singing the baritone solo in Brahms' "Ein Deutsches Requiem" without any rehearsal. (He was a last-minute substitute for a singer who was ill.) He gave his first Lieder recital in Leipzig later that year.
From early in his career he worked with famous lyric sopranos Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Irmgard Seefried, and the recording producer Walter Legge, producing very popular albums of lieder by Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf.
In the autumn of 1948, Fischer-Dieskau became principal lyric baritone at the Städtische Oper Berlin (Municipal Opera, West Berlin), making his first opera performance in the role of Posa in Verdi's "Don Carlos" under the conductor Ferenc Fricsay. This company, known after 1961 as the Deutsche Oper, was to be his artistic home until his retirement from the operatic stage, in 1978.
Fischer-Dieskau made guest appearances at the opera houses in Vienna and Munich. After 1949 he made concert tours in the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Italy. In 1951, he first appeared at a concert in the Salzburg Festival with Mahler's "Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer)" under Wilhelm Furtwängler. He was starting to appear all over the world: in the Royal Albert Hall, London, Boston, Massachusetts and at the Bayreuth Festival.
As an opera singer, Fischer-Dieskau performed mainly in Berlin and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He also made guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera, at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London, at the Hamburg State Opera, in Japan, and at the King's Theatre in Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival. His first tour in the United States took place in 1955, when he was 29. For his recitals there he was accompanied by Gerald Moore. He recorded many Lieder with Gerald Moore, and gave many recitals with him until Moore retired in 1967. However, they continued to make recordings after that. Their recordings of the Schubert song cycles
"Die schöne Müllerin" and "Die Winterreise" were very highly thought of.
Fischer-Dieskau also performed many works by living composers including Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, Hans Werner Henze, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Ernst Krenek and Witold Lutosławski.
Fischer-Dieskau also recorded many famous roles in Italian operas, e.g. Verdi's Rigoletto and Rodrigo in Verdi's "Don Carlos", Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca". He retired from opera in 1978.
Fischer-Dieskau's musicianship and technique were always perfect. He retired from the concert hall on New Year's Day, 1993, at 67, and spent his time conducting, teaching (especially the interpretation of Lieder), painting and writing books.
In 1949, Fischer-Dieskau married the cellist Irmgard Poppen. Together they had three sons: Mathias, who became a stage designer,Martin (a conductor), and Manuel (a cellist). Irmgard died in 1963 of complications following childbirth. Afterwards, Fischer-Dieskau was married to the actress Ruth Leuwerik, from 1965 to 1967, and Kristina Pugell, from 1968 to 1975. From 1977 until his death he was married to the soprano Julia Varady.
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a huge piazza or open area in London, between the West End and the City of London. It is north of The Strand and east of Trafalgar Square. Once it was a huge fruit, vegetable and flower market with many taverns, theatres, coffee-houses, prostitutes and brothels.
Now it is a huge commercial area and "tourist trap". The former market has been redeveloped, keeping its glass roof and cast iron spans. The area is hugely popular with visitors to London, and has a number of remarkable buildings nearby.
The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, is the main theatre for ballet and opera in London. It has several rehearsal rooms with full-size stages, a large costume department and restaurants.
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is nearby. It has been purchased and restored by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Bow Street is also nearby; it is a boundary road to Covent Garden. This was the road where the original police force of London, the Bow Sreet Runners, was formed in the 1740s. The Bow Street Magistrate's Court was one of the most famous criminal courts in London until it was closed in 2006. It is going to be a boutique hotel.
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival () is an internationally famous festival of music and drama. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg. Salzburg is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
In modern time there is also an annual "Salzburg Easter Festival" held by the same organization.
Essex County, New Jersey
Essex County is a county in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of 2009, 769,644 people lived there, making it the third most populous county in the state, behind Bergen County and Middlesex County, and the second most densely population county in the state after Hudson County. The seat of the county is Newark, the largest city in the state.
Bergen County, New Jersey