(b Stockholm, Aug 10, 1757; d Vaxhälla, March 17, 1810). Swedish actor, singer and librettist . He made his début as an actor as Count Almaviva in Beaumarchais’ play Le barbier de Séville in 1785 at the New Swedish Theatre, where he became well known for his comic roles and original opera librettos, mostly written for Carl Stenborg’s comic opera. In 1790 he became an administrator at the Royal Dramatic Theatre, a position he held until after Gustavus III’s assassination in 1792. In 1794 he turned to publishing in the provincial town of Linköping. During his career he supplied the texts for more than 65 one-act comedies with music, including the Singspiels Födelsedagen (‘The Birthday’, 1790), Fricorpsen eller Dalkarlarne (‘The Free Corps or Men from Dalacarlia’, 1788) and Marknaden (‘The Market Place’, 1792), all with music by Kraus. His tenor voice was considered expressive but fairly weak; his main talent as an actor lay in his satirical portrayals of figures such as Abbé Vogler in the first of the operas named above....
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Björn, Didrik Gabriel
Bertil H. van Boer
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Shilovsky, Konstantin Stepanovich
Richard Taruskin
[Loshivsky ]
(b 1849; d 1893). Russian amateur poet and actor . He was a close friend of Tchaikovsky. After trying strenuously to interest the composer in a grand-opera libretto he had concocted on a pseudo-biblical subject – Ephraim, after a scenario called Tsaritsa ponevole (‘Empress against her Will’) – Shilovsky won his meed of immortality by helping to adapt Pushkin’s Yevgeny Onegin (1877), among other things writing Triquet’s couplets for the first scene of Act 2 in Tchaikovsky’s opera. His younger brother Vladimir (1852–93), a gifted musical amateur, took lessons in composition from Tchaikovsky, who complimented his pupil by incorporating a brief orchestral piece by Shilovsky as the entr’acte to Act 2 of Oprichnik (1874).
N. Kashkin: Vospominaniya o P. I. Chaykovskom [Reminiscences of Tchaikovsky] (Moscow, 1896) P. Chaykovsky: Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy: literaturnïye proizvedeniya i perepiska [Complete Collection of Writings: Literary Works and Correspondence], 5 (Moscow, 1959)...