Petrauskas, Mikas

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Petrauskas, Mikas

Petrauskas, Mikas, Lithuanian composer, brother of Kipras Petrauskas; b. Kaunas, Oct. 19,1873; d. there, March 23, 1937. He studied organ with his father and was a student at the St. Petersburg Cons, of Rimsky-Korsakov. During the abortive revolution in 1905, he was implicated in political activities and imprisoned. After his release, he brought out the opera Birute (Vilnius, Nov. 6, 1906). In 1907 he went to the U.S. He settled in Boston in 1914, where he founded the Lithuanian Cons, and brought out the operas The Devil Inventor (May 20, 1923) and Egle, Queen of the Snakes (May 30, 1924; he sang the role of the King of the Snakes). In 1930 he returned to Lithuania.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire

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