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English Touring Opera
English Touring Opera (ETO) is an opera company in the United Kingdom founded in 1979 under the name Opera 80 by the then-existing Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1992 the company changed to its present name. Today it is sponsored in part by Arts Council England as well as receiving support from individual and corporate sponsors, plus trusts and foundations. The company aims to bring high quality opera to areas of England that would not otherwise have ready access to such productions. From 2002 its Director was James Conway, who came from the Opera Theatre of Ireland. It was announced in January 2022 that he was stepping down, and his successor was revealed in March 2022 as Robin Norton-Hale. The company Opera 80 itself became the successor to Opera For All,"Opera 80", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera", at Oxfordmusiconline.com an "umbrella organization" which had planned tours by small groups which performed to piano accompaniment. David Parry became music director in 198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts Council Of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (later merged into Creative Scotland), and the Arts Council of Wales. At the same time the National Lottery was established and these three arts councils, plus the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, became distribution bodies. History In January 1940, during the Second World War, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), was appointed to help promote and maintain British culture. Chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education, the council was government-funded and after the war was renamed the Arts Council of Great Britain. Reginald Jacques was appointed musical director, with Sir Henry Walford Davies and George Dyson also involved. John Denison took over after the war. A royal charter was gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Declan Donnellan
Declan Michael Martin Donnellan (born 4 August 1953) is an English film/stage director and author. He co-founded the Cheek by Jowl theatre company with Nick Ormerod in 1981. In addition to his Cheek by Jowl productions, Donnellan has made theatre, opera and ballet with a variety of companies across the world. In 1992, he received an honorary degree from the University of Warwick and in 2004 he was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his work in France. In 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Donnellan was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to theatre. Biography Donnellan was born in Manchester and grew up in Ealing, London. He was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he read English and Law. After leaving Cambridge, he was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1978. He founded Cheek by Jowl with Nick Or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail
' () ( K. 384; ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''; also known as ') is a singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's ''Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail''. The plot concerns the attempt of the hero Belmonte, assisted by his servant Pedrillo, to rescue his beloved Constanze from the seraglio of Pasha Selim. The work premiered on 16 July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer conducting. Origins The company that first sponsored the opera was the ''Nationalsingspiel'' ("national Singspiel"), a pet project (1778–1783) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II. The Emperor had set up the company to perform works in the German language (as opposed to the Italian opera style widely popular in Vienna). This project was ultimately given up as a failure, but along the way it produced a number of successes, mostly a series of translated works. Mozart's opera emerge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Frederick Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career and became a naturalised British subject in 1727. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's music forms one of the peaks of the "high baroque" style, bringing Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age. Handel started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. In 1737, he had a physical break ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tolomeo
''Tolomeo, re d'Egitto'' ("Ptolemy, King of Egypt", HWV 25) is an opera seria in three acts by George Frideric Handel to an Italian text by Nicola Francesco Haym, adapted from Carlo Sigismondo Capece's ''Tolomeo et Alessandro''. It was Handel's 13th (or 14th if the one act Handel contributed to the collaborative opera ''Muzio Scevola'' is counted) and last opera for the Royal Academy of Music (1719) and was also the last of the operas he composed for the triumvirate of internationally renowned singers, the castrato Senesino and the sopranos Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. The story of the opera is a fictionalisation of some events in the life of Ptolemy IX Lathyros, king of Egypt. An aria from the opera,'' Non lo dirò col labbro'', was adapted by Arthur Somervell (1863–1937) as the popular English-language classic " Silent Worship" in 1928. Performance history ''Tolomeo'' was first performed at the King's Theatre, London on 30 April 1728 and received seven perfor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's most important early music composers. No later native-born English composer approached his fame until Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, William Walton and Benjamin Britten in the 20th century. Life and work Early life Purcell was born in St Ann's Lane, Old Pye Street, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil's Acre, a notorious slum – in 1659. Henry Purcell Senior, whose older brother Thomas Purcell was a musician, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal and sang at the coronation of King Charles II of England. Henry the elder had three sons: Edward, Henry and Daniel. Daniel Purcell, the youngest of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dido & Aeneas
''Dido and Aeneas'' (Z. 626) is an opera in a prologue and three acts, written by the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell with a libretto by Nahum Tate. The dates of the composition and first performance of the opera are uncertain. It was composed no later than July 1688, and had been performed at Josias Priest's girls' school in London by the end of 1689.White, Bryan, 'Letter from Aleppo: dating the Chelsea School performance of Dido and Aeneas', 417 Some scholars argue for a date of composition as early as 1683.Pinnock, Andrew, 'Which Genial Day? More on the court origin of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with a shortlist of dates for its possible performance before King Charles II’, Early Music 43 (2015), 199–212Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock, Unscared by turning times'? The dating of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas," The story is based on Book IV of Virgil's ''Aeneid''. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giacomo Carissimi
(Gian) Giacomo Carissimi (; baptized 18 April 160512 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. Carissimi established the characteristic features of the Latin oratorio and was a prolific composer of masses, motets and cantatas. He was highly influential in musical developments in north European countries through his pupils, like Kerll in Germany and Charpentier in France, and the wide dissemination of his music.Andrew V. Jones, "Giacomo Carissimi", ''Grove Music Online'' Biography Carissimi's exact birthdate is not known, but it was probably in 1604 or 1605 in Marino near Rome, Italy. Of his early life almost nothing is known. Giacomo's parents, Amico (1548–1633, a cooper by trade) and Livia (1565–1622), were married on 14 May 1595 and had four daughters and two sons; Giacomo was the youngest. Nothing is known of his early musical training. His fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jephté
''Jephté'' (''Jephtha'') is an opera by the French composer Michel Pignolet de Montéclair. It takes the form of a ''tragédie en musique'' in a prologue and five acts (because of its subject matter it was also styled a ''tragédie biblique''). The libretto, by the Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on the Biblical story of Jephtha. The oratorio was first performed at the Académie royale de musique, Paris on 28 February 1732. It was the first opera in France using a story from the Bible to appear on a public stage. For this reason, Cardinal de Noailles banned performances of the work for a time. Montéclair made revisions for revivals of the work in March 1732 and April 1737. In 1735, the soprano who had premiered Iphise, Catherine-Nicole Lemaure, was forced to appear in that year's revival via threats of imprisonment if she would not do so; therefore, she intentionally bombed the performance and was booed at by the audience.Julie Anne Sadie, ''Guide de la Musique baroque', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rachel Nicholls
Rachel Nicholls is an English soprano in opera and concert. Career Born in Bedford, England, Nicholls studied French at the University of York, and from 1998 voice at the Royal College of Music with Kathleen Livingstone. In 2001, she won second prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Competition. She first became known for her work in Early Music but later became a Dramatic Soprano specialising in Wagner. She has collaborated with conductors such as Martyn Brabbins, Sylvain Cambreling, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis, Alexander Frey, John Eliot Gardiner, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Richard Hickox, Jean-Claude Malgoire and Simon Rattle, and with orchestras such as the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Philharmonia Orchestra. She is Head of Voice at the University of Huddersfield,a visiting performance co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco Cavalli
Francesco Cavalli (born Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni; 14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was a Venetian composer, organist and singer of the early Baroque period. He succeeded his teacher Claudio Monteverdi as the dominant and leading opera composer of the mid 17th-century. A central figure of Venetian musical life, Cavalli wrote more than forty operas, almost all of which premiered in the city's theaters. His best known works include '' Ormindo'' (1644), ''Giasone'' (1649) and '' La Calisto'' (1651). Life Cavalli was born at Crema, then an inland province of the Venetian Republic. He became a singer (boy soprano) at St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1616, where he had the opportunity to work under the tutorship of Claudio Monteverdi. He became second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 '' maestro di cappella''. He took the name "Cavalli" from his patron, Venetian nobleman Federico Cavalli. Though he wrote prolifically for the church, he is chiefly rememb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erismena
''Erismena'' is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Francesco Cavalli. First performed in Venice in 1655, it was designated as a ''dramma per musica''. Libretto The Italian libretto was by Aurelio Aureli, the only work by this writer for Cavalli. The work is also unusual for having been translated into English in the 17th century. ''Erismena'' is the first full-length opera known to have been translated into English and may have been first performed in England in 1674. Performance history The performance history indicates that the opera was well received. It was first performed in Venice at the Teatro Sant 'Apollinare on 30 December 1655 with further performances between that date and 28 February 1656. Cavalli revised the work in 1670. Both versions have survived as well as one with an English translation, also dated to the 17th century. The opera was revived in the 20th century, and was performed in California. In the 21st century the opera has been performed by English ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
