Opera For The People
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Opera For The People
Opera for the People was an Australian commercial radio program produced and conducted by Hector Crawford. Well-known operas were retold by a narrator and actors, punctuated with their most tuneful arias, performed by some of Australia's best singers, backed with a symphony orchestra. Most were spread over two half-hour segments, but could be played as one continuous program. The long-running series also sold to New Zealand, Canada and Hawaii, and was copied elsewhere. The program was broadcast on 3DB, from 19 November 1946 to 20 March 1949; 21 operas were presented in this format, most were played twice — whether fresh productions or old recordings replayed was not divulged. Originally scheduled for Tuesdays at 8 pm, from 2 March 1947 3DB and 3LK broadcast the program on Sunday evenings at 7 pm, the slot previously occupied by the serial '' Melba''. Crawford ran an ''Opera for the People'' quest in Sydney, broadcast 3DB and 53 other stations throughout Australia – the largest ...
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Hector Crawford
Hector William Crawford CBE AO (14 August 191311 March 1991) was an Australian entrepreneur, conductor and media mogul, best known for his radio and television production firms. He and his sister Dorothy Crawford founded Crawford Productions, which was responsible for many iconic programs and initiated the careers of a number of notable Australian actors and entertainers. His influence on the Australian entertainment industry was immense and enduring, and one obituary described him as "one of the best-known and most respected names in the history of Australian entertainment". Biography Crawford was born in Melbourne in 1913. His parents were William Henry Crawford, a commercial traveller, and Charlotte, née Turner, a contralto and organist. He studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and later conducted the orchestra there. In 1940 he became the musical and recording director of Broadcast Exchange of Australia, a radio broadcasting house, and its managing directo ...
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Eric Pearce (broadcaster)
Sir Eric Herbert Pearce, OBE (5 March 1905 – 12 April 1997) was an English-born broadcaster and television pioneer in Australia. Pearce was born in Hampshire, England, and had an early career in radio on the BBC before migrating to Australia, where he was a long-term newsreader on Melbourne television stations HSV Channel 7 (1956–65) and GTV Channel 9 (late 1950s–74, 1976–78). Pearce's catchphrase sign-off of his news reports, "God bless you, and you", was for viewers and his third wife. Biography Eric Herbert Pearce was born on 5 March 1905 and grew up in Hampshire, England. He was the elder son of H. C. Pearce of Ryde, Isle of Wight. He completed his studies at London University. Pearce worked for an insurance company and was transferred to Canada. On 11 April 1933 Pearce married Ella Mary, a sales woman, in Winnipeg and the couple had a son, Royston Gyles Pearce, that same year. Pearce returned to England in 1937. He started his radio career and had worked for ...
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Melbourne Botanic Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) are botanic gardens across two sites–Melbourne and Cranbourne. Melbourne Gardens was founded in 1846 when land was reserved on the south side of the Yarra River for a new botanic garden. It extends across that slope to the river with trees, garden beds, lakes and lawns. It displays almost 50,000 individual plants representing 8,500 different species. These are displayed in 30 living plant collections. Cranbourne Gardens was established in 1970 when land was acquired by the Gardens on Melbourne's south-eastern urban fringe for the purpose of establishing a garden dedicated to Australian plants. A generally wild site that is significant for biodiversity conservation, it opened to the public in 1989. On the site, visitors can explore native bushland, heathlands, wetlands and woodlands. One of the features of Cranbourne is the Australian Garden, which celebrates Australian landscapes and flora through the display of approximately 170,0 ...
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Carmen
''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalised its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. ''Carmen'' has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon; the " Habanera" and "Seguidilla" from act 1 and the " Toreador Song" from act 2 are among the best known of all operatic arias. The opera is written in the genre of ''opéra comique'' with musical numbers separated by dialogue. It is set in southern Spain and tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naïve soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen. Jos ...
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Martha (opera)
''Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond'' (''Martha, or The Market at Richmond'') is a ''romantic comic'' opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow set to a German libretto by and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges. Flotow had composed the first act of a ballet, ''Harriette, ou la servante de Greenwiche'', derived from a text by Saint-Georges, for the ballerina Adèle Dumilâtre. This was first performed by the Paris Opera Ballet at the Salle Le Peletier on 21 February 1844. The time available for the composition was short, so the second and third acts were assigned, respectively, to Friedrich Burgmüller and Édouard Deldevez. The opera ''Martha'' was an adaptation of this ballet. Critical appreciation According to Gustav Kobbé, ''Martha'', though written by a native of Mecklenburg and first performed in Vienna, is French in character and elegance. Flotow was French in his musical training, as were the origins of both the plot and the score of this work, effe ...
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La Fille Du Régiment
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note *"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure 8'' (album) * ''L.A.'' (EP), by Teddy Thompson *'' L.A. (Light Album)'', a Beach Boys album * "L.A." (Neil Young song), 1973 *The La's, an English rock band * L.A. Reid, a prominent music producer * Yung L.A., a rapper *Lady A, an American country music trio * "L.A." (Amy Macdonald song), 2007 *"La", a song by Australian-Israeli singer-songwriter Old Man River *''La'', a Les Gordon album Other media * l(a, a poem by E. E. Cummings * La (Tarzan), fictional queen of the lost city of Opar (Tarzan) *'' Lá'', later known as Lá Nua, an Irish language newspaper * La7, an Italian television channel *LucasArts, an American video game developer and publisher * Liber Annuus, academic journal Business, organizations, and governmen ...
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Emanuel Synagogue (Sydney)
Emanuel Synagogue, founded as The Congregation of the Temple Emanuel in 1938, is a Pluralist synagogue in Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia. Emanuel Woollahra Preschool (founded as Temple Emanuel Kindy in 1956) is located on the synagogue campus. Emanuel Synagogue is the largest congregation in Australia with more than 3,500 members offering programs and services across the Progressive, Masorti and Renewal streams of Judaism. Australia's well-known General, Paul Cullen, was instrumental in the temple's founding, including helping to select its first rabbi. In May 2018, the synagogue was the first Australian Jewish synagogue to host a gay wedding. See also * Judaism in Australia * List of synagogues in Sydney ** Great Synagogue (Sydney) ** Central Synagogue (Sydney) ** North Shore Synagogue ** Southern Sydney Synagogue The Southern Sydney Synagogue is located in the suburb of Allawah, New South Wales, Allawah in Sydney, Australia. The congregation is incorpo ...
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Mignon
''Mignon'' () is an 1866 ''opéra comique'' (or opera in its second version) in three acts by Ambroise Thomas. The original French libretto was by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's 1795-96 novel '' Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre''. The Italian version was translated by Giuseppe Zaffira. The opera is mentioned in James Joyce's " The Dead" (in ''Dubliners'') and Willa Cather's '' The Professor's House''. Thomas's goddaughter Mignon Nevada was named after the main character. The aria “I am Titania” was used repeatedly in the British feature film “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”. Performance history The first performance was at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 17 November 1866. The piece proved popular: more than 100 performances took place by the following July, the 1,000th was given there on 13 May 1894, and the 1,500th on 25 May 1919. The opera was also adapted and translated into German for performance in Berlin with Madame Lucca as Mignon. Lucca was ...
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La Tosca
''La Tosca'' is a five-Act (drama), act drama by the Nineteenth-century theatre, 19th-century Theatre of France, French playwright Victorien Sardou. It was first performed on 24 November 1887 at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris, with Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. Despite negative reviews from the Paris critics at the opening night, it became one of Sardou's most successful plays and was toured by Bernhardt throughout the world in the years following its premiere. The play itself had dropped from the standard theatrical repertoire by the mid-1920s, but its operatic adaptation, Giacomo Puccini's ''Tosca'', has achieved enduring popularity. There have been several other adaptations of the play including two for the Japanese theatre and an English Victorian burlesque, burlesque, ''Tra-La-La Tosca'' (all of which premiered in the 1890s) as well as several film versions. ''La Tosca'' is set in Rome on 17 June 1800 following the French victory in the Battle of Mareng ...
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The Marriage Of Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' (, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, '' La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro'' ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity. Considered one of the greatest operas ever written, it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. ''The Marriage of Figaro'' came in first out of the 20 operas featured, with t ...
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The Bohemian Girl
''The Bohemian Girl'' is an English language Romantic opera composed by Michael William Balfe with a libretto by Alfred Bunn. The plot is loosely based on a Miguel de Cervantes' tale, ''La gitanilla''. The best-known aria from the piece is "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" in which the main character, Arline, describes her vague memories of her childhood. It has been recorded by many artists, most famously by Dame Joan Sutherland, and also by the Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø and Irish singer Enya. Performance history The opera was first produced in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane Theatre on 27 November 1843. The production ran for more than 100 nights and enjoyed many revivals worldwide including: New York City (25 November 1844), Dublin (1844) and Philadelphia (1844).Loewenberg, columns 832-833. Loewenberg's listing of a production in Madrid on 9 April 1845 in an Italian translation by R. Paderni is evidently incorrect. No such performance can be t ...
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Cavalleria Rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; ) is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 Cavalleria rusticana (short story), short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic ''verismo'' operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893 in music, 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called ''Cav/Pag'' double-bill with ''Pagliacci'' by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Composition history In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing da ...
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