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Victoria And Merrie England
''Victoria and Merrie England'', billed as a "Grand National Ballet in Eight Tableaux" is an 1897 ballet by the choreographer Carlo Coppi with music by Arthur Sullivan, written to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, commemorating her sixty years on the throne. The ballet became very popular and ran for nearly six months. Background In honour of the Jubilee, Alfred Maul, manager of the Alhambra Theatre, asked Sullivan to compose a patriotic ballet to a scenario by the theatre's resident choreographer, Coppi. As the nation's pre-eminent composer, Sullivan was the natural choice to write the music.Shepherd, Marc"''Victoria and Merrie England'', ballet (1897) Gilbert & Sullivan Discography, 29 October 2001, accessed 2 October 2017 An alternate Jubilee composition, a poem submitted to Sullivan by the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, was never set. Sullivan composed the piece mostly on the French Riviera, combining the task with visits to the casino. Nevertheless, he took ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabethan Era
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female personification of Great Britain) was revived in 1572, and often thereafter, to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over Spain. This "golden age" represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry, music, and literature. The era is most famous for its theatre, as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England's past style of theatre. It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people, most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repelled. It was also the end of the period when England was a sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mebibyte
The byte is a units of information, unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character (computing), character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest address space, addressable unit of Computer memory, memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit computing, 8-bit definition, Computer network, network protocol documents such as the Internet Protocol () refer to an 8-bit byte as an Octet (computing), octet. Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit numbering, bit endianness. The size of the byte has historically been Computer hardware, hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used. The six-bit character code was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and compute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hornpipe
The hornpipe is any of several dance forms and their associated tunes, played and danced in Great Britain and Ireland and elsewhere from the 16th century until the present day. The earliest references to hornpipes are from England, with Hugh Aston's Hornepype of 1522 and others referring to Lancashire hornpipes in 1609 and 1613. The name originally referred to a kind of wind instrument and was only later transferred to the dance. It is suggested that the hornpipe as a dance began around the 16th century on English sailing vessels. However, the dance does not seem to have become associated with sailors until after 1740 when the dancer Yates performed "a hornpipe in the character of a Jack Tar" at Drury Lane Theatre, after which, in 1741 at Covent Garden we hear of "a hornpipe by a gentleman in the character of a sailor". Movements were those familiar to sailors of that time: "looking out to sea" with the right hand to the forehead, then the left, lurching as in heavy weather, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volunteer Army (British)
The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated with the British Army after the Childers Reforms in 1881, before forming part of the Territorial Force in 1908. Most of the regiments of the present Army Reserves Infantry, Artillery, Engineers and Signals units are directly descended from Volunteer Force units. The British Army following the Crimean War Prior to the Crimean War, the British military (i.e., ''land forces'') was made up of multiple separate forces, with a basic division into the ''Regular Forces'' (including the British Army, composed primarily of cavalry and infantry, and the ''Ordnance Military Corps'' of the Board of Ordnance, made up of the Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and the Royal Sappers and Miners though not including the originally civilian Commissariat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tableau Vivant
A (; often shortened to ; ; ) is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrically illuminated. It thus combines aspects of theatre and the visual arts. They were a popular medieval form that revived considerably from the 19th century, probably as they were very suitable for recording by photography. The participants were now mostly amateurs, participating in a quick and easy form of amateur dramatics that could be brought together in an evening, and required little skill in acting or speaking. They were also popular for various sorts of community events and parades. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was also a type of ''tableau'' used in the professional theatre, taking advantage of the extra latitude the law allowed for the display of nudity so long as the actors did not move. Tableaux featured ('flexible poses') by virtually nude ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blind Man's Bluff (game)
Blind man's buff or blind man's bluff is a variant of tag in which the player who is "It" (i.e, the person who is tagging others) is blindfolded. The traditional name of the game is "blind man's buff", where the word ''buff'' is used in its older sense of a small push. Gameplay Blind man's buff is played in a spacious area, such as outdoors or in a large room, in which one player, designated as "It", is blindfolded and feels around attempting to touch the other players without being able to see them, while the other players scatter and try to avoid the person who is "it", hiding in plain sight and sometimes teasing them to influence them to change direction. When the "it" player catches someone, the caught player becomes "it" and the catcher flees from them. Versions There are several versions of the game: * In one version, the first player tagged by It then becomes It, and another round of the game is played. The Chinese version refers to the tagged It as (, literally "t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vassal
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. The rights and obligations of a vassal are called vassalage, while the rights and obligations of a suzerain are called suzerainty. The obligations of a vassal often included military support by knights in exchange for certain privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief. The term is also applied to similar arrangements in other feudal societies. In contrast, fealty (''fidelitas'') was sworn, unconditional loyalty to a monarch. European vassalage In fully developed vassalage, the lord and the vassal would take part in a commendation ceremony composed of two parts, the Homage (feudal), homage and the fealty, including the use of Christian sacraments to show its sacred importance. According to Eginhard's brief description, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nymphs
A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, landform, or tree, and are usually depicted as Virginity, maidens. Because of their association with springs, they were often seen as having healing properties; other divine powers of the nymphs included divination and shapeshifting. In spite of their divine nature, they were not immortality, immortal. Nymphs are divided into various Nymph#List, broad subgroups based on their habitat, such as the Meliae (ash tree nymphs), the Dryads (oak tree nymphs), the Alseids (Grove (nature), grove nymphs), the Naiads (Spring (hydrology), spring nymphs), the Nereids (sea nymphs), the Oceanids (ocean nymphs), and the Oreads (mountain nymphs). Other nymphs included the Hesperides (evening nymphs), the Hyades (mythology), Hyades (rain nymphs), and the Pleiade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herne The Hunter
In English folklore, Herne the Hunter is a ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park in the English county of Berkshire. He is said to have antlers growing from his head, ride a horse, torment cattle, and rattle chains. The earliest mention of Herne comes from William Shakespeare's 1597 play ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'', and it is impossible to know how accurately or to what degree Shakespeare may have incorporated a real local legend into his work, though there have been several later attempts to connect Herne to historical figures, pagan deities, or ancient archetypes. Legend The earliest written account of Herne comes from Shakespeare's play ''The Merry Wives of Windsor'' (believed to have been written around 1597). Officially published versions of the play refer only to the tale of Herne as the ghost of a former Windsor Forest keeper who haunts a particular oak tree at midnight in the winter time. He is said to have horns, 'blasts' his oak, shake chains and cau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack In The Green
Jack in the Green, also known as Jack o' the Green, is an English folk custom associated with the celebration of May Day. It involves a pyramidal or conical wicker or wooden framework that is decorated with foliage being worn by a person as part of a procession, often accompanied by musicians. The Jack in the Green tradition developed in England during the 18th century. It emerged from an older May Day tradition—first recorded in the 17th century—in which milkmaids carried milk pails that had been decorated with flowers and other objects as part of a procession. Increasingly, the decorated milk pails were replaced with decorated pyramids of objects worn on the head, and by the latter half of the 18th century the tradition had been adopted by other professional groups, such as bunters and chimney sweeps. The earliest known account of a Jack in the Green came from a description of a London May Day procession in 1770. By the 19th century, the Jack in the Green tradition was la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European List of folk festivals, folk festivals, around which a maypole dance often takes place. The festivals may occur on May Day, 1 May or Pentecost (Whitsun), although in some countries it is instead erected during Midsummer (20–26 June). In some cases, the maypole is a permanent feature that is only utilized during the festival, although in other cases it is erected specifically for the purpose before being taken down again. Primarily found within the nations of Germanic languages, Germanic Europe and the neighboring areas which they have influenced, its origins remain unknown. It has often been speculated that the maypole originally had some importance in the Germanic paganism of Iron Age and early Medieval cultures and that the tradition survived Christianisation, albeit losing any original meaning that it had. It has been a recorded practice in many parts of Europe throughout the Medieval and Early Modern pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
